Blog – Page 2 – Puget Sound Sage

Public Land in Public Hands: Housing, Transit, and Thriving Communities

Editor's Note: This blog was originally published by PowerSwitch Action. Puget Sound Sage is an affiliate organization of PowerSwitch Action (PSA). We re-posted the blog in full because of the great content and insight provided by Christina Rosales, PSA's Housing and Land Justice Director. Our Executive Director, Christina Shimizu, was part of the group that visited Vienna and Berlin in Spring 2024.

Check out the original blog post here.

Learn about our Community Stewardship of Land Framework here!

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Public Land in Public Hands: Housing, Transit, and Thriving Communities

By Christina Rosales, Housing and Land Justice Director, PowerSwitch Action

Earlier this year we brought a delegation of housing organizers and elected leaders from across the country on a trip to Vienna and Berlin to learn about community-controlled housing models. After meeting with city officials and tenant organizers, touring different social housing projects, and gaining practical guidance, we returned home with three big lessons:

1. 1. Put land in public hands
  2. Let people govern it
  3. Make it high quality and beautiful

Months later, the folks who came with us to Vienna and Berlin are putting those lessons into practice across our network. Here are some of their reflections from the trip and updates from campaigns they’re working on in their cities:

Laying the groundwork for social housing in Chicago
Our affiliate Grassroots Collaborative is a member of the Illinois Green New Deal (ILGND) Coalition, which helped to secure a $115-$135 million Green Social Housing Revolving Fund earlier this year. Santera Matthews, coordinator for the ILGND Coalition, joined our trip and noted how the experience gave her a deeper understanding of the power of municipalities to invest in the common good.

In Santera’s words, “seeing the energy-efficient homes in Seestadt [a new neighborhood development on publicly-owned land] and hearing from campaigners fighting to expropriate Berlin’s largest landlord showed me what’s possible when communities build people power. This trip inspired our work to continue to push for green social housing in Illinois, ensuring sustainability and equity go hand-in-hand in our campaigns. We’re committed to building on these lessons to transform housing for all.

Now, Grassroots Collaborative and the ILGND Coalition are building momentum around a set of policies and practices for implementing the social housing revolving fund that would ensure social housing is defined clearly as housing for public good. It would provide the community with control over who the housing is for, where it’s built, and ensure it stays affordable to the coalition’s base.

Going up against corporate landlords and real estate groups in Colorado
For the last year, United for a New Economy (UNE) has been educating members and coalition partners about the role of corporate greed in driving up rent prices. They have used strategic research and creative actions to help them make that connection. Instead of targeting elected leaders such as the governor or legislators, UNE has explicitly named the role of corporations and industry groups in blocking tenant protections. Earlier this year, after extensive advocacy, tenant organizing, and policy work, UNE helped to win For Cause Eviction, a major victory for renters across the state.

In Berlin, organizers with the Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen (DWE) campaign shared how they have built a popular narrative that corporations are to blame for the city’s housing problems. Carmen Medrano, executive director at UNE, said the trip confirmed for her the importance of narrative strategy. In Vienna, government leaders and residents agree that everyone should live in high quality, healthy housing — as a result, policy is made in line with belief. In Berlin, DWE organizers have shaped a clear narrative that Berliners can hold corporations accountable and co-govern to make sure that housing meets their needs. “In Colorado, we’re focusing on the narrative that our communities need housing to thrive, that it can be beautiful, and that our policies and public dollars can and should support that,” said Carmen. Next for UNE is their ongoing fight to win a cap on rent increases from the largest, most influential corporate landlord in Colorado, Greystar, which can then set the standard for other landlords.

… and in California’s East Bay!
For years, our affiliate East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) has been organizing to ensure that public land serves public good, from fighting for affordable housing to having a say in development projects that impact surrounding communities. They’ve supported tenant organizing efforts across the region, established a tenant union in Contra Costa County, and helped to win a Rent Stabilization and Just Cause Ordinance earlier this year in Concord. In Oakland, EBASE and the Oakland United Coalition have been mobilizing residents to ensure that the sale and development of the Oakland Coliseum is done with community input and feedback.

Kristi Laughlin, EBASE’s deputy director of campaigns, noted that Vienna shows what is possible for housing, neighborhoods, and cities when they’re designed to be beautiful, abundant, and centered around peoples’ needs. “It is amazing that almost 70% of the population in Vienna lives in some form of social housing, and that folks of diverse economic backgrounds all live together, achieving ‘social mixity’. I loved the value that Austrian leaders placed on social cohesion. They understood that having people from all walks of life live together and play together helps build bonds that ultimately strengthen social ties and democracy. Since coming back, here at EBASE we are doing more to educate ourselves on social housing and what it means for our context. We see an opportunity to advocate for affordable, community-owned housing at the Coliseum site."

