Episode Transcript
MTT – Nicholas Carr
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Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: [00:00:00] This is Channel 2 5 3.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Move to Tacoma
Producer Doug Mackey: on this episode of Move to Tacoma.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: The high level systemic problem that we have is an economic problem, right? And the the housing functions within that economic system. We can fix components of that system to make it work better, but it will never be what it should be if we don’t fix the overriding economic problem.
Producer Doug Mackey: Channel 2 5 3 is member supported. I’m producer Doug Mackey, and I hope you’ll show your support by going to channel two five three.com/membership and join. Thank you. We are back. Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma. You’ll like
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: it.
Producer Doug Mackey: Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma, move to tacoma com.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I’m Marguerite with Move to Tacoma, and I’m here today with Nicholas Carr.
Welcome Nicholas Carr.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Thank you.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Um. I don’t know what you do right now. You [00:01:00] just got a new job. So what is your official, what is your official title?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: All right. Uh, so my official new title right now is working for the Department of Commerce,
department
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: of Commerce
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: State for Washington State.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes. And my title is the Housing Policy Strategic Advisor.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay, cool.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Uh, sounds very important. Um, before we start asking you about when you moved to Tacoma and why, I just wanna say the reason I’m having Nick on is to talk about housing at the systemic level. Uh, I have a, a, you know, as a real estate person, I experience housing at street level like most people.
But you’re, you’re coming at it from a completely different perspective. But before we get into that, when exactly did you move to Tacoma and why did you move here?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Okay, so I moved officially to Tacoma in 2019.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Uh, prior to that, I did live in University Place and work in Tacoma for. A very long time.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. So 2019 was the first time you’d lived in the city proper?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Not the first time. Oh, okay. It’s first. I, I bought a house with my wife and my family in 2019. I have [00:02:00] lived in Tacoma prior to my professional
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: life. This is relevant information. This is relevant. So have you lived here, like your whole life in the
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: area?
Uh, in the area I grew up, uh, I didn’t really grow up in Gig Harbor. I graduated high school in Gay Harbor, proper Gay Harbor High School. Moved to Tacoma after that with some friends. And so I’ve lived, you know, I lived at fifth and K. Mm. Uh, I’ve lived at fifth and I mm-hmm. Um, you know, so I’ve. I, I’ve been a part of Tacoma for a very long time.
Worked in Tacoma. I worked for Congressman Derek Kilmer when he was first elected mm-hmm. For a number of years. Um, but I haven’t, I didn’t officially live here and buy, I didn’t buy a house here and like put roots here until 2019.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: And which neighborhood do you live in and what do you like about it?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So, I’m just south side of this high school and just north of sixth Avenue.
So we’re kind of, we’re, we are on the road where the cops go in Raymond Hall.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I see.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So it’s north.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I’m on, I’m on ninth Street, just past Orchard.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah. Okay. Wait, yeah, so it’s north, it’s North Tacoma, but it’s kinda like the West, west, yeah. Side of North Tacoma. Yeah, it’s
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: kind of West, Northwest Tacoma,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: west End.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Is that
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: what they call it? It’s technically, I’m in the [00:03:00] West End neighborhood.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Um, but it’s, again, it’s, it’s right north of sixth Avenue and just west of Orchard. So I’m kind of in, uh, that little area, uh, kind of popped in behind where, uh, you know, uh, Goodwill is.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: And what do you like about it?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: The access.
I mean, when I lived in University place, it took fucking 20 minutes. Oh my gosh. Just to drive, like out of university place.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I’m glad we could speak plainly because that is one thing that drive, I mean, I love it once I get there, but it does take a little bit of
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: a effort. It was, and it, it made me fucking crazy.
Okay. So, um, we are right now very close to avenue the freeway access to. Of Tacoma from where I am is fantastic.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Um, I also love that, uh, well what I don’t love is that I ha don’t have an alley. I’m addicted to alleys and we moved to like the only place in our area that doesn’t have an alley. I would say that
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: is very unusual
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: in your part town.
It’s crazy. I love alleys and we didn’t get one. Um, but it is also very nice. It’s a nice little neighborhood to walk the dogs. Yeah. And it’s, like I said, it’s close to everything. Um, when, you know, my son [00:04:00] did not have a car yet and was riding his bike, you know, it was a nice place he could go ride his bike out to areas and stuff like that.
So I think generally what I like most about it is its access, uh, to the things that I want, which are proctor District six Avenue, downtown. I mean, it’s just a five minute drive anywhere I want to go. Um, or it’s like sets a nice walk where I want to go. So.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Well, and I imagine in your line of work you probably have to go to Seattle a lot, you have to go to Olympia, a lot, a lot of traveling.
Is it pretty easy Absolutely. To get to those places from where you are?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah. You just pop right on, you know, 16 to, to I five, whatever I need. Very easy. Yeah.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay, cool. Alright, well how, what? I’m not even sure where to, okay, so what did, what do you do. In your job? That’s, what is that job?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: That’s a really good question.
Yeah. Um, if I knew exactly what I was doing, I would tell you, um, what I think I’m going to be doing is implementing or helping to implement temporarily. Uh, we don’t have to get into the.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Logistics of this, but I am at a temporary position at Commerce now. Before I made I’m to move on to o other things of my choosing.
Right. Um, and [00:05:00] so, um, I, there will be an executive order. Um, I have seen it. I cannot divulge what is on it, but it is essentially And
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: that executive order comes from the governor? From the governor,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: is
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: that right? Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: That is essentially going to be, uh, implementing in some shape or form a strategy to form an independent housing agency.
