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-Every September, I have the responsibility
to propose a budget for Seattle for the upcoming year.
Every year, I spend a lot of time outside City Hall
in the community to hear your priorities
and what you want your city budget and investments to do.
And each year, the budget is based, in large part,
on what I hear from people
outside City Hall throughout Seattle,
because I believe strongly that your mayor
and elected representatives work for you
and we need to listen to you.
This time last year, our budget reflected our city --
vibrant, rooted in equity, and focused on the future.
Everything seemed possible.
But 2020 had other plans.
According to the World Health Organization,
we are now in a global pandemic.
This has been a brutal year for everyone in Seattle.
We're still in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our national public health crisis
is fueling an economic downturn with historic unemployment,
and our President and the federal government
continue to fail us with their lack of leadership.
Many of us have lost loved ones.
Others have lost jobs, income,
or businesses we put our hopes and dreams in.
We have been isolated from the people we love.
As parents, we're managing kids at home from school.
It's been the challenge of our lifetimes.
In just a few months, Seattle went from enjoying
one of the strongest economies in our country
to record numbers of Seattleites out of work,
worried about paying rent or putting food on the table.
This crisis and this summer
have also magnified racial disparities
that exist across our nation and here at home.
Since George Floyd was murdered by police officers,
we have seen protests that have challenged us to do better,
that have challenged us to fix the disparities in healthcare,
education, housing, policing, and the criminal legal system,
that have demanded solutions to the systemic discrimination
that undermines the safety, health, and economic strength
of our BIPOC communities.
We are living through one of the most consequential years
of our lives.
It has impacted every one of us and every American.
It has touched our city government, too.
Many of our workers remained on the front lines,
providing the city services that you needed.
Our work and community needs have grown,
but our revenue is shrinking.
This year, we saw hundreds of millions of dollars
in lost revenues to the city,
and we face similar losses next year.
The revenue that funds things like shelters, transportation,
and food banks was decimated,
and we have no promise of additional federal support.
Early in this crisis, I knew it could be bad,
and I took immediate steps to cut costs
and protect vital city services.
I froze hiring and cut tens of millions in spending
across city departments.
With a pandemic and unexpected new emergencies
like the West Seattle Bridge,
wildfire smoke, and collapsing piers,
we can't avoid hard choices in this budget.
But even in a time of tough decisions,
history demands that we meet the challenges of this moment
and strive for the kind of city we want to be
when we come out of these crises --
stronger, more just, and more equitable,
not just in policing and the criminal legal system,
but in every institution.
So amid historic challenges, our task with this budget
is to preserve critical city services
while doing four key things --
continuing to invest in our response
to the COVID-19 pandemic,
making the city's largest ever investment
in racial equity and justice,
addressing our homelessness and housing crisis,
and building true community safety
while also reimagining policing.
Together, we can face these challenges
and show the nation
what progressive leadership can accomplish.
The global pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime challenge.
Seattle leads the nation in our COVID-19 response
and recovery strategy,
and we cannot let up.
We have one of the lowest number of cases
and the highest levels of testing
in any major American city.
Our Seattle fire department
pioneered nationally-recognized testing programs.
Our free, accessible citywide testing
has facilitated 200,000 tests at our city sites,
and we collected and distributed
more than a million face masks and PPE
to first responders and our community.
We provided monthly grocery vouchers and food assistance
to tens of thousands of families that needed it
so they can have healthy meals.
I signed one of the nation's first eviction moratoriums
for residents, small businesses, and nonprofits.
But we know the rent is still due,
so we're also helping struggling Seattle households
with rent payments.
-We are hurting so much.
-We created a first in the nation
small business support program
to provide $10,000
to hundreds of struggling small businesses,
including many right here at the Pike Place Market.
Emergency childcare for frontline workers,
discount on household utility bills,
immigrant and refugee cash assistance --
These programs were the right response
to an emergency that is not over.
And this budget invests in continuing to lead the nation
in a just and compassionate COVID response.
How are you holding up?
The communities hardest hit during this pandemic
have been our BIPOC communities.
For too long, we've allowed our systems
to perpetuate inequity,
particularly against our black neighbors.
That is why this budget also begins to address
the historic disparities brought forward
by the COVID-19 pandemic
and since the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
I signed my first executive order
the day I was sworn into office,
focusing our efforts around race and social justice.
Since then, as a city, we have made record investments
to advance equity and justice,
things like $1.5 billion in new affordable housing
to build thousands of new units,
nearly $100 million on quality preschool and childcare,
more than $30 million in our Equitable Development Initiative
to invest in community-based organizations
that are working to combat displacement,
like Africatown, Ethiopian Village,
the Filipino Community Center, Chief Seattle Club,
and Byrd Barr.
We've spent $40 million for youth safety
and a seven-year commitment for free college
and a program to get those students jobs
so they can be part of our innovative economy.
Our budget makes a lot of hard decisions,
but if we want a more equitable city
when we recover from this crisis,
we must make real our promises to our BIPOC communities.
We need deep and lasting investments,
and we must empower community to guide those investments.
That is why my budget commits
an additional $100 million in new spending
for black communities, indigenous communities,
and communities of color.
It will invest in building opportunity
and an inclusive economy,
community wealth building and preserving cultural spaces,
community wellness and safety, environmental justice,
and a Green New Deal.
Building on our current investments and equity,
this $100 million investment
allows us to invest in more young people,
community safety programs,
and the next generation of affordable housing
in our community.
We need to do more of what we've done in the past three years.
But these decisions must be driven
by community needs and priorities
and community voices,
not by City Hall.