Putting public land in public hands for transportation, housing, and more in Nashville
“People in Nashville are stressed the f#ck out,” said Michael Callahan-Kapoor, deputy director at our affiliate Stand Up Nashville (SUN). “I think a lot of it comes from trying to survive in a city that needs us, but doesn’t take our needs seriously.” Michael reflected on his time in Vienna and Berlin, noting that “it just feels different when people and their needs are at the center of a project’s planning, design, and investment decisions. Building mixed-income housing next to childcare, cultural spaces, pedestrian and bike paths, parks and playgrounds, small businesses that serve the community, transit hubs, and quality schools profoundly shifts the social cohesion of a neighborhood. We know things will look different [in Nashville], but experiencing this firsthand has broadened my horizon of what is possible as we work on repurposing public land for community needs and dreams."

SUN is a leading member of Shift Nashville, a newly formed coalition working to change how community needs are heard and prioritized, particularly when it comes to decisions around public land. The coalition is currently organizing around a transit referendum on the November ballot, which would overhaul the city’s transportation system and provide an unprecedented opportunity to invest in community priorities. Shift Nashville is focused on winning equitable access to a quality transportation system, but is also about community decision-making and control of public land. The coalition is pushing for community input on a development plan that would ensure affordable housing, good jobs, climate-resilient infrastructure, public green spaces, and more.

Transforming agricultural work with farmworker-led coops and land trusts
In California’s Ventura County, our affiliate Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) has been supporting farmworker organizing for years, helping to create a Farmworker Resource Program and fighting alongside leaders and workers to win a farmworker living wage. Now, in one of the country’s top agricultural regions, workers and organizers in Ventura are envisioning a new future for the industry, one that is restorative, just, and driven by farmworker-led cooperative and land trusts.

CAUSE, Líderes Campesinas, and Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project have been working in partnership with farmworker leaders and advocacy groups to explore ways for farmworkers and communities to own and steward their land collectively. Their recent report highlights policy recommendations to achieve this vision, as well as the possible intersections between public conservation of land, sustainable farming methods, and healthy, thriving communities. Lucas Zucker, co-executive director at CAUSE, remarked that “Vienna showed us what is possible with political will and resources,” and that “Berlin reminded us to be bold, joyful, and push the boundaries of the ways our organizations are structured in the US to allow more organic leadership.”

Building the muscle and mechanisms for community stewardship of land in Seattle
Several years ago, recognizing the ongoing displacement of BIPOC communities in Seattle and King County as growing tech companies drew expensive development and highly-paid workers, Puget Sound Sage developed a framework and body of work around community stewardship of land (CSL). This framework calls for campaigns and policies that enable community groups to collectively own and steward land and housing. Christina Shimizu, executive director at Sage took inspiration from Vienna’s emphasis on using dedicated revenue to support its robust housing system. The Viennese model of housing associations building beautiful communities is similar to what Sage envisions for community stewardship of land.

The CSL framework, which echoes values found in Vienna’s housing system, has shaped Sage’s work in developing and winning the creation of the Equitable Development Initiative for the City of Seattle and King County. These initiatives provide resources to community groups that are building housing and cultural spaces to help preserve community roots.

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Our delegation to Vienna and Berlin left feeling inspired and energized, with a vision for a housing system designed with people and communities’ needs front and center. These lessons will continue to inform and show up in campaigns happening in cities all across our network. We know that community control of land and housing is central to our vision of multiracial feminist democracy and economies, where everyday people govern our shared resources and have a say in the decisions that impact our lives.

The Call for a Free Palestine is a Call for Freedom Everywhere

At Puget Sound Sage, we organize for a living economy where Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities thrive and live in a sustainable relationship with land. Our purpose is rooted in a belief that justice for workers, climate and land are inextricably tied and that solidarity with Indigenous and colonized people is what directly challenges the continued exploitation of our people and our planet. Guided by these fundamental principles and the belief that all people deserve dignity; we join in Solidarity with the people of Palestine.

We fight for a world where land is not a commodity to be owned, dominated, and used to exploit others, but rather where the world’s precious gifts are shared amongst us all. Amidst racialized capitalism and settler colonialism, we know that economic violence and physical violence are used to maintain land and resources only for the few. This is true on Duwamish and Coast Salish land, and it is true in Palestine.