In what state of Washington Currently that we don’t have a housing agency. Like we have the Department of Commerce. We have Department of Ecology. Right. We have department of Oh,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: so we’d have a
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: department social of housing, social services. We would have a Department of housing. Yes. Oh, right now housing is, uh, functionally administered through a division within the Department of Commerce.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So this would effectively create some sort of pathway to a department of housing. Yes. And I am to help facilitate that work once the executive order is finalized. Mm-hmm. Into. And through the next legislative session.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: And why do we need a department of housing?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Well, that’s Do we or don’t we? I actually do think we do long
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: term.
Okay. Well, I hope so. ’cause you’re the one that’s bringing it.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: You’re, you’re a midwife in this baby.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I, I think there was a better way to go [00:06:00] about this. I don’t think with our budget, current budget situation that we really should have prioritized just doing a standalone department housing outta thin air.
I think there was better ways to go about it, but that’s neither here nor there.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I mean, it’s happening now
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: long term. I think it’s definitely necessary because we need to be able to prioritize housing as the, uh, an important, um, you know, component of a public. Sphere, right? Mm-hmm. Of something that we think is, is due the respect, the money, and the focus of a public infrastructure project.
Right? And so, um, we currently don’t, and currently the way that we’ve set it up, it’s more of a grant making agency rather than a, an agency or a division that actually functionally does housing itself. Uhhuh. It kind of just pushes money to other people to do it.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah. And when you say, does housing that you don’t mean like socialized housing, you don’t mean like the government building the housing?
Not necessarily. Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Not necessarily.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: What do you mean?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: What I do mean though is that the government should have more [00:07:00] accountability and more responsibility and more incentive to actually promote things that produce housing, right? Mm-hmm. So currently it, we, we’ve been pretty standoffish. Outside of the last couple years, right?
Mm-hmm. So starting basically in 2021, maybe 2019, um, the legislature has been doing more and more, right? So the big signature stuff that you talk, that we, we could talk about is, you know, middle housing, right? Basically. Mm-hmm. Creating a system where there’s, you cannot have only single family. Zones. Right.
You know, throughout the state of Washington you have to Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: That’s been a massive change in the last five years.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It’s huge. It’s huge. And it was the right one. It was a very good deal. Mm-hmm. Um, the other one is, you know, things like no parking minimums. Right. So last year, Senator Bateman pushed a parking bill and we got it passed, which is basically just saying like, cities cannot require a minimum amount of parking.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So you could build an apartment complex with no parking.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Depends, that’s not necessarily true. I mean, so it’s only cities I think of 30,000 or more, 30,000 population or more, uh, because smaller cities have less resources. Right. And also, but
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: in [00:08:00] Tacoma, you could have an apartment building that’s like designed for commuters, close to transit kind of thing.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Totally. And a lot of the bigger cities had already implemented some of that stuff. Right? Yeah. They’ve already said like, you don’t have to, you don’t, you’re not required through your permanent process to provide parking if you are, uh, you know, roughly a block from, uh, a major bus station or train station or something like that.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. But all of this leadership has been coming from the Department of Commerce before?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: No,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: no,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: no. I’m. I, I don’t wanna disparage Department of Commerce in any shape or form. They have very, very smart people, though they’re doing very technically good, smart things. But the mandate of the Department of Commerce has never been build housing.
It’s always been push money to people who build housing. So it’s, it’s a subtle difference, but it’s a very, it’s a very important difference. And, and, and so like, what, what the envisioned Department of Housing would do is not only support low income or affordable housing projects through subsidy, which is currently basically what we do.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right. So you’re not saying that the state of Washington’s gonna build affordable housing? No. You’re saying, uh, the state of [00:09:00] Washington is gonna help.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: We’re not gonna, this
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: department, we’re not gonna,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: there will not be a new implementation of public housing where the state of Washington owns housing units.
No. They may own covenants, right? Mm-hmm. That say like, you can build here and we’ll give you some money, but you have to maintain affordability for X number or something like that. But, but there’s a number of, this is actually where we expand and where housing actually is. Right? It’s a system. It’s not just.
Buildings, right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah. So how do you make it so we have more housing? Because obviously we need more housing. We have, you’ve seen the projections. We’re gonna have a ton of people coming here. We already have more people than have access to housing they can afford. Yeah. How, how can you actually move the needle on
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: that?
Well, I’m glad you asked that,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Margarite. That’s the reason you’re here. So please answer the
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: question. So, so the way that I think about this and, and this is how we talked a little bit about this. I dunno if we’re recording or not yet, but we’ll go into it.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: We’re recording
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: the, well we are now. Oh yeah. But previously we were talking about, I wasn’t sure if we’re recording yet, but basically housing is an ecosystem.
So the way I would, I would talk to people about, like, people who are, you know, [00:10:00] you’re a realtor and you just basically front door, there’s a house, we sell it to you. Now you have a home, right? Yep. Is that housing is much more complicated than just that component of it, right? Mm-hmm. So it’s an ecosystem.
So if you think about an ecosystem, um, as in functions, you know, you look at the classic e you know, when you were in elementary school, right? Yeah, that’s, I was
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: just picturing
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: it, you know, uh, the water evaporates and goes to the clouds, and the clouds and the plants grow and the feed, the, the, the animals and blah, blah, blah, right?
Yeah. So an ecosystem works because everything works, right? Everything has a a source, and then everything has an off book,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: right? Nature imbalance. Yes. And if you disrupt one part, the whole thing gets polluted. That’s
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: fucking exactly right. Okay.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So here’s the thing. We don’t think of housing like that.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: This is the first time I’ve thought of housing like that.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Okay. So I’ve been thinking about housing as an ecosystem for a really long time, which is why I got the job with the governor that I got. I should note, I used to work for the governor.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Oh, that’s right. Yeah. And now you, I
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: no longer work for the governor.
Uh, we don’t have to get into details about that. There’s some philosophical differences. Ask
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: him if you see him [00:11:00] around town. I
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: can, I can create a whole slew of drama here on this podcast if I want to. Let’s not. Um, but let’s not do that. Um, suffice to say I was not, I am not, I’m no longer with the governor’s office.
