VIDEO: How will mayor add shelter space? City Council committee gets one big hint

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.

12 Replies to "VIDEO: How will mayor add shelter space? City Council committee gets one big hint"

  • Scarlett April 1, 2026 (7:27 pm)

    The Great Dystopian Warehousing of Americans has begun.  

    • Sonja April 1, 2026 (9:33 pm)

      What do you think should be done with them? Let them die on the streets from drug overdoses like city officials do now?

      • Scarlett April 2, 2026 (10:31 am)

        It’s just an observation of where we’re at as a society, that this is the “solution.”  

        • Mike April 2, 2026 (1:43 pm)

          Please do offer a better solution for this persistent problem, involving people who are often resistant to being helped. Otherwise we’ll mistake your comments for pointless complaining 

  • CarDriver April 1, 2026 (7:34 pm)

    Are they going to increase the footprint of all these villages or put more people in their existing footprint? Will the number of “camp counselors” be increased or will the existing ones have their workload increased?

    • WSB April 1, 2026 (8:39 pm)

      Yes and yes.

  • 1994 April 1, 2026 (10:30 pm)

    Camp residents need to contribute financially to stay at these tax payer provided camps…..if the camper gets social security benefits they need to contribute,  General Assistance payments from DSHS, whatever income they have they need to contribute. People can’t expect the city to provide all this at no cost to them while the rest of us are footing the bill. There must be some literal buy in with $$$ from the campers to use these facilizes the city is planning to provide. Otherwise if all this is for free people will start to move here from areas far away looking for free, free, freeattle.

    • K April 2, 2026 (5:51 am)

      So you’re enjoying the RV situation and think it’s a good solution.  Gotcha.

    • T Rex April 2, 2026 (7:48 am)

      Totally agree with this statement. I believe they all need to have some type of responsibility at the camp as well AND get help with their addiction to the ones who need it. Perhaps they all have to have responsibilities to help take care of the area?The city is doing nothing but enabling these folks who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol if they give them a place to stay AND allow them to use while they are there.  Getting sober in the first year should be a requirement. 

      • Question Authority April 2, 2026 (11:06 am)

        Exactly, because all this talk of stepping stones to further subsidized housing is just continuous taxpayer cost with no endgame requirements.    

    • Marcus April 2, 2026 (7:59 am)

      We are already there.

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