On a strip of land roughly the size of Seattle, 25,000 tons of explosives, the equivalent to two nuclear bombs, have been dropped, killing more than one in every 200 people in Gaza, half of whom are children. Last week, Seattle’s City Council joined cities across the nation in passing a resolution calling for a ceasefire. Thousands of people across Washington state have protested the genocide committed by the Israeli government. It is time for our Congressional representatives to listen to the pleas of the overwhelming majority of their constituents demanding a permanent ceasefire, an end to all military aid to the Israeli government, and to condemn the root causes of this moment: the ongoing Israeli apartheid and occupation of Palestine.

Seattle is home to many of the world’s largest multinational corporations like Amazon, Starbucks, Boeing, Google and Expedia that directly supply arms to Israel and profit from Israel’s apartheid, brutal settler colonialism and the continued bloodshed of Palestinian people. We lift up the Urgent Call from Palestinian Trade Unions to End all Complicity and Stop Arming Israel and affirm the Palestinian-led movement calling for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) to stop the flow of billions of US dollars from fueling the Israeli war machine.

Standing with Funders for Ceasefire, Puget Sound Sage also “envisions a world where Palestinians live with freedom, dignity, and equality, with true safety for Palestinian people and Jewish people and a just peace in the region. In the face of so much pain and suffering, we call forth our deepest sense of humanity and justice, to build this possibility together, because we know that none of us are free until all of us are free.”

Join us now to take action against genocide and Tell Congress to End Complicity with Biden’s Genocide.

A Free Palestine is Worker Justice

Israeli bombing assaults on Gaza, which have occurred more than four other times before the latest assault, have targeted factories, warehouses and industrial facilities, pushing more than 45% of Palestinian workers into unemployment and more than 81% of Gazans into poverty. In recent weeks, Israel has attacked vital infrastructure including electrical generators, solar energy units, and more than 70 industrial facilities, resulting in 182,000 lost Palestinian jobs. So long as Gaza remains under the siege and occupation of Israel, there is no justice for workers.

A Free Palestine is Climate Justice

The Israeli war on Gaza is an environmental disaster on top of an existing environmental disaster. Clean water, clean air, food security, open space, and uncontaminated soil are core environmental rights that Israel has been denying Palestinians for decades and is now making worse through bombardment of Gaza. As staunch proponents of environmental and climate justice, we must demand that the rights to access, steward, and preserve environmental resources for future generations be returned to Palestinians through an end to the occupation.

A Free Palestine is Land Justice

Beginning with the mass dispossession and displacement of Palestinians, in what Palestinians call the Nakba (“catastrophe”) in 1948, Israel has used armed violence and economic violence to remove Palestinians from land their families have stewarded for centuries. The Israeli war on Gaza is yet another Nakba, which has displaced more than 1.68 million Palestinians through Israel’s ‘evacuation order’ and continued carpet bombing of all of Gaza.

We know that all our struggles for liberation are interconnected – our struggles to fight displacement and rectify dispossession in King County are addressing the same root systems of oppression as the Palestinian struggle for freedom. We envision a world of just and lasting peace and safety for Palestinian, Indigenous, Black, People of Color, Muslim and Jewish people. Our liberations are bound in each other; none of us are free until all of us are free.

art by Natalie Hinahara

Coalition of CID partners celebrates approval of north and south stations as preferred alternative, reducing risk of community displacement

WHAT: The Sound Transit board has approved the north and south stations for the West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions (WSBLE) project that Coalition of CID partners have advocated for.

Chinatown International District, Seattle, King County –

After a long and difficult fight to choose a preferred alternative, the Chinatown International District (CID) Coalition, Puget Sound Sage and InterImCDA are celebrating a major victory for securing the future growth and development of the CID neighborhood to be equitable, affordable, and a sustainable place for immigrants and working-class communities of color to live and thrive for generations to come.

The coalition’s fight for a station location is rooted in the vision to maximize opportunity for equitable transit-oriented development, provide great transit options, stop the acceleration of gentrification, and for the survival of a community that has struggled for decades from racist policies and land grabbing encroachment. This decision is a critical step in acknowledging and repairing past harms.

“We extend our sincere appreciation to the Sound Transit board and staff, including Mayor Harrell, Executive Constantine and Council President Juarez for supporting north and south. We want to especially thank Councilmember Tammy Morales, for hearing our voices and concerns and being a vocal advocate against displacement and for inclusive transit-oriented development,” said Christina Shimizu, Executive Director of Puget Sound Sage. “We are grateful for their willingness to listen and recognize the importance of our long-standing history and the need for access to regionally connected transit, affordable housing, and opportunities for culturally relevant equitable transit-oriented development (eTOD) that do not accelerate gentrification pressures in the neighborhood.”

