Nickels withholds money meant for displaced renters

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is withholding emergency funds meant to help rental dwellers find new housing when evicted by developers converting their buildings into condominiums.

Last year, the City Council included in the city budget $350,000 in such aid for moderate- and low-income renters. The program was to give displaced households up to $1,500 to find and move into a new rental, depending on income.

But Nickels has not implemented the program.

"We worked our butts off to get the money in the first place and that he would take it out of (the hands of) tenants like that is absolutely outrageous," said affordable housing advocate John Fox. "That's a real important fund."

The mayor wants first to see if the Legislature approves a statewide bailout program funded by developers this winter, said Nickels' spokesman Marty McOmber. Also, the city's Human Services Department faces a budget hole since learning early this year that the federal government rejected the city's request for $600,000 in shelter and emergency services grants, human services officials said. Meanwhile, Seattle is seeing a "sharp" decline in the number of developers seeking permission to make such conversions, McOmber said.

"We're trying to get a sense with those three moving pieces where we're going to be most effective in deploying this resource," McOmber said.

McOmber acknowledged the lost grant funding need not necessarily be backfilled with money from the council's assistance program. But it is a matter of prioritization, he said.