It has nothing to do with my expertise or my ideas around housing. I’ll put it that way. Certainly not. Okay. So, um, so an ecosystem of housing is basically identifying the various components that housing requires. To make it work Right. That the system requires to be functional.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: And so, you know, I’m gonna disparage Democrats a little bit here.
I am a Democrat and I’ll be completely honest. Right. Okay. But I’m also a Democrat who like likes to fucking poke at Democrats because we’re weak and stupid half the time.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: We can, we can, we can abide a little Democrat slander on the move to Tacoma
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: podcast. So, so, you know, we have this idea that like the most, if we put more money at something that’s better, better shit, more money, better shit.
That’s not always true. That’s almost, almost never true actually. Hmm. Um, and the bigger something is, well, we we’re funding so much shit. Like, we should be like really good. Well, the problem is, is what we usually fund and what we usually push is just subsidy, [00:12:00] capital subsidy to build housing. Mm-hmm. But then we’re kind of like, eh, you know, so that’s why.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. Wait, wait, wait. I, I need to pause you. I, I warned you this might happen. Yeah. What is capital subsidy to build housing? What does that mean?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It is money. That is allocated through a capital budget, which is
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Oh, like money from the government?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes. Money from the go to building housing money. It’s different than operational money.
This is actually really important in the public. This is
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: like
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: tax public sphere
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: incentives
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: or all of it is taxes, but
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: There’s two kinds of money. I mean there’s more than we’re gonna go real, real, real high. We can keep it
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: basic.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Today there’s, there’s capital money, there’s operating money. Right. Okay.
Operating money is ongoing money. ’cause it’s operating means that you have to, you have to basically say, we’re gonna fund this every year for For multiple years. Yeah. Because otherwise it’s not operating and then there’s capital money. People love capital money because you fund it once and you gotta cut a ribbon and then it’s fucking done.
Right. Right. And so, right. The problem with that though is that one capital money is still money that we infuse into things and this still costs taxes. That’s based on selling bonds and then we have to pay back the bonds through. [00:13:00] Yeah. Another mechanism. So. Capital money’s great. But the problem that we’ve currently pushed ourselves into is that we’ve spent so much capital money on housing, but we focused on the lowest incomes, which is fine actually.
I actually think that we should be focusing capital money on the lowest income needs. On the lowest income housing. Right. The permanent supportive housing. Right? Mm-hmm. But the problem is, is that, that that kind of project takes a lot of money to operate.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah. And ongoing money to operate
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: and ongoing money to operate.
And so you, you get stuck when you spend, I mean, literally at this point, billions of dollars in capital money toward projects, and in two or three years, they’re unable to operate because you’re serving the lowest income people, which means that rental income. Does not sustain Consistent. Yeah. An inflationary mechanism that we’ve seen for the past five, six years.
Right. Right. And so that means that now you have to have backfill that, well, that’s really difficult to do because we are in a budget crisis.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: That you don’t have the money to [00:14:00] backfill that. Yeah. Right. So you have a bunch of capital money that’s still pushes through and then you do not have the operational support on the backend.
Right. And so,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: whoa, whoa, whoa. But, but, but wait, but wait. If you wanna have money that’s available year after year to sustain these kinds of projects, you would have to actually have that allocated in the budget year after year. And that means that all these legislators have to fight for that budget reallocation year after year.
They don’t wanna have to do that.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: No.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right. Like
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: they also don’t want to have to.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: And they can’t set it and forget it. Right. It’s taxes. No. Right. Raising taxes. Well, now you sound like a Democrat, Nick.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Well, this is, but here’s the deal though. The, so this is actually where this kind of really, you know, it, it gets to be somewhat complicated but also pretty difficult, you know, um, from, from a legislator’s point of view is that, well, we can’t just not continue to fund premise board of housing because it’s a massive necessity.
Right? Right. We have a homelessness crisis. We need more units. We know we need more units.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah. And we’re not gonna not need more units
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: in the
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: future. Exactly.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: But we also know the more money we infuse through capital [00:15:00] into these units, the more money is gonna be required to raise taxes, to offset the increases in operating that are gonna be necessary.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Cut. Does everybody know that? Well, does everybody agree on that?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: A lot
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: of, is that known?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: A lot of legislators absolutely do know this. Right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Do will they say that in public?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I mean, I, I, I would if I was a legislator,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: but is there agreement across parties that this is true?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: This is, yeah. This is not something that’s arguable
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: that people are arguing, but, but are they arguing about it anyway?
Like, is this Well, they’re
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: arguing about, I’m asking what we should be spending money on and what we should not be spending money on,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: but Right. But we all understand that we can’t keep doing it the way we’ve been doing it. That’s my question.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Well. It’s hard to know. I, it’s hard to know, honestly. Now this is where you get, I, this is where ideology, ideology infuses itself into the conversation.
We should step away from this for a moment and let me go over the ecosystem thing real quick so we have a foundational right piece, right? So, so get you up
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: to speed.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Housing is an ecosystem, right? Okay. So I designed a. A kind of narrative strategy when I was with the governor’s office to kind of think [00:16:00] about how we think about the ecosystem, right?
Which is like, there’s components to housing. A lot of people specialize in these specific components. Mm-hmm. But not a lot of people really think about them all together as a system that, that, so you have advocates this, I mean, I guess at this moment, right? The tenants rights advocates in Tacoma, it’s a very hot topic, right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: They were just in here earlier, right?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Hot topic around like, you know, ensuring that landlords can’t evict tenants, you know, in winter time or in school time or because they simply couldn’t pay rent or, or were, you know, short on rent or whatever, right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right. We’ve also got the realtor lobby advocating for things that’ll make real estate move.