The CID Coalition, InterIm CDA, and Puget Sound Sage are committed to fighting speculative corporate development and displacement, and to ensuring that communities of color are centered in decision-making around transit and land use. “Good planning means something different for different communities,” Shimizu added. “A truly equitable and inclusive urbanism, and density done right, requires policymakers to listen to communities of color and trust that we know what is best for our neighborhoods.”

“InterIm CDA has been a community-based organization serving the needs of the CID for 53 years,” said InterIm CDA Executive Director Pradeepta Upadhyay. “We endorsed the north and south station locations option after weighing the significant impacts on the CID and its property owners, businesses, community organizations, and residents. Based on our values, we believe this is the best option for the community. We thank the Sound Transit board for making the right choice, and look forward to working with the community and Sound Transit to make these options the best they can be for the CID.”

While the CID Coalition, Puget Sound Sage and InterIm CDA are celebrating this victory, they are also aware that their work is not done. The coalition plans to stay engaged and organized to ensure that the community benefits the most from the station: pedestrian improvements for walking and rolling, lighting, and wayfinding among other community benefits and mitigation connected to the light rail line as well as righting past harms. They will also advocate for a platform to connect Sounder to the South of CID station, expanded greenspace and protections for City Hall Park, and access to culturally relevant, community based eTOD to provide much-needed affordable housing for the neighborhood.

“This win is only one step to repairing the harm and distrust in our communities, and the destruction that previous infrastructure projects have wrought on the CID,” said Monyee Chau of the CID Coalition. “The copious amount of labor that organizers have put in to protect our neighborhood is a testament to how deeply we all care for this community, and I have so much gratitude for everyone who helped us fight for this win. May we continue to make these conversations more accessible and inclusive of all the people that they affect, and move forward with collaboration and a commitment to ensuring that the Chinatown International District community remains a vibrant and thriving part of Seattle.”

About the CID Coalition:

The Chinatown International District Coalition is a grassroots, multiracial, multiethnic and multigenerational organization that works to promote social, economic, and environmental justice for low-income communities of color in the CID and Greater Seattle. They fight against displacement, gentrification, and the erasure of community history and culture.

About Puget Sound Sage:

Puget Sound Sage charts a path to a living economy in the South Salish Sea and Duwamish River Valley (greater Seattle) regions by developing community power to influence, lead, and govern.  We ground our policies in grassroots organizing & community-based research with people directly impacted by systems of oppression and organizations serving BIPOC workers, their families and communities.  Through the power of grassroots organizing, policy and advocacy strategies, and leveraging the influence of coalitions centering impacted communities, we have organized for and passed some of our region’s most exciting policies that promote climate justice, good jobs and equitable development in low-wage and people of color communities. Our campaigns and theory of change are rooted in intersectional economic & racial justice, which for us means organizing historically disenfranchised people and bringing them together to build power as a vehicle for social change.

About InterIm CDA:

InterIm CDA was created in 1969 and is a nonprofit affordable housing and community development organization based in Seattle’s Chinatown/International District (CID). Since 1969 InterIm CDA (ICDA) provides multilingual, culturally competent housing and community building services to those disenfranchised due to lack of English, low acculturation and poverty. Though historically ICDA’s focus was on the API community living in the CID, they currently serve about 5,000 unduplicated low-income limited English-speaking individuals from Asia, Africa and America throughout the greater Puget Sound.

Engage with Puget Sound Sage: March 2023 Newsletter

originally published on Mar. 23, 2023

Go North/South, not 4th Avenue!

Puget Sound Sage stands with over 300 non-profit organizations, community leaders, elders, and small businesses that demand that Sound Transit move its proposed new Chinatown International District (CID) station on the West Seattle Ballard Link Extension just north and/or south of the neighborhood.

Addressing some of the most frequently asked questions about Sound Transit’s North and South light rail alternatives:

“Doesn’t most of the CID community want 4th Ave?” No community is a monolith, and ours is no exception. More than 300 residents, workers, small businesses, organizations, and long time leaders have signed onto our letter supporting the North South alternative. Our vision and values are for a CID where everyone in our community has access to housing, transit, and real safety, not just property owners, housed residents, and those aligned with capital and commerce. Many of those who support 4th also support sweeps, increased policing and criminalization, and the gentrification of the CID.

“Why would 4th Ave cause displacement but North and South would not?” Construction along 4th Ave is projected to be a decade or more due to additional risks of building on liquefaction prone soil. 4th Ave is also a main arterial road with high capacity, meaning many more cars would need to be diverted with not many places to go except through the CID. It is also a main thoroughfare for Metro, and buses would have to be rerouted through the core of our neighborhood. In addition to the construction duration and traffic rerouting concerns, there is no opportunity for equitable transit oriented development. This is one very important avenue we have to ensure affordable housing is built in our neighborhood. We do not believe that the threats the 4th Ave hub poses can be addressed through mitigation. Whereas, supporting the North South options project a shorter construction duration by nearly half the time and have traffic rerouting and construction hauling paths that lessen disruption to the CID core.

