Seattle aspires to be a welcoming city where people of all backgrounds feel they belong and can build a stable and fulfilling life. Our current housing affordability crisis represents a major challenge to this vision. 

The City of Seattle and its partners have a long history of addressing housing affordability by investing in people and communities and building rent- and income-restricted housing for lower-income families and individuals.

To build on this work, the City has launched Housing Choices, a new initiative focused on expanding market-rate housing options, in more places, for more people. This effort is a part of Housing Seattle Now, Mayor Durkan’s vision and key actions for the City’s approach to addressing our housing crisis.

Housing Choices explores how our housing market can better serve the needs of current and future residents through:

• Family-sized homes for sale
• Condominiums and co-ops that can open the door to home ownership
• Two- and three-bedroom rental apartments
• Housing with smaller units and shared common space
• Accessible ownership opportunities for older and disabled residents

As a first step in this initiative, we have released the Housing Choices Background Report, providing initial analysis on Seattle’s housing market to inform the conversation about how we can meet our community’s needs.

We want to hear your perspective to understand the issues and explore potential responses. Please fill out our 15-minute Housing Choices survey. We will also host conversations with community groups, historically underrepresented communities, and stakeholders throughout 2019. Your input, along with additional data and analysis, will inform future recommendations on responses to our housing crisis. To submit questions and comments, or to host a conversation on this topic, please contact Brennon Staley of the Office of Planning and Community Development at brennon.staley@seattle.gov.

Housing Choices is one part of the City’s comprehensive work on housing. It will unfold in close coordination with the Mayor’s Affordable Middle-Income Housing Advisory Council, which will recommend strategies to close the gap between City-subsidized and private-market housing.  We anticipate releasing specific recommendations to increase housing choices in early 2020 based on your input and input from the Mayor’s Affordable Middle-Income Housing Advisory Council. Together, we can create a city where more people can find homes that meet their needs.