Marco, you got the landlords, you’ve got the builders, but
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: they’re these people, and I’m not saying just coma for all right? But, but these com, these kind of ideological pockets that are folk hyper-focused on a specific thing, usually fail to, you can’t really look at things comprehensively like, you know, as an ecosystem like that because you lose your argument because you realize that.
You can’t actually. Get what you’re trying to do [00:17:00] correctly if you don’t focus on a couple other things. But that’s not really a good narrative for getting a policy passed or supporting an ideology they’re pushing. Right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah. I don’t know. I, I,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I’m not, that’s, I’m not sure about, and that’s not just true of I’m not, if I’m, that’s, that’s true of Right.
Any of anybody else who’s doing anything else. Right. So consequently it becomes like landlords are evil. Well, also,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: like
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: evil landlords are,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: are
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: raking in
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: the money. But you also, I mean, and, and again, like the tenants rights people were just in here, so their perspective is very fresh in my mind. But, um, you’re also using the example of the people with the least amount of.
Resources and the most vulnerable population in the ecosystem. Sure. So why don’t we take an example instead of putting the tenants under the bus here,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I’m not putting any tenants
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: under the bus. Whoa. Yeah. But like, why don’t we talk about a part of the ecosystem in this example that maybe has zillions of dollars in lawyers and, you know, entire departments of universities dedicated to their profession and all these kinds of things.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I think it’s, I think it’s a [00:18:00] misnomer that there’s like as much money as people think there is, and like landlord, profit and landlord,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: you know what I
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: mean? Like, honestly,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I, I would disagree. And in fact, you know, as a 20 year career in real estate, like all we talk about is how great it is to be a landlord and how much money you can make Landlording.
And I know these people, they do make money. They’re doing just fine. Sure. And so, like I, you cannot equate the experience of landlords with the experience of tenants. That are, you know, like the, the, yes, the impact on individual renters. They are the most vulnerable people in our ecosystem. Yes. I think I, that’s the only point I wanna make.
Like we cannot,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: no, I don’t disagree. Yeah. I guess what I’m saying is that. It’s a capitalism argument, but it’s being fought with housing as its infantry. Okay. Uh
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: oh. The, but this is great because that’s actually something that they said, right? Yeah. Like we, we are fighting over here.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: When it is a capitalism
problem.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: And so I think for sure, I think the way, what the, the approach I would take and the approach that I have taken is not that I think that there’s, the argument is disingenuous. I just think it’s the wrong [00:19:00] fight. I think that a lot of times you’re pushing forward a very specific, targeted. Tenant protection, let’s say.
Mm-hmm. Which I don’t disagree with. Protect tenants, that’s not the issue. And
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: also that is the job of, that is
what
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: they should be doing. They should be protecting
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: themselves. But, but I also think that you are, if you’re not focusing on the system itself, you are doing a disservice long term to those tenants because Okay, you’re not going to be able to functionally fix the system if you’re only hyperfocused on one component of it.
Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I just wanna reassure you, they are aware of the systemic issues and they are also interested in those, like I can tell you, like they were just here. Yeah, they are aware.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Probably don’t have all the agreements on that too,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: but anyway. Right. Well, but that’s the thing. Like, I mean, this is, this is the thing.
You’re coming at this from a very specific perspective, with very specific experience. So are they? Yeah. So am I. Well, listen, and I, as far as I know, because I know some folks in this mix socially, this is what I find so frustrating is we’re all kind of on the same side. I, we all want the same things.
Nobody’s trying to like Cape for private equity owned, you know, very true. Like, right. Like we’re not very true. None [00:20:00] of us. And yet here we are.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I’m not, I I will work with anybody And do I I
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I hear it. I know it’s true. So explain the ecosystem.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So the ecosystem is
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: with compassion,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: the ecosystem? Well, the ecosystem is a effectively, you have, in my estimation, there’s five pillars, right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: The four, there are four pillars of functional things that you can focus on. And the fifth one is, I’ll go into it. I’m not sure if it’s really a pillar or not. So, okay. Maybe you can help me with that. So the first one is land. Land encompasses land use and encompasses zoning, right. List, things like that.
Encompasses environmental protections, things like that. Land generally, foundationally is the first pillar of housing. Right. Got it. You have to have some someplace to build the fucking housing. Right, right. Uh, the second one is financing and fiscal health. Right. Financing includes funding. So it includes subsidy.
Right. But we don’t. Well, we can go into what we don’t do or do right? On these things first or, or next, next. But right now, financing fiscal second pillar. Third pillar is permitting, construction, right? Mm-hmm. So the actual [00:21:00] mm-hmm. The actual physical construction and kind of the regulatory process around that.
Mm-hmm. And then the fourth pillar is, uh, economic stability and workforce, right? So effectively, like you have economic stability both for tenants, but for homeowners and for landlords, right? Making sure that there is, there is functionally not a disaggregated in equal right. Landscape there, which there currently is obviously.
Um, and then workforce, right? So like we,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: your workforce to build the housing workforce to, or workforce to earn money to be able
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: to pay for housing. No, well, both, right? Okay. Effectively, so ideally that your workforce that is building the housing can also afford the housing where they’re working, right? Ah, yeah.
Um, and then the fifth pillar, which is, like I said, not necessarily it. Pillar. I mean, I guess pillar progress,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: it’s a,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: it’s a side pillar. It’s it’s system response, right? So it’s basically saying, okay, let’s fix a bunch of stuff that we see in this, these four pillars.
Producer Doug Mackey: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: What if one of one, if something we tried doesn’t work?
This is the bane of government, right? Like,
Producer Doug Mackey: yeah,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: well, we fucking put a bunch of [00:22:00] good policies in and one of them didn’t work, but we don’t wanna pissle off the legislator who created it, and by there’s this, all this like personal ownership, right. Of shit that doesn’t fucking work that we just still do over and over again.