“What are the traffic impacts on 4th Ave?” Per Sound Transit studies, at peak hour, 2,300 vehicles are expected to pass through 4th Ave. 50% is expected to be diverted. This is 1,150 vehicles each hour. Sound Transit modeling indicates the CID neighborhood can absorb up to 160-180 diverted vehicles per hour in the historic CID core. Where will the remaining 970 vehicles per hour be diverted? This means the neighborhood will experience gridlock every weekday during peak hours for 9 to 11 years and this doesn’t even consider game and event days.

Another significant concern is disruption to bus service with traffic congestion, rerouting and bus service disruption during the 6-year partial closure of 4th Ave and the 4 years of a full closure of 4th and Jackson during which no buses will be able to move through there at all and will be rerouted to 5th Ave. These transit delays will not only impact CID residents but service to the Rainier Valley as well, as cited in the racial equity toolkit. BIPOC workers and seniors in the CID who use metro as their predominant mode of transportation will be significantly impacted.

“What about the Midtown Station?” The North CID would serve Midtown. It would be connected to the Rapid Ride G. It would also provide Midtown connectivity to all three lines of transit. There were major issues with the previous Midtown proposal, it was a deep station and only connected to the Ballard to Tacoma line – Midtown riders would’ve had to make a transfer. The North station is also in closer proximity to Harborview.

Opinion Pieces co-written with Chinatown-International District Community Leaders

The 4th Ave Station Is a Train Wreck for the CID and Seattle Must Avoid It

With the north and south option, our families and communities can savor a sense of belonging, knowing that preservation of our histories was intentional, and not merely an afterthought. Read more.

Opinion: Sound Transit must recommend north and south CID light rail options

Sound Transit cannot let our treasured Chinatown International District become collateral damage for yet another regional infrastructure project, when there is a better alternative. But that’s just what will happen if 4th Ave and Jackson is torn up for a decade – or more – to build a new CID station on the Ballard to West Seattle light rail extension. Read more.

COMMENTARY: Destroying the CID is not a justifiable when there is a better alternative

10 years of construction will likely result in permanent displacement of businesses, residents, and community spaces. We don’t want to be like the many Chinatowns across the U.S. that have disappeared over the last 50 years because of racism, redevelopment, and infrastructure projects. Read more.

Two light-rail station options would better serve, protect Chinatown International District

We refuse the notion that it is justifiable or acceptable for the CID to be collateral damage yet again for an infrastructure project that mostly benefits other communities — especially when there is a better alternative. Read more.

Program Updates

Quick 30-second action to support I-135 Social Housing today

Submit a letter in support of a budget proviso to get Social Housing off the ground!

Help secure a budget proviso proposed by Representative Frank Chopp and Senators Joe Nguyen and Rebecca Saldaña. The proposed ~$900,000 will help cover start-up costs for the Seattle Social Housing Developer.

House Our Neighbors has created a template letter that can be sent to all 18 state legislators that represent Seattle. Please take 30 seconds to send a letter now! Send a letter today.

Applications for the next Community Leadership Institute Fellowship (King and Pierce County) are now open!

Open to all applicants in King and Pierce Counties or can attend in person in Seattle, WA

Our Community Leadership Institute (CLI) is a fellowship program that resources, trains, and places emerging leaders from communities of color and low-income communities to serve on strategic municipal boards and commissions.

Launched in 2015, the six-month fellowship trains emerging leaders in issues such as housing, land use, transit, climate, and economic development. Graduates learn the nuts and bolts of local government processes, such as municipal budgeting, parliamentary procedures, and lawmaking, as well as advocacy, storytelling, and communication skills.

After graduation, the fellows apply for and are placed on strategic boards, commissions, and task forces at the city and county level. Through participation, CLI alums have the opportunity to move forward a racial equity agenda at a government level by asking critical questions about who benefits and who is burdened by policy decisions and offering solutions that integrate community participation and perspectives as part of the decision-making process. Read more and apply here.

Attend an online Information Session to learn more about the fellowship:

Tuesday April 11, 5pm-6pm (RSVP here)
Thursday April 27, 5pm-6pm (RSVP here)

In the News

What Seattle’s Green New Deal reveals about creating inclusive, regenerative, just communities. The green revolution will not be won by presidential proclamation or congressional decree. It will be won city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, day by day.

