Will King County's relief for windstorm victims be enough for low-income residents?

Many Seattle metro area residents incurred unexpected costs from staying in hotels and repairing property damage caused by last month’s windstorm.

A relief package put forward by the King County Council could help pay some storm victims’ bills and make it easier for contractors to repair homes. But for some low-income renters, the storm's disruption will last much longer.

T

hey were supposed to be at a middle school orchestra concert. But the performance was canceled after the school’s power went out, so the family returned to their home in Issaquah. There they played a game of Scooby Doo Clue while listening to giant trees groan outside in the darkness.

That's how Alyson Mabie, her boyfriend, and her 12-year-old daughter found themselves waiting out the vicious windstorm produced by a bomb cyclone last month.

When branches started crashing down, the three of them piled into the bathroom of their single-story rental home. Mabie's daughter assumed the earthquake position, crouched down on the floor with her hands over her head.

"And the next thing I knew, I was pulling her out from under the ceiling that had collapsed on her," Mabie recalled.

A towering tree, most likely an ancient maple, had fallen onto their house.

The family fled into the cold night in a ragtop convertible with very little gas. All the nearby gas stations were closed, due to power outages.

“We hung out in a parking lot for several hours…it was just a big open parking lot with no trees anywhere in sight,” Mabie said. “and [we] tried to figure out what we were going to do.”

Mabie had been paying between 65% to 80% of her monthly income on rent due to being on medical leave from her full-time job as a graduate teaching assistant, and left only with a part-time job. In paying over 50% of her income on rent, she's "severely rent burdened," as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Now Mabie must get a new place, but she's struggling to find one she can afford. Her household has been staying in hotels and the bills are piling up.

Jennie Romich is with the West Coast Poverty Center at the University of Washington. She said people who pay more than 50% of their income in rent can face all kinds of financial hardships from a storm like that.

"There are a lot of people who lost power and might have had a lot of food in their refrigerator go bad or food in their freezer," Romich said. "For someone paying 80% of their income on rent, needing a new pair of shoes can create a crisis."

The King County Council held an emergency meeting following the storm and cranked out a proposed relief package that includes a recovery fund intended to pay for hotel stays, spoiled food, generator fuel, tree branch removal, and damaged farm produce and animals. The measure, which is set for a final vote on Tuesday, would also expedite permits and waive fees for contractors repairing storm-damaged homes.

A unanimous vote made in a subcommittee that includes all councilmembers on Dec. 4 virtually guarantees the bill will pass the full council. But in the end, the bill is no more than a wish list to be sent to County Executive Dow Constantine, who must hammer those wishes into something feasible and legal.

King County isn't set up like the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It could face constraints on its ability to distribute public funds to individuals, said Council spokesperson Daniel DeMay.

And none of these short-term relief measures address the core problem renters like Alyson Mabie are facing: the high cost of housing.

If the Council passes the bill as expected on Tuesday, the County Executive will have seven days to return to the Council with a plan, which could then require another vote.