It makes me fucking crazy.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So system response would be like being unafraid it be like, eh, that’s not working anymore. Let’s try something new. Right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. And, and, and we don’t do that because it’s too risky for people who like built their political career on making something happen.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: That’s one component of it.
Okay. But it’s also like sometimes you spend a bunch of money to put something in process and sometimes it works really well. But then it stops working, but it’s been, let’s say three or four years and it stops working and everybody’s kind of like, well, should we just like leave it in place, even if it’s not working as well?
Or should we try something new? But then everybody starts to get in their heads. Well, it’s, it’s a lot of work and it’s like, we gotta negotiate. Yep. You know, this person might be angry. Yeah. And this person that created it really likes it still. And yeah. So one example I’ll, I’ll put forward of this is, is, is kind of in the middle, right?
So it’s the document recording fee, right? So we put in place document [00:23:00] recording fee, which is basically, it, it’s a, it’s a number of fees that go onto documents that are recorded for real estate transactions, right? Mm-hmm. So this funds currently the Covenant Home ownership. Mm-hmm. Uh, uh, program. It funds the homelessness programs.
Mm-hmm. Um, it does, a number of it funds the landlord mitigation program. It funds, uh, couple, a couple other things. Anyway, so it funds these things. These things have a set number of like. A, a number that that had, they have to meet to actually make them viable, right? Mm-hmm. The problem is, is that it’s tagged to real estate transactions.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So when real estate transactions go down,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: by the way, real estate transactions have gone down. We, we’ve gone down like 40%.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So guess what? The funding has gone down.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: And just to clarify, the prices of the homes haven’t gone down. Just No. You didn’t miss anything. The number of total transactions Yeah,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: exactly.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Were down 40% since 2021.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: mainly because of interest rates going
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: up, that that means that funding comes down. It’s not to say that, that, that, that version of a tax, [00:24:00] which it is, I mean, it’s a fee, but it’s a tax. That’s right. Be honest. Right? Yeah. So that it didn’t work when the real estate market was booming.
Right. Yeah. And there was a lot of transactions,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: but when there’s 40% fewer transactions, there’s 40% fewer,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: and now it’s gonna level, it’ll probably go up maybe a little bit, but at some point it’ll level out where it’s just not gonna be at like those peak, like every year, 0% interest rate shit after COVID.
Right,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: right, right.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: And so. That kind of thing. We need to look at it and go, well, shit, rather than just backfilling from the general fund and destroying the operational budget for those needs, oh, let’s actually, I don’t know, think about another way to fund these that is more sustainable. Mm-hmm. Right. Have you heard of any new sustainable options for those sources?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: New, yeah. New taxes.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Well, no, just anything like, any like
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: new ideas for getting tax money.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It’s very hard to do because
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: nobody wants to
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: pay. Nobody wants to do it. Right. And so that’s kind of what I mean is like you have this system response mechanism.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Well, in the real estate lobby fought that fee. I mean, no, most of the time we don’t want, obviously fee, we don’t want increases in costs, obviously.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: And, and, and [00:25:00] again, nobody wants that, right? Yeah. So this actually comes back to this, this, this, this ID ideological perspective, which is like I am 100% on board with like saying, no, we need to change to an income tax model. We’re the richest in our state, pay their fucking fair share. And we don’t listen to them.
Oh, we’re gonna leave the state fuck off. Go. Like,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: you
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: know
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: what I mean? First of all, I wanna say right now, this is the most swears that have ever happened on this podcast in the history of time. I was not expecting it. No, I’m not. Cha this is not sizing you. This is, I can put an explicit warning I told you
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: ahead.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: No, it’s that
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: this was gonna be,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: but also I didn’t know, uh, that we were calling for an income tax today. This is, this is explosive. Okay. But this
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: is nothing new. I mean, this, I, I call, I mean, I think it, it, it, listen, if we went to Idaho’s tax structure, if we went to the state of Idaho’s tax system, we would have billions in, more in, in, in revenue.
Uh, you know, every year. Okay. Billions more revenue every
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: year. So does, okay. So as, as many people know, I moved to Oregon for a little while and then moved back to Tacoma, and so I have [00:26:00] paid income tax for a while and, uh, while not paying sales tax. So yeah, like if we were to have a sales tax and an income tax, ooh, that’s gonna feel, that’s gonna feel like a pinch.
Also, does everybody have to pay the income tax or is it just the rich people that have to pay the income tax? Because I can just hear my Republican parents right now saying, oh, it starts with the rich people, but then they’re gonna tax everybody. What is your plan, Nick? What’s happening
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: that this is, listen, I do,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: and I, and I, I, I can tell
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: you that I have a plan ’cause I do, but
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: nobody, but nobody’s listening
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: to
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: my plan.
Nobody doesn’t, nobody is running for office saying, guess what, everybody, we’re gonna have an income tax.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: No. So I, so we’re not gonna get an income tax other than, my point is, is that again, the system that we have built for housing can work currently. If it’s fixed the way, in my opinion, the way I think we could fix it, I think we can make it work
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: just more Idaho.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: No, not necessarily. It can work within the current tax system if we do the right things. But my point is, is that if you’re hyper-focused on one specific piece [00:27:00] of that system and that specific piece is simply subsidizing or preventing landlords or preventing housing providers who currently have to work within the system that we have, I always
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: feel triggered when someone calls ’em a housing provider, housing provider.
I, oh my God, listen, that’s just such a trigger for me.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Listen, I, that’s why I use thing’s.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Just call a thing a thing. That’s why I
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: use, that’s why I use both. Okay.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: You don’t want, Lord, over the land. I
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: use both. Don’t,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Lord, over the land,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: use landlord and housing provider the
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: same thing. Okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
Please say it again.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: No, no. My point is, is that we just need to if, if we wanna focus on the economic wellbeing
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Of low income tenants. Yeah. Which I think we all do. The way to do that is to change the systemic tax structure. To change the actual system itself. Tagging housing as the solution to that problem is maybe good in the short term.