Washington holds first carbon auction, determining price of $48.50 per ton. Puget Sound Sage, argued that cap-and-trade policies are a poor way to measure the human cost of climate change. Worse, that they’re ultimately a boon for corporations, creating a new financial product to resell and allowing polluters to continue polluting.

What It Really Costs When Walmart Comes to Town. An analysis conducted by Puget Sound Sage in 2012 asserts that each new Walmart store decreases the local community’s economic output over 20 years by an estimated $13 million.

Advocates call for shutdown of King County jail after mounting death toll in facility. “We are here because last April, one of those deaths was Michael Rowland,” Aretha Basu, Sage’s Political Director, said. “Sixty-three years old, he was Black, disabled, unhoused and killed within half an hour of arriving at the jail.”

Placement of future CID light rail station sparks heated debate, strains relations. “We have been working with, in coalition and in partnership, with our transit orgs and we want to see them make good on their promise that they would center communities of color in decision making, prioritize affordable housing and maximize opportunity for equitable transit oriented development opportunity,” Shimizu said. “And right now we’re seeing a lot of those transit orgs fall back on their promise to be accountable to communities of color, and we’re really disappointed.”

Debate over proposed CID light rail station heats up. “We believe that the Fourth Avenue option is just too risky, and that it would be a disaster for the Chinatown International District,” said Christina Shimizu, executive director for Puget Sound Sage and a member of the CID Coalition. “Ten years of construction would be a disaster for the Chinatown International District, and we know that disasters are perfect opportunities for gentrification.”

Councilmember Morales Declares Support for North & South CID Station Placement alongside Neighborhood Leaders. “Comprehensive planning must take into account many factors including opportunities for equitable transit-oriented development and affordable housing, cultural and historical preservation, the economic precarity of proposed station locations, and racial equity.”

Engage with Puget Sound Sage: January 2023 Newsletter

originally published on Jan. 26, 2023

Happy New Year to dear friends and community of Puget Sound Sage and Sage Leaders.

As we begin a year of continued focus on advancing a living economy in our region, we have some important news to share. Puget Sound Sage has always been a place where shared leadership is a core value: as a practice of building consensus in community, a way to share power in coalition, and as a natural way of working and being for our predominately Black, People of Color and queer staff.

It is with a heavy heart that we share the departure of our Co-Executive Director of Policy and Programs, Fernando Mejia Ledesma, who has helped contribute to our understanding of shared leadership, the power of grassroots organizing and equitable policy impacts at local and statewide levels. Our board and Executive Director, Christina Shimizu, will work with staff and in community to continue our focus on building a stronger and more just region where Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) workers, families and communities thrive and live in sustainable relationship with our land.

We are grateful for Fernando’s time with Sage and ask that you please join us in wishing him well in future endeavors.

Program Updates

There’s a special election in Seattle – don’t forget to Vote YES on I-135 by February 14th!

I-135 is an opportunity for Seattle to expand our housing solutions in way that builds permanently-affordable, multi-use, community-led, and publicly-owned housing developments that would serve our BIPOC communities. Social housing in Seattle will bring more stable housing options for renters in ways that align with our shared principles for Community Stewardship of Land.

Ballots should be arriving in mailboxes this week, and must be sent in by February 14th – make sure you and your friends and family don’t miss it!

You can read more about the ballot initiative here, and, if you’re a Seattle resident, please sign this pledge card saying you commit to voting YES on the initiative in this Feb 14th ballot.

Celebrating our wins from last year’s City budget season

Puget Sound Sage would like to thank the Solidarity Budget coalition, Seattle’s Green New Deal Oversight Board, our community partners, and every single person who took action during last year’s budget season to lift up equitable development and climate resilient investments for frontline communities.

In addition to increasing funding for community-controlled development through the Equitable Development Initiative, we also got critical parts of the Green New Deal funded, including:

$3.5M for a Climate Resilience Hub study
$2M for Indigenous-led sustainability projects
$455,000 for a Climate Resilience Hub in South Beacon Hill
fully protected bike lanes in South Seattle
$1.2M for the Environmental Justice Fund

While we fought for so much more, we also know that this is just the beginning. We are disappointed in the Mayor and City Council’s failure to demonstrate their full commitment to Black Liberation through moving away from harmful systems of policing and punishment and their failure to honor their promises on investing in community. In the next budget season, we are ready to hold Seattle City Council accountable to their commitments and protect JumpStart investments (funding that is dedicated for uplifting BIPOC communities and creating affordable housing) from getting reallocated elsewhere.

We hope you join us in continuing to build a city we can all thrive in.