It must be community itself that crafts an investment plan
to build on the health of community.
Community members will guide us
to direct these resources where they're needed the most.
Investing in community wealth, wellness, and strength
is also the path to true community safety.
By investing in equitable,
healthy, and resilient communities,
we reduce the need for emergency 911 responses.
Here in Seattle and in cities across the nation,
people have spoken out and demanded
that we reimagine policing.
As U.S. Attorney, I led the investigation
of the Seattle Police Department
that resulted in the consent decree.
That work created some of the nation's
leading policies on policing.
It also allowed the Seattle Police Department
to hire the best officers and train them
in crisis intervention and de-escalation.
And it created
robust civilian-led accountability systems
so we can hold officers accountable.
But reimagining policing is more than just training and policies.
We need to rethink how
the Seattle Police Department serves our city
and address the continued racial disparities in policing.
And we need to make further changes
to our criminal legal system,
like reforming probation
and breaking the cycles of incarceration.
We need more programs to prevent violence,
alternatives to incarceration, and a community court.
We also need to shift many of the 800,000 calls for help
from armed police officers to other community-based programs.
Too often, our officers are responding to other failures --
the failures in the foster care system,
our behavioral health system, our homelessness system,
and our education system.
Those aren't problems officers should have to address.
[ Siren wails ]
Often, 911 calls require a fast police response,
and Seattle needs a strong, well-trained,
and community-based department for those calls.
There is a need and strong support
for our officers in this city.
But nonviolent calls don't always need
an officer with a gun.
Someone in crisis may need a social worker,
a nurse, a crisis counselor,
or an unarmed community service officer.
So reimagining policing will mean fundamentally changing
the role of traditional police in our community
and their interactions with our community,
especially communities of color.
It will mean growing existing programs
like nurses in our schools and in our homeless shelters,
mental health professionals at our police precincts,
trusted messengers for our youth and communities,
and our successful Health One program,
where we respond to non-emergency calls
for people in crisis
with specially-trained social workers and firefighters.
We're already doing it here downtown,
and in this budget, we'll expand it
to both South Seattle and communities in North Seattle,
including Ballard and the University District.
These programs ultimately must be part of a new model
for community safety throughout Seattle.
And if we get this right,
we will not only reduce 911 calls
that require an armed Seattle police officer,
we can increase health and reduce harm.
But these decisions can't be decided
by bumper stickers and slogans or arbitrary numbers.
They must be founded on facts and a real plan.
They must parallel
building better community wellness and health.
They must parallel the investments we need
to make in community.
We need more affordable
low-income and middle-income housing
because our region's skyrocketing costs and rents
have displaced far too many individuals and families.
Our communities of color have particularly been impacted
by these challenges.
We must continue to act urgently
to address our homelessness and housing crisis.
This crisis is decades in the making,
but we had begun to see progress on key fronts --
housing, shelter, and services.
We invested more than $1.5 billion
to create nearly 4,500 units of affordable housing,
including permanent supportive housing.
We nearly doubled 24/7 shelter, including tiny home villages,
to move people out of homelessness
and into permanent places.
We created a new Regional Homelessness Authority
to break down silos in our response.
We need to tackle this together.
But the pandemic has created new challenges
for our homelessness response.
There are more individuals
without access to hygiene services
with libraries and businesses closed.
Many vulnerable individuals at the highest risk for COVID-19
live at our shelters, permanent supportive housing,
or living unsheltered.
There are more tents and encampments across our city.
There are more people at risk for going hungry.
In the initial weeks of the pandemic,
we worked quickly to bring new shelter capacity online.
We created hygiene resources,
converted crowded overnight shelters to 24/7 shelters
with social distancing measures to slow the spread of COVID-19,
and we expanded COVID-19 testing.
Our actions have limited outbreaks
among individuals experiencing homelessness
compared to other major cities.
My budget continues to increase our shelter capacity
to bring more of our neighbors out of encampments
and into permanent housing.
It supports more than 2,300 shelter units
and adds another 300 units of short-term shelter.
In addition, more than 1,000
permanent supportive housing units coming online
and thousands of affordable homes.
We are also increasing investments and strategies
we know work --
diversion and rapid rehousing.
Seattle cannot and will never solve
our affordability, homelessness, and housing crisis
if we continue to act alone.
These challenges do not know any city boundaries.
If we want to truly address housing and homelessness,
we must act as a region.
♪♪
So, what's next for Seattle and our budget?
As happens every year, the members of the city council
will consider my plan.
In recent months, we have had policy disagreements
about their pledge to cut the police by 50%,
the best approach to address encampments,
spending of the city's emergency funds,
and raising taxes only on Seattle businesses.
We may still have policy disagreements in the future,
but you expect and deserve
your government to work together on the toughest challenges.
In this unprecedented moment,
you deserve leaders that will work hard to bridge our divides.
Listen, there's no greater city. Look around us.
This is a time to come together
and ensure our city rebuilds from this pandemic
a better and more equitable city.
We can make big, bold changes together
and get through this moment,
because over the last three years,
our city has led on progressive change --
a Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights
for 30,000 domestic workers,
vacating marijuana convictions,
a minimum wage for ride-share drivers,
sending thousands of Seattle kids to free college,
eliminating late fines for libraries,
a safe storage law to keep firearms off the street,
a new arena, the Seattle Kraken, and no public funds used.
Seattle should be proud of our accomplishments
and our determination.
We are compassionate. We are resilient.
And despite a year of challenges and setbacks,
we will do big things and lead the nation.
We will get through this together.
And I have no doubt that we can meet
this unprecedented moment for our city.
We will make generational change.
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