Inflation and skyrocketing rents are crushing working people, while our wages haven’t kept up. Even before the past year’s record inflation, between 2010 and 2020, Seattle rents increased by nearly a whopping 92%! The average rent for a one-bedroom is over $2,200. A recent report by Accountable.US found that the six largest property management companies in the U.S. made $4.3 billion in profits in 2022, which is over $1.3 billion more than in 2021. These runaway rents are increasingly driving renters out of their homes and into homelessness. Yet, Democrats and Republicans in the Washington State Legislature have refused to lift the 42-year-old ban on rent control. 

That’s why we urge Seattle City Council Democrats to stand with working-class and poor renters, and vote YES on legislation from Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s office for rent control without loopholes, to go into effect as soon as the state ban is lifted! Winning this bill would generate HUGE momentum to build the grassroots movement needed to force the State Legislature to lift the ban.