Colleagues,
We all have one more opportunity to comment on the City of Tacoma's 2019 Amendments to their Comprehensive Plan.  Public comment closes Friday, May 17 at 5pm.  You can email:  planning@cityoftacoma.org

The proposed 2019 Comprehensive Plan and Land Use Regulation Amendments already includes formally recognizing the Affordable Housing Action Strategy as an implementation element the One Tacoma Comprehensive Plan.  This is good.

What the Affordable Housing Action Strategy does not include is an emphasis on the legacy of racial and economic exclusion in past housing policies, processes, and systems.  The City Council was to consider a Resolution calling for the establishment of racial and socioeconomic justice as a foundational element of housing policy to address disparate impacts from historic housing and land use practices, and reduction displacement risk and gentrification by expanding housing choice and affordability throughout the community.  

Why is this important for participants in the Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness?  Because we know as housers and social service providers and as advocates that the number of people of color experiencing homelessness is in many cases directly linked to institutional racism - to the legacy of racist housing policies at every level from federal to local.  I have data on homelessness in Tacoma going back to when I started in 1982 and people of color were always disproportionately affected by homelessness.  

The City Council did not consider the Resolution at Tuesday's meeting.  The Mayor removed the Resolution from the agenda saying it was unfair to bring it forward as there were too many questions and concerns.  Here's the title of the Resolution:

"Resolution 40328:  A resolution concerning affordable and equitable housing, calling for the establishment of racial and socioeconomic justice as a foundational element of housing policy to address disparate impacts from historic housing and land use practices, and reduce displacement risk and gentrification by expanding housing choice and affordability throughout the community."

This is an excerpt from the Council's Action Memorandum on the Resolution:
"The resolution is meant to specifically address racial and socioeconomic justice in the city’s comprehensive plan, set forth possible strategies to be studied in an effort to confront and reverse historically exclusionary housing practices through zoning, recognize and adopt the history of institutional racism in the form of redlining into the city’s Comprehensive Plan for the first time, and for the city to begin proactive study and planning efforts to identify and root out gentrification and housing displacement risk in the community." 

Frankly, I thought it was a no brainer.  The City seems serious about implementing its new Affordable Housing Action Strategy, the Planning Commission proposed formally recognizing the Affordable Housing Action Strategy in the 2019 Amendments to the City's Comprehensive Plan, the Affordable Housing Action Strategy does not include addressing racial and socioeconomic justice.  Every houser knows something about the legacy of redlining and racist federal to local housing policies.  I mean, how hard could this be?  Well, clearly harder than I had thought.
 
Here's my list of what I think we need to do - we can do some of this in our weekly Coalition meetings and some of it through our new Coalition working group on racial equity and some of it on our own:
1.  As Mother Jones said - "Sit down and read."  
Educate yourself on the national and local history of racial and socioeconomic injustice in housing.  
2.  As I learned from the great civil rights lawyer Florence Roisman - read the law out loud and listen to what it actually says.  
Take a good hard disciplined out loud look at the housing and land use policies that govern your local community.  
3.  And from Congressman John Lewis "We must never ever give up, we must never ever give in, we must keep the faith, and keep our eyes on the prize.” 
The prize is a right to housing - safe, decent, affordable permanent housing across our communities irrespective of class, color, gender, age, ability, or any other attempt to discriminate among us.  

I'm attaching the Resolution and the Council Action Memorandum.  
If you live or work in the City of Tacoma, please talk with Council Members and the Mayor.  They need to hear from constituents in support of addressing racial and socioeconomic injustice through the comprehensive plan.

Before 5pm on Friday, May 17 you can comment to the Planning Commission via email:  planning@cityoftacoma.org.  Just because the City Council didn't consider the Resolution doesn't mean we can't ask for the inclusion of ways to address racial and socioeconomic justice in the City's Comprehensive Plan.  You can even cut and paste the excerpt above from the Council's Action Memorandum.

Thank you for all you do,
Maureen
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MaureenHowardConsulting
maureenhowardconsulting@gmail.com

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3320 S. 8th Street
Tacoma, WA 98405