In the long term, it will hurt tenants because the system that landlords have to function under does not change because you’re changing the system the tenants have to fuck. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. The landlords are,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I’m not [00:28:00] tracking
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: landlords and h and, and, and landlords. I, I, I land housing providers.
I’d say like Tacoma Housing Authority or nonprofits, housing providers. Right. Because they don’t have a, they don’t have like a profit motive other than trying to sustain the buildings that they, they, they work, they have, yeah. Landlords maybe, you know, just a private market. Landlords Okay, but. They all,
okay.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah. Let’s make that
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: distinction. Yeah. But they still all have to function within the system that we have.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I understand.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: You can’t carve out,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: understand
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: something specific
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: for tenants. I, I’m having, I’ll
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: tell you, and then maintain the system
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: for landlords and house, and I understand what you’re saying.
That’s what I’m saying. Understand. I don’t even necessarily like wholeheartedly disagree through what you’re saying, but what I I, I, the heat and the passion that you have and what we’re talking about is the most, like, like Tacoma for all, for example, or the tenant organizing that’s happened in Tacoma, which has been historic.
Incredible. Yeah. And is setting the standard and inspiring tenants across the country. Like the heat, the heat should not be for them. What they are doing is they’re tr they are treating the symptom. They have no power to impact the disease. [00:29:00] You want the, you, you, you take the landlords, take the realtors, take the people who actually have power and finances and lawyers and entire associations.
Save your heat for them. Like, I don’t, I’m not, tenants are literally like, they’re supposed to like moderate, what are they supposed to be moderating and, and doing. You just have a lot of heat for tenant
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: policy. No, I disagree wholeheartedly. I think absolutely. Tenants and the, and the tenant representatives in koro have absolutely the ability to, to, to push for a more high level structural change.
Yes, absolutely. Do. No,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: no, no. Of course they have, they have the ability. But what I’m saying is the heat, I’m just saying, especially in progressive circles, the heat,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I’m not, there’s no heat. I just,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: there’s, there’s a, there’s. So much he,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: nick, it’s just not gonna work.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right. Well, that’s your belief, but what
I’m
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: saying No, it’s, it’s gonna be proven out.
I promise. It’s just not gonna work.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: What, what I’m saying is like it’s gonna gonna
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: increase, it’s gonna increase evictions. Okay. They will increase evictions.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay, cool. Okay, because he does let, hold on. Let’s go to break. It’s, [00:30:00] let’s go to break and we’ll come back with EV evictions.
Erik Hanberg | Channel 253: This is Eric Hanberg with Channel 2 5 3.
Producer Doug Mackey: I’m Doug Mackey.
Erik Hanberg | Channel 253: And Doug Mackey asked to keep this short. So here it is, $4 a month, $40 a year, supports Channel 2 5 3, go to channel two five three.com/membership.
Producer Doug Mackey: More so we’d like to thank our members, especially our time members.
Erik Hanberg | Channel 253: Now it’s too long
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: move to Tacoma. And we’re back.
Erik Hanberg | Channel 253: Yeah, we are
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: with Nick talking about housing ecosystems, talking about everybody has a role to play and we all need to play nicely and be responsible and we all just have different ideas about how everybody is supposed to be operating.
I’m just, I’m just saying. When we’re talking about people who have the resources, the time to, even the luxury to think about this, and I you’re talking about these organizations and their policies, but I’m also just talking about tenants in general. Sure. Right? Like, these are the people with the least amount of power and the least amount of resources within this entire system that are most impacted by it, the ones that will become homeless.
It’s not that they [00:31:00] move down a rung, they’re off the ladder. Right. So I just think that there’s a, a certain amount of respect and, um, de like, I don’t know, like I’m just not gonna yell at people for being freaked out and doing anything that they wanna do to try to protect themselves in that situation.
That’s what, that’s all I’m saying.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah. No, I, I, again, I don’t think you’re wrong. I, I don’t ca I’m, there’s, I don’t
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: think you
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: think I’m wrong either. There’s no, there’s no, I’m not casting moral dispersion on people. Okay. Like, if somebody looks at their situation and know, listen, I don’t have to pay rent and I won’t get evicted because I need to pay for this thing instead.
Mm-hmm. Like, I, there’s no. People do what they need to do. Like I have no problem with that. Mm-hmm. That’s fine. But when you, when the system itself is set up to rely on rental accrue to. Pay for operational maintenance.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: But this of the, of the building.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know where you’re coming from here.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Like, there there [00:32:00] is you and you tell people they don’t have to pay. Humans are humans. They will make decisions.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I, I do, I do.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I don’t know. Right. And so, so this is my point. When you, that is a piece of a system that you are taking away that relies on it to function.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: And you cannot do that without supplementing something else in the system.
But that’s not what we do. ’cause we don’t think of it as a system.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: That’s all I’m saying.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So if we’re gonna have a s Okay. What
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: would be much better than telling people they don’t have to pay rent is giving them rental. For
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: the record. For the record, be honest, we have not been telling people that they don’t have to pay rent.
Well, you, we have been providing basic, not even on the radar for countries in Europe, levels of rental pro we are, we are providing rudimentary, uh, rental protections. And when someone is evicted. They’re not gonna find another place to rent. You cannot rent with an eviction. It is extremely difficult to do.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Agreed.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So nobody, I just think it’s very important. This is not a landlord podcast, you
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: have to remember.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: No, no, no. Lemme finish.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: [00:33:00] I’m cutting this from
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: No, no, no. I understand.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Like housing and authority perspective, right. I mean, I’m No,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: no. I know. I’m a
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: good actor.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I know. I know. You’re a good actor and that’s why, like that’s why you’re here and that’s why we’re having such a candid conversation.