Follow the Solidarity Budget coalition on Facebook to receive updates on future actions!

photo by Solidarity Budget

In the News

How to create community out of a bunch of buildings: The Ripple Effect

From KUOW: “I also found a group called Puget Sound Sage, that’s trying help people use their voice to build up communities.

“Displacement as a human condition – it puts people in constant distress and constant survival mode. And it’s hard to dream and imagine,” said Ab Juaner, the group’s program manager for equitable development.

Juaner said people know what their communities need. What they lack are resources. Puget Sound Sage tries to bring those together. “We’re looking to really figure out what it would take for communities to control development in their neighborhoods.”

In practice, that means helping groups of people at risk of displacement purchase land, and then letting them democratically decide what to build on that land. “Because we want to see them imagine themselves living and working and thriving in place, and it needs to start now,” Juaner said.”

Read more

Staff Updates

We are pleased to introduce three new staff members who joined Sage this month – JM Wong, Alisa Lee and Francis Abugbilla!

JM Wong (they/them) is Puget Sound Sage’s Organizing Director

JM is a community and workplace organizer originally from Malaysia/Singapore and many cities in between. They have found home on Coast Salish lands, Seattle, and has since been active in many grassroots campaigns organizing against state and workplace violence. They are excited to join Sage to support ongoing efforts to organize alongside grassroots Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities for climate, land and worker justice, and to be part of a dynamic team organizing at the intersections of racial and gender justice, queer liberation and class struggle.

What are you most excited about your time at Puget Sound Sage? “I am excited to be part of a dynamic network of BIPOC folks that are organizing for our own communities’ self determination and power, and push back against the forces of disaster gentrification and at the ruling class’ attempts to create the world after their own image. I’m also excited to learn with and from the brilliance of our working class communities in all the various arenas of struggle.”

What are your favorite foods? “I live my best life enjoying a hearty filling of roast duck meat from Tong Kiang in Chinatown International District, juicy burgers from Lil’ Woodys (Fig on a Pig) and affordable fresh sashimi from Maruta Shoten in Georgetown.”

What matters to you? “I ground my work in the world with the people and creatures that I love. I am grateful to have a sweet community, family and partner, people who remind me of the power of love, humility, and necessity for courage and determination to fight for the well-being of our elders, our children, the animals that nurture us, and the earth. I thank them for investing in my life journey and aim to pay it forward with folks in my communities.”

Alisa Lee (she/her) is Sage’s Electoral Programs Manager

Alisa’s work will support leadership development and candidate trainings as she works to uplift community representation in government. She brings many years of experience to this role from being a campaign and program manager as well as an organizer.

Before coming to Puget Sound Sage Alisa worked at Asian and Pacific Islanders for Civic Empowerment, (APACE) and has also been involved with the Washington Voting Justice Coalition. She has a background in campaign management and has experience facilitating and building out candidate trainings, as well as organizing in-language voter outreach programs.

What are you passionate about? “As cheesy as it may sound, I genuinely want to make the world a better place. I believe that work can be done through both large projects and small every day actions. I spent a few years after college working as legal assistant on criminal defense cases and it really opened my eyes to the injustices that are still a part of our society. It’s important to me to work to address these things in the hopes that we will leave behind a better world for future generations.”

What are you most excited to work on this year? “I am really excited to assist with candidate trainings and leadership development! Running for office is a lot of work and I want to help make it a more accessible process by breaking down important steps candidates can take to pace themselves and plan for success . There’s things you can do as early as two years before you run that can increase your chances of success. It’s not knowledge that’s well known and sharing this information is key if you want to make politics a process that’s opened to everyone.”

What are your hobbies outside of work? “In my free time I enjoy getting creative with different mediums like resin, acrylic and watercolor. I am part of a BIPOC centered market in Tacoma that vends outside during the summer. It’s a really lovely way to meet community members and add some more beauty to the world.”

Francis Abugbilla (he/him) is Sage’s Community Leadership Institute Program Manager

Francis’ work will involve managing the Community Leadership Institute Program in order to build the capacity of leaders, deepen democracy, and economically empower marginalized communities in Washington State. He has many years of experience in community organizing, human rights advocacy, and teaching across continents.

Prior to this position, Francis worked as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Coordinator for the University of Washington Sustainability Office and the Campus Sustainability Fund and served on the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies’ Diversity Committee where he made significant contributions to diversity and equity initiatives.

What was your first impression of Sage? “I was invited to the CLI fellows’ graduation ceremony in 2019 and listening to the transformative impact that the program had on the lives of the fellows, I saw myself being of the Sage team and contributing to this important work in advancing social justice and equitable development.”

