Bold changes needed to create equitable opportunities to thrive

Our Solid Ground Vision articulates a future where our community is one that has evolved to a place “…where all people have equitable opportunities to thrive.” I’m concerned that for the majority of our King County community, ‘thriving’ is an aspiration that may not be achievable in our lifetimes without bold and dramatic changes.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray signs $15 minimum wage into law as Gordon McHenry, Jr. (5th from left) looks on. (Photo from murray.seattle.gov)

Last year I participated in a bold step to strengthen the wage structure for those who work in Seattle. The success of the Income Inequality Advisory Committee has sparked a remarkable movement to increase the minimum wage in cities across the United States. Yet an even more difficult challenge to achieving thriving exists: our complex and profound regional housing crisis. The lack of affordable housing, for rent or ownership, has been developing for many years. The majority of King County residents are now feeling the adverse effects of the housing crisis, which are a form of oppression for those who live on low and moderate incomes.

We are a community challenged by the dilemma of growth. The attractiveness of Seattle/King County as a place to live, work and retire plus growth has made Seattle and several other municipalities in King County unaffordable for most residents. Building upon the success of the Income Inequality Advisory Committee, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray created a 28-member cross-sector advisory committee to support Seattle in developing a plan to address our housing crisis. This group was charged with engaging the public and using their experience and expertise to guide the process.

In late July, after over 10 months of collaborative work, the Seattle Housing Affordability & Livability Agenda (HALA) Advisory Committee published its recommendations to Mayor Murray and the Seattle City Council. Reflecting the depth of this crisis, the HALA Advisory Committee report is 75 pages in length and contains 65 recommendations. These recommendations were developed from the perspective that “Seattle seeks to be a diverse, prosperous, and equitable community where individuals and families can build good lives in vibrant neighborhoods. Housing costs rising faster than incomes threaten to make that aspiration unattainable.” (HALA Advisory Committee Mission Statement)

In addition to HALA’s work, we are also looking at the alternatives proposed in the City Council’s candidate-led Progressive-Plan-Seattle-Housing, the Community Housing Caucus Report and the Committee to End Homelessness Strategic Plan, and engaging with other stakeholders.

Members of Solid Ground’s leadership team contributed to efforts that created both the highest minimum wage in the country and HALA. Their input came directly from the lived experiences of our program participants and the increasing difficulty encountered by our housing case managers when trying to find quality affordable housing in greater Seattle. My perspective is that housing affordability in Seattle and King County is one of our most significant social justice issues.

The HALA recommendations are a beginning to the creation, adoption and implementation of much needed public policies. Solid Ground will continue to be an active leader in this fight for housing justice. It will take time, significant struggles and skillful collaborations. And when we are successful, Seattle will be a thriving city that is a diverse, prosperous and equitable community where individuals and families build good lives in vibrant neighborhoods.

Community Conversations: #thinkpoverty + #talkpoverty = #endpoverty

Photo courtesy of smarnad

Join the dialogue! This year, Solid Ground began sparking
Community Conversations to inspire civic engagement and action toward ending poverty. By instigating conversations and spreading awareness among our community members, we hope some great ideas will emerge to help us reduce economic inequalities. And via social media, you can read, share, and exchange stories about the causes of poverty and ways to end it today!

Our hope is that by engaging people like you in discussing strategies to reduce poverty, our community will be mobilized to address some of the things that perpetuate poverty – such as racism, lack of affordable housing, regressive tax structures, lack of resources for people living with mental health issues, and a credit system that penalizes the poor – and brainstorm solutions to the problem.

An excellent resource to help you start thinking and talking about poverty issues is “From Poverty to Prosperity” by the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty. This article offers a national strategy for cutting poverty in half, and actions that can be taken immediately.

We want to hear from you! Help us start the conversation by sharing your ideas and thoughts on ending poverty. Join the ongoing Facebook and Twitter discussions with the @SolidGroundWA network; new topics are posed every Tuesday!

Start today! Share your personal stories. Learn from others’ experiences. Create an ongoing dialogue. Grow more aware. Find ways to take action. We hope that the conversation continues to show just how much the collective passion for ending poverty is alive in our community!

#thinkpoverty + #talkpoverty = #endpoverty

Giving thanks

Image of migrant workers from Diego Rivera murals at San Francisco’s Coit Tower

So tomorrow we pause. We give thanks for the blessings in our lives.

It is a tradition that popular story says started in this country with the Pilgrims. They were a band of vulnerable immigrants who survived a harrowing first winter only through the help of the native people who shared their food and taught them to farm and to fish. Our nascent nation would have vanished without the advice of Squanto and other Wampanoags. Ironically, that expression of thanks turned into oppression, as the immigrants took over native land and massacred native peoples, cultures and customs.

Sadly, as a nation, we continue to struggle with immigration, apparently forgetting that with the exception of our native and first peoples, we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants. We give thanks that this month, President Obama ended the threat of deportation for nearly five million of our neighbors, undocumented immigrants with deep connections in our communities and vital roles to play in making them healthy. And we hope that our nation will once again embrace the values of compassion, equity and justice for all, not just those with privilege and power.

We honor the dreamers, the hardworking believers in a United States of America that can be better than the one we currently have. We give thanks to those who work for equity and fairness in public and private life, and those unafraid to point out our society’s failings and eager to help overcome them, including our allies in Ferguson, MO and the many other communities resisting institutional oppression and injustice.

Often at Thanksgiving, we give thanks for the freedoms and privileges we enjoy, whether we were born to them or gained them through struggle. While it is accelerating in the Northwest, ours has always been a nation of haves and have nots. And so in offering thanks for our bounty, we must not lose sight of the inequities that have given some of us so much and many of us so little.

We honor the people who build our homes and grow our food, regardless of where they were born. And we thank the landlords who accept Section 8s, the readers who tutor, the case managers who provide support and advice, the accountants who keep us on track, the donors who channel their money through their hearts and souls. We honor the community that welcomes and supports, in the spirit of that storybook first Thanksgiving, whoever it is that arrives at our table.

So tomorrow we pause. We give thanks…