class

I've been a renter for most of my life. My parents never owned the houses we lived in when I was growing up, and throughout college and well into my twenties, I rented rooms and apartments. I co-owned a condo for a few years, and then a house, but the past decade has seen me back in apartment life, renting again, mostly happily.

The city of Seattle is now pretty evenly split between renters and homeowners, so you'd think renters might get a little more respect. But, we don't. Tax breaks go, of course, to homeowners. People talk disparagingly about renters, as though we don't care about the city in the same way as someone who owns a townhouse with paper thin walls and a scrap of scraggly lawn for their goldendoodle to poop on. But I contest this. Who cooks your food, mixes your drinks, bags your groceries, plays music for you, acts in plays, gives you massages and haircuts, and sells you jewelry and clothes and books? With median houseprices over a half million dollars, it sure ain't homeowners.

I also think about the fact that Seattle's recently departed police chief lives in Snohomish, thirty miles from the city whose police department she led. 30 miles! It feels like a huge disconnect not to hire law enforcement who live in this city, care about it, know it, instead of calling protesters cockroaches and trying to run them down. 

It's all so inter-connected, isn't it: affordable housing, access to food, public safety, a vibrant community. The mayor fights off a recall battle, the Parks Department calls the cops on kids doing a school supply drive, and the cops keep sweeping the unhoused from the park. 

I don't have answers to much of this. I want us to do better. I want to work towards us doing better. It's going to be a battle.