What are you most excited for during your time with Sage? “It is a great opportunity to be part of an amazing team of change-driven individuals who are committed to undoing systemic structures that have excluded the voices of many people in the decision-making processes in Washington State and beyond. I am truly excited to lead the program planning and execution, program strategy, and the expansion of the CLI program across the state.”

What might someone be surprised to know about you? “I was born and raised in a rural farming community in Ghana, that to this day, does not have access to electricity. In 2018 and 2019, I received a grant, fundraised, and provided solar electricity to the community basic schools. Children in Ghana start school at the age of six, but I started after age eleven because I had to take care of the family cattle and eventually becoming the first in my family and third in the community to obtain a college degree. My experience has taught me to be a voice for the voiceless and an agent of positive change in society.”

Community Corner

Revitalizing Civic Engagement through Collaborative Governance: Collaborative governance—or “co-governance”—offers an opportunity to create new forms of civic power. This report offers lessons from across local, city, state, and federal policymaking and highlights effective models of co-governance from community leaders and those in government.

Community Land Trusts Build Climate-Resilient Affordable Housing “Storms are nature’s way of causing gentrification,” so one couple bought property damaged by Hurricane Irma and placed it in a public trust.

How WA’s legislature is addressing the housing crisis in 2023. Lawmakers aim to tackle housing costs from all angles, including construction, subsidized housing, homeless services, zoning and renter protections.

Seattle Deserves a New Kind of Housing

by Kaileah Baldwin, Puget Sound Sage

Seattle needs more, and more varied, solutions to address our ever-growing housing and homelessness crisis — and I-135 gives us another tool in the toolbox. Our current solutions are insufficient and we’re seeing it across our city. The number of unhoused people in Seattle continues to be on the rise since homelessness was declared a state of emergency in 2015, and shows signs of getting worse in the economic aftermath of COVID-19. In 2021, 47% of Seattle renters paid 30% or more of their income toward housing, the point at which many housing advocates consider a household to be rent-burdened. In 2022, King County saw 13,000 people unhoused in a single night. I-135 presents a new solution to address Seattle’s crises of displacement and homelessness.

House Our Neighbors, the coalition behind I-135, is a multiracial group with Black queer leadership that consists of housing advocates with lived experience of homelessness. This coalition boldly believes in the vision of publicly owned, permanently affordable, cross-class, renter-run housing. The coalition worked with folks who have actually had to navigate our current options for low-income and transitional housing to develop this new solution of social housing. I-135’s vision for social housing offers truly affordable rent that is accessible to poor and working class communities, permanently removes land from the speculative market, and prioritizes people and planet over profit.

Because the initiative was designed by and for folks who’ve experienced homelessness, it will genuinely serve all the people who make up Seattle’s poor and working majority, including our most marginalized. Residents with no income or very little income will be eligible, with many barriers removed, including rental references or cosigners. People in the process of reentering housing will be free to grow their income and stability, without fear of being evicted for earning beyond poverty wages. These developments will be designed in the style of cross-class community hubs, and built to the highest green standards by union labor, ensuring everyone will benefit.

At Puget Sound Sage, we’re most concerned with our region’s BIPOC and immigrant and refugee communities who continue to face displacement due to gentrification. One of the key strategies to keep poor and BIPOC communities thriving in place is through the principles of Community Stewardship of Land (CSL). At their highest standard, CSL strategies keep marginalized communities together where they’ve been able to develop roots, with multiuse cultural hubs for housing and gathering, and in ways that keep those places governed by that community.

I-135’s vision for Social Housing offers a CSL-aligned path toward permanent community-controlled housing for Seattleites most at risk of displacement and homelessness. I-135’s social housing model will create housing meant both for people most at risk of being houseless or displaced and those who make this city run: our teachers and nurses, our neighbors and elders, our baristas and bookstore clerks. And these are the same people who would govern the social housing public developer — tenants having say over their own housing and amenities, not having to constantly live in fear of being pushed out through unmeetable rent hikes or landlord bullying.

Social housing does not aim to replace current options for low-income and affordable housing, but rather to add a new option that offers a chance for authentic housing solidarity in Seattle. This type of social housing — housing that holds our city’s most marginalized unhoused neighbors at its core, while also serving the city’s poor and working majority — is a unique opportunity for solidarity across our varying types of marginalization. I-135’s social housing is for all of us: for folks transitioning out of homelessness, for BIPOC families at risk of displacement, for low-wage and service workers who deserve to live in the city they work, and for middle-income workers who know the value of cross-class solidarity. Seattle deserves a chance to see where this kind of solidarity can take us.

Photo by Sunny studio/Shutterstock.com1

Originally published in the South Seattle Emerald