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Pay for shelter workers, a family shelter, a veterans campus and a sobering center: what's in the Council's 32 human services proposals

Lin's 3 percent wage increase for city-funded nonprofits is the largest new ask. Several others put conditions on how the mayor's shelter money is spent or ask for long-term plans.

By Seattle Politics staffUpdated

The Human Services Department is the biggest piece of Thursday's City Council budget session, with 32 proposals from councilmembers, according to Central Staff's summary list for the Oct. 29 Select Budget Committee meeting. They add about $25.6 million to the General Fund in 2027 by our count of the Human Services packet.

The department funds shelters, food banks, senior centers, domestic violence services and the nonprofits that run them. Here are the items with the widest reach.

A raise for nonprofit human services workers

HSD-053-A, from Eddie Lin with Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Dionne Foster, would add about $8 million in 2027 and $8.3 million in 2028 for a 3 percent "wage equity" increase on contracts the department administers. That is on top of the inflation adjustment city law already requires. The mayor's budget includes $10.2 million a year for those inflation adjustments, according to a city bulletin.

The packet gives the background: the 2024 and 2026 budgets each added a 2 percent wage equity increase. A 2023 University of Washington study commissioned by the department found that nonprofit human services workers earn a median 37 percent less than comparable workers in non-care industries. A companion request from Foster, CBO-005S-A, asks the City Budget Office to report by Sept. 1, 2027 on how every department handles inflation and wage increases in service contracts, per the budget office packet.

A shelter for families

HSD-028-A, from Council President Joy Hollingsworth with Maritza Rivera and Debora Juarez, would reserve $2.4 million already in the department's homelessness budget for a shelter serving families with minor children. It adds no new money.

The packet says the King County 2026 point-in-time count found 647 unsheltered family households, up from 415 in 2022. In April, Hollingsworth's Amendment 7 to the shelter funding bill asked that at least two new shelters exclusively serve women and children and that the department report details. That information "was not included" in the department's September report, the packet says. The department plans to invite proposals for a family shelter in 2027.

A veterans campus in West Seattle

HSD-021-A and HSD-022S-A, from Rob Saka with Robert Kettle and Rinck, would spend $350,000 in 2027 to plan a purpose-built shelter and service campus for veterans in West Seattle, and ask for an implementation roadmap by Sept. 1, 2027. The planning would cover the service model, sites, a developer and operator, design and a financing plan that could include county, state, federal and philanthropic money.

A city sobering center

HSD-029S-A, from Kettle with Lin and Rivera, asks the department to report by July 30, 2027 on how the city could open its own sobering center, including drop-off rules for police, fire and CARE responders. King County's sobering center has moved through temporary sites since 2019; the county bought a building at 1950 1st Avenue South in 2025 and expects to open there in 2027, the packet says.

Other notable items

  • HSD-030-A (Rinck): $8 million a year for domestic violence, sexual assault and exploitation services, on top of $17.1 million in the mayor's budget. Our earlier story.
  • HSD-052-A (Strauss): $3.5 million for a 90-spot RV safe lot. Our story.
  • HSD-040-A (Saka): $750,000 more for city-funded senior centers.
  • HSD-023S-A (Rivera) and HSD-024S-A (Foster): two different reporting requests on encampment removals. Rivera's asks for quarterly counts by district; Foster's asks what happens to people after removals.

What our records add

The shelter bill Hollingsworth amended, CB 121185, passed 7-0 at the April 14 meeting, with Kettle and Rivera not recorded. Hollingsworth filed eight of Thursday's 66 items, seven of them in Human Services, by our count.

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