But. The, I’m, I’m not gonna pretend, I’m not gonna reinforce a talking point that the landlords and the realtors use all the time, which is if you provide rental protections, people milk that en mass and that’s gonna be enough to tip the whole system out of balance. And I think the conversation that you were coming at for a minute there that I would like to revisit, ’cause I’m very interested in it, is around, so we have.
Most recently in Tacoma, the tenants, you know, um, they were trying to reduce the protections that we voted in for tenants in the city of Tacoma. Um, uh, I think Sarah Rumba and, um, different lobbying groups. She was kind of leading that with the, the idea was to protect nonprofit landlords, right? Um, they were having issues or
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: public.
Or public
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: or public because if they have large numbers of tenants for whatever reason, let’s say, let’s, [00:34:00] I don’t know why we’re assigning malicious reasons. Let’s just talk about the fact that we’re in a nasty economy, right? I
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: just told you I wasn’t casting moral dispersion, right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: No, it does mean it’s not
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: happening.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: You have to remind me. So, so people are not, if, if people are not able to pay and they are not able to evict their loans are in jeopardy, their entire system is in jeopardy. Now here’s my, here’s my, you’re getting it. Here’s, I, I know you can track with this. So here’s my issue is I’m watching this go down as somebody who.
Knows that executive director who knows the person that’s um, uh, you know, in middle management at that organization that knows the people involved with that organization are good people trying to do good work. That’s how they ended up there. And then I’m also somebody that, uh, knows these tenants that has been a tenant in precarious housing situation before, as have I Right.
Multiple times. I know, I know. You know, so
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I used to be a very poor, you know, 19, 20-year-old.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I understand.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So anybody who’s ever had housing insecurity or is currently experiencing it, you know, like you’re watching this and these are all members of our community. Yeah. And they’re all people. They [00:35:00] are all, you know, and they know each other even.
Mm-hmm. Right. And what is so infuriating to me is watching them because of the systemic conditions, the ecosystem as you call it, they’re. They’re sniping at each other. We’re sniping at each other a little bit. I’m even though I know we’re sniping,
Producer Doug Mackey: I’m at you.
Erik Hanberg | Channel 253: Even,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: even though I know we agree on so much and, and this is so frustrating to me because the problem is up there.
Erik Hanberg | Channel 253: Yes.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: And why are we yelling at each other? I mean, I’m not yelling at each yourself. I mean, we’re yelling in a fun way, but they’re, um, like, this is so frustrating. I do not wanna see the executive directors of these nonprofits fighting with people who are gonna be homeless soon.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes. But
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: like, I can’t, what are we doing?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah. But but that’s, that’s the exact point. Is that this,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: but is that the te But this is the part, is that the tenant’s fault? I don’t think that’s the tenant’s fault. I think they’re doing the last resort activities that they have to do to survive. And we’re not talking about banks, we’re not talking about lending.
We’re not talking about taxation. We’re letting them [00:36:00] duke it out in a city council meeting. This is nuts. Well,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: yes. Yeah, it is nuts. It is and the reason that we got here, because we have a shit fucking tax policy.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Just a, just a shit tax policy. Is that
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: the thing? I mean, that’s, that’s a, that’s a good start, right?
I mean, we. In Washington state, they have the most regressive tax system in all 50, or if not, and re
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: regressive means the people that make the least amount of money, pay the most,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: pay the most as a relative percentage of their income.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay, so just so that’s clear. So
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: like, yes,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: poor people are
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: shouldering the, so it’s this, it’s, it’s, it’s the historic kind of comparison that Warren Buffett makes, right?
Which is his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does. This is a billionaire, right? Yeah. So like that is where this starts because it functionally when this kind of thing happens, when we go into either recession, great recession, or when we get into a COVID style flailing economy, and, you know, I don’t even know what the fuck to call it, right?
But I mean mm-hmm. You know, inflation just jacked right? And skyrocketing, uh, you know, [00:37:00] interest rates up, right? All of that affects poor people more than it affects rich people just by dent of they’ve got money they have, right? Rich people
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: have done great over the
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: last five
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: years.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I mean, if you look at, I mean, one case in point.
This specific little housing thing, right? Is pales in comparison to the amount of money since 2020 that billionaires have made on top of their, their billions, right? I mean
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: 30 billion more. 40 billion, more 500 bill. Like, I mean, Elon Musk
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: solve housing in
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Washington. Stay forever. Right. Money.
Exactly.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: And that is not because our tax system is favorable to poor people, right? And so the systemic, the high level systemic problem that we have is an economic. Problem. Right. And the, the housing functions within that economic system, we can fix components of that system to make it work better, but it will never be what it should be if we don’t fix the overriding economic problem.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: [00:38:00] what I worry about Yeah. Is that if we don’t fix the system, that we have to work within the system that we do have, we have an economic system we have to function in. We cannot be Pollyannish to be like, well if we just create social housing and make sure people can’t be evicted, then all of a sudden the housing system’s gonna be better.
That is fucking folly, dude. It is not Disagree. It not gonna work. It’s not gonna
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: disagree.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It won’t work. It won’t work. Yeah. It won’t work. Not without the tax system, not with the, the economic system being equalized. I think it will not function
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: correctly. Yeah. It does feel like the beginning of the conversation even because where can we unite?
Where can we align? And I don’t know. This is the part, this is the part ’cause like it’s, it seems that we have people. Who are insulated from paying their fair share. I know there are people listening that would not think a billionaire needs to pay a fair share, but like that’s what I would call it, right?
Yes. If we’re talking about taxing wealth in various forms and not taxing work [00:39:00] the way that we’ve been taxing percent, yes. Right? Yes. Okay. So that’s the conversation. Why do we have to talk about the tenants at all right now? Because I mean, what is the, even the impact of what they’re doing compared to what the impact of all of us turning ourselves
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: towards?
No, no, no. There’s a massive impact to not paying rent, especially in a subsidized.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. I think we already established no, in a sub that nobody is not paying rent on. Nobody is not paying rent on purpose.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: That’s, that’s debatable.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Honestly. I, I think, I think, and even if a few people are within the ecosystem you’re describing, it’s a drop.
You know, you’re, they’re frightened of it and they should be frightened of it because it’s the only power they have is to withhold. It’s the only power any of us have in the United States.
So,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: so, and we’ve been so conditioned.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So this is the difference between the landlords and the housing providers, right?
I come at this looking at it from the, the housing perspective, right? Yeah. From housing, from housing authority, from a nonprofit house. That’s a subsidized house,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: right?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: They are tenants are income qualified to live there. And, [00:40:00] and still do not pay rent.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right. In certain, in certain we’re not. But I, we’ve been saying tent, I’m not speaking about that.
Just that slice of tenants. There are a lot of tenants. Yeah. But there are a lot of low income. Not everybody’s in the circumstance you’re describing.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes. But, but my point is, is that the subsidy provided by the state mm-hmm. Or by public entities mm-hmm. Goes to those affordable housing providers.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: If those affordable housing providers do not get the rent that they need, that just puts all of it back.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Right. So what we
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: have on the inequitable tax system to support further infusion of that subsidy. So what
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: we have is a non-profit. Industrial complex that was designed to, to step in while people that make a ton of money don’t pay their share.
Mm-hmm. So they get to make tax deductible donations to systems mm-hmm. That then plug the gaps as best they can. And in this economy, in this climate, do not do anything. Mm-hmm. So, um, what we have is a, a business model that doesn’t work.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: And that’s not the tenant’s problem. It’s not [00:41:00] any of the tenant’s problem.
Well, we ha No, but this is the thing.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It is, at the end of the day.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Well it’s, they’re the ones that are experiencing, that’s my point. The consequences. Yes. That’s my point. Right. But we have a broken business model.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: we have a broken tax model, but that’s not, that’s not, why are we looking to them at all?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I’m not looking to them at, I’m looking to fix the system itself. Right. The reason I’m ex what I’m explaining is that focusing, it’s just that there is this idea that focusing solely on that component of it is going to somehow fix Right. The problem. And it’s not,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: if I haven’t made this clear, like I also don’t believe it’s enough, but I also, I think they should not take their.
They should not take their feet off the gas at all because it’s the only thing that’s getting any kind of respect and attention from all of us. The lo, the various lobbying, well-funded, lobbying groups from real estate, from landlords, from land ownership, from housing environment. Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I don’t,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I don’t disagree
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: with that.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: They’re the most vulnerable piece of this pie. I
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: don’t disagree with that. But I also think that you just have to, they, they’re, you have to functionally understand too, though that the, that there’s, that’s fine. And that I, I agree with you.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: [00:42:00] But we still have to fix the system. Yeah, sure. Within the system that we’re, and, and, sure.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. So we’re looking at, at the system that we’re in there, there’s nothing in our system that inhibits us from taxing wealthy people instead of taxing working people.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I’m just talking about the, that the, the housing
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: system in system. Right. Okay. But even within that, you’re saying you, you have some solutions.
Yes. What are the obstacles to those solutions? It’s not the tenants.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: No, it’s not the tense, but often it’s
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: definitely not the
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: tenants, but often it is a focus on supporting those. Kind of, uh,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: broken business models of non-profit, industrial, like exactly housing, which by the way, I know a lot of good people working in that.
I feel a little embarrassed that they might see this, but like,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: no, no,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: no. It doesn’t seem to be the long term solution.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It’s not the long term. So this is another problem that people have. They, they have an outsized view of what, of the amount of housing that encompasses that system. Right. So the housing trust fund, state of Washington, right.
Housing trust fund is what pushes the subsidy to various nonprofits. Mm-hmm. Housing authorities, whatever the, the, the, the, the industrial complex you’re talking about. Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I shouldn’t call it that, [00:43:00] but whatever.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Well, I mean, it kind of is. I mean, it it, it is human. I also think a lot, a lot of what’s lost here is we’re all humans and humans.
Right. Do what humans do. Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Whether you’re, and if I haven’t caveated this or, I mean, this is the whole thing, like we disagree slash agree on all kinds of things, but we know each other socially. So we’re in this high trust situation to have a difficult conversation. Yeah. I know many of these people that are in these organizations socially, and I think they’re good people working within the system that they understand.
That’s kind of the point of this conversation, right? Yeah. Like, but who, who do I not have sympathy for people with way more freaking money than they need withholding that money to try to control Sure. How the rest of us absolutely live. This is crazy,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: but the. The, the, the system we’re talking about, the subsidized housing system in the state of Washington
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Is like roughly three to 5%.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. So
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: where
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: the rest of it, where’s the rest of the housing?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It’s market rate housing.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay, cool.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: so market rate housing is a problem. Landlords and realtors. No, I’m just saying I’m market
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: rate housing, it’s just, let’s just call it, you know, [00:44:00] it’s just not housing. Publicly supported housing.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So it’s kind of a red herring to even be involving these landlord, their, their broken business model. They’re thing, it’s not even the, it’s not even a big enough piece of the pie to matter. So why are we arguing about it?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Well, you’re right. Kind of and you’re wrong. Kind of. You’re right in a way. Right, because you’re right, we do need to focus on policies and regulations and things like that, that allow us to build in the other system quicker and cheaper.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: In the market rate housing
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: system, in the market rate. Mm-hmm. Again, it may, market rate is, is a term. That’s
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: right. Right. I know that encompasses a lot.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Just, let’s call it market housing. Right,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: but not, like,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: not subsidized market housing,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: not non-profit or Churchill.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So, so 95% of the housing in Washington State is market housing, right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: If we need a million more units in 20 years,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: is that what we need?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Million two technically.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. 1.2 million units in