A Housing Taskforce: Let's Talk Effectiveness

The Council will be considering creating a Housing Taskforce this upcoming Tuesday, it's purpose being to address both the housing shortage and lack of affordability within our city. There is also an alternative version being proposed, though the alternative isn't creating a taskforce at all -- it's directing the Housing Strategy Committee to take up the mantle. Alder Juliana Bennett and I are sponsoring the alternate.

Initial Discussions about a Taskforce
Between myself, Alder Bennett and Tag Evers, discussions about creating a taskforce began mid-July, soon after the Council voted to approve the Johnson & Bassett project. These early discussions were very different than either proposals you see before you today, in fact it mostly had to do with exclusvely tackling the student housing crisis. There were numerous meetings that took place between the small group of Alders and City Staff, talking through the logistics of creating a taskforce and whether it would be an effective way to find a solution. What would the taskforce do? Would it focus on making policy recommendations, or researching and gathering data so the Council would have that information available? We gathered plenty of qualatative data from 1,715 students earlier in the summer, would this taskforce focus on quantative data? Who should sit on the taskforce -- housing experts, or students, UW leaders and other community partners?

There were dozens of other questions, and as they were being answered we realized how much effort goes into creating a taskforce and more importantly -- how long it would take. Getting this potential student housing taskforce approved through Council would be the easy part, because we realized that there are few staff available with the capacity to attend more meetings and handle more workload. We quickly realized that creating a taskforce would be a drain on resources, and would lead to a delay on finding actual solutions that can be implemented in a timly manner. We decided that a student-focused taskforce would not be effective to address the problem. Then I got a phone call from Alder Amani Latimer Burris giving me a heads up about her resolution creating a taskforce to address the city-wide housing crisis.

The Housing Taskforce
When speaking to Alder Latimer Burris, it was clear that she intended this resolution to be a point to start discussion in a formal manner. The Council had already been talking about housing long enough, something her and I agreed on. We rejected Johnson & Bassett, then approved it. We recieved 300 emails and over 1700 survey responds from students -- its clear that people wanted us to do something. I applaud Alder Latimer Burris for taking action