Issue 19: Housing, not Cops
House Our Neighbors!
HON has ramped up work on a November ballot initiative to establish a social housing development authority. If you haven’t seen it, check out this House Our Neighbors video for a 2-minute overview.
If you would like to help House Our Neighbors, you can sign up to volunteer here: https://www.houseourneighbors.org/volunteer.
If you’d rather just show up in person, save the date for a signature gathering launch and rally on Saturday April 30th at 10:30 am. Location TBD: follow HON on Instagram for more information.
If you want more background, here is a great article: Public Housing for All and a recorded Workshop: Social Housing The Return of the American Neighborhood (a Building Tenant Power workshop) (1hr30min).
No Bonuses for Cops
Today at 9:30 am, CM Nelson will introduce legislation to provide hiring bonuses for the Seattle Police Department. This action would further entrench policing and the violence that defines it.
Your voice is needed
Tell City Council that SPD should not be allowed to implement hiring bonuses. Homicides in the city are down in 2020 and 911 call volume is also down. Whether or not SPD devotes officers to something is a matter of its priorities, not staffing constraints. SPD has indicated as much by sending dozens of officers and vehicles to violently escalate sweep operations all winter and spring.
Timeline
April 26: legislation introduced in Public Safety and Human Services Committee
May 10: earliest day for legislation to be voted on in committee
May 17: earliest day for full Council vote
You can send an email, call your council members' offices, or my favorite: call and give testimony during public comment on any of the upcoming days.
Details and call script
Everything you need to know is here:
King County Jail Vigil
In the past two months, five people have died in the King County Jail. Join us on Saturday, April 30th at 7:30pm for a vigil outside of the KC Jail to honor the lives we have lost.
In the wake of these deaths, county and city officials and connected law enforcement agencies have avoided any level of accountability. They remain silent while continuing to ramp up policing and incarceration.
For Black, Native, and people of color, queer and trans peoples, poor and houseless people, and disabled community members in particular, King County Jail is proving deadly.
This vigil is also a call to action. We are focused on preventing more deaths. To address the immediate crisis we demand:
End the Pipeline into King County Jail
End the targeting and surveillance of poor people by the City Attorney’s initiatives
End encampment sweeps, which further destabilize vulnerable community members
End Operation New Day, SPD’s targeting of poor people for misdemeanor crimes
Care not Cages
Invest in community-led mental health responses, safe consumption sites, detox centers, crisis centers, and housing for all
Stop booking community members into a deadly jail that costs over $200 per person, per night
Freedom for All.
Jail is safe for no one. It exacerbates illness & instability and causes death.
Full statement:
Direct Support for Abolition in Seattle
Travonna Thompson-Wiley has been leading marches, showing up at city council meetings, and educating Seattleites about abolition for over a year. Her work has built community power and strengthened the movement to defund SPD. She has collaborated with Black Action Coalition, Creative Justice, Solidarity Budget, Decriminalize Seattle, Defend the Defund, Seattle Abolition Support, Interrupting Criminalization, and more.
You can support Trae and increase her organizing capacity by giving via chashapp ($traee_bae). You can also share this message with a friend or two. Grassroots power is real.
Questions about this peer-to-peer campaign can be directed to Peter Condit (he/him): shellito@gmail.com.
Keep Cops out of the King County Labor Council
In June of 2020, rank-and-file workers across industries and trades came together to expel the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) from the Martin Luther King County Labor Council (MLKCLC), and won. Police are not working-class. Their role in a capitalist state is to punish, surveil, brutalize workers, and to protect the power and property of the wealthy.
Now, two years later, some labor leaders are working to bring SPOG back into the labor council. We ask that all community members, especially rank-and-file workers, sign the petition to say “No!” to cops in our movement and support demands for a city in which all working-class people can thrive.
Participatory Budgeting Moves Forward in Seattle
Seattle Office for Civil Rights announces Participatory Budgeting Project as awardee of the PB contract.
From the press release:
The contract period will be from May 2022 to April 2023, with contract negotiation and development work beginning at once after the public award announcement on April 7, 2022.
One of the largest participatory budgeting undertakings in the nation, the $30 million funding for this Participatory Budgeting program came … after community groups demanded investments into Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities during the protests for Black lives in the summer of 2020.