Thread by @CMTammyMorales

Thank you, Consul General @MichaelPostl & the delegation, from Austria who met with me yesterday to discuss building high quality publicly owned #SocialHousing that is affordable to all people in Seattle. This is the sort of housing provided to 60% all people in Vienna. 🧵

We talked about the need for social housing as a new tool in our toolbox - especially in places like LA, SF, & Seattle, where rents have skyrocketed, displacement is rampant, & new construction of homes for working people isn't matching the pace of need.

Vienna was facing a similar problem when they started their social housing program, in 1917. Now, rents in both publicly & privately owned homes make up on average only 25% peoples' incomes in the Austrian capital, leaving them to have much more financial freedom & stability.

We also discussed work that my office is undertaking to start building out social housing that would complement our current non-profit affordable housing landscape, provide competition to the private market, & most importantly keep peoples' homes out of speculation forever.

I will continue to build this relationship with our Austrian counterparts & I look forward to using their expertise to uplift community voices calling for social housing & to meet those community demands.

We have a ways to go, BUT

1. As I've said before, high-quality public social housing is possible in the US.
2. Our friends in Vienna see promise in the programs that we discussed for Seattle.

The future is bright when we treat housing as a human right & not just as a commodity