SEATTLE — Seattle city leaders have said more affordable housing units are needed, but this year, it announced less funding for new affordable housing projects.
People who live in affordable housing said finding a spot is challenging.
“I remember you had to like call in at 9 a.m. on this one day and it was first come, first serve,” said Che Sehyun of his efforts to find affordable housing. “I remember at like 8:55 a.m. we were like ‘Alright, we're ready.’ And we were both dialing furiously trying to make sure we can get housing.”
Seyhun has lived in affordable housing with his two kids since 2018.
“As an artist, I don't have a steady paycheck. So, my income varies,” said Seyhun.
He was born in Seattle and said the high housing prices almost forced him to move out of the city.
“I was at a place where we were thinking of moving to Tacoma because there was more affordable, like artist kind of centric housing,” said Seyhun. “But we found some affordable housing here and it's made a huge difference in our lives.”
Seyhun lives in an affordable housing unit operated by Community Roots Housing.
“We develop new buildings, we acquire and rehab existing buildings,” said Christopher Persons, the CEO of Community Roots Housing.
Community Roots has 50 affordable housing buildings in Seattle, but Persons said more are needed. He said not only has the need for affordable housing been increasing, but the cost of building affordable housing units is increasing, too.
“Oh, it's astronomical what we're seeing per unit and the cost for new construction. It's doubled in the 16 years since I've been here,” said Persons.
“We need more housing units and need them to be at a variety of income levels so people of all different incomes can afford to live here,” said Maiko Winkler-Chin, the director of the Seattle Office of Housing.
The city currently has 19,000 active affordable housing units that it has funded.
At this year’s annual funding awards announcement for affordable housing, the city announced $66.7 million in awards for four new projects. The year before, it announced $147 million in awards for 11 new projects.
KING 5 asked why so much less funding was announced this year
“So, this year we had to recalibrate our funding as well as we were prioritizing our existing investments,” said Winkler-Chin. “We have about 70 projects in the pipeline right now and that's about 7,600 units. And in order to get those finished and moving along, we had to add a little bit more money to those.”
Developers applied for the awards, requesting a total of $380 million. But again, only the $66.7 million was awarded. Winkler-Chin said the city is focused on funding the projects already being developed, which are costing developers more than expected.
“From the time that you start planning to the time that you're finished, the interest rates probably have really increased. So that's a concern,” said Winkler-Chin.
She added that housing developers are having to stay on a construction loan for longer than expected, which is meant to be temporary and has higher interest rates.
“I was talking with some developers, and when they started their projects they were about 2.16% and now they're above 7%,” said Winkler-Chin. “So that's a pretty significant jump.”
She said that in order to get off a construction loan, developers have to have a certain percentage of units occupied by people who are paying rent. But she said rents are increasing and incomes are not, which is creating an issue if people can’t pay.
KING 5 asked Winkler-Chin if the city planned to get more of the projects paid off this year so that more new affordable housing awards could be awarded next year.
“Of the 70 projects, we would like them to be complete,” said Winkler-Chin. “Then we'd have 7,600 new units online. We would like them to all convert over to permanent loans on time, you know, when they were supposed to, when we anticipate. The challenge with that is we're not sure what the interest rates are going to be, and that adds to the problem of some of the challenges that we see.”
Winkler-Chin said the nearly $1 billion housing levy that was approved last year will help the city's goals of creating more affordable housing.
"It's necessary because it's consistent and we can plan around it. And that for us is very, very important. We have to be able to plan and we made a commitment to the voters. For us, that's really important as well," said Winkler-Chin.