That’s video of this morning’s City Council Land Use and Sustainability Committee meeting, which included a discussion of Mayor Katie Wilson‘s proposed legislation to facilitate adding shelter space. Though the mayor has yet to announce the plan for where that’ll happen, the discussion focused almost entirely on expanding existing tiny-house villages. One of the mayor’s proposal would increase the number of people who could stay at a tiny-house village any given time to 150 (from the current 100), and would allow one site in each council district to host up to 250 people – more than double the current cap. Again, no specific sites are proposed for increases yet, but one “hypothetical” example of how it might work was in the presentation, a “what if” regarding southeast West Seattle’s Camp Second Chance:
Again, Jon Grant from the mayor’s office emphasized that is just a hypothetical example – and note the word on the side – but it’s an example of the kind of expansion the city is looking at, to find room for hundreds more people without having to find new village sites. The committee, chaired by new Councilmember Eddie Lin, also heard from organizations including LIHI – which manages most of the tiny-home villages in Seattle including Camp Second Chance and the upcoming Glassyard Commons tiny-home/RV site, also in southeast West Seattle – and treatment and outreach providers, who addressed the aspiration of “service-rich” shelter. No votes were taken today, but the mayor’s proposals will come before this committee for that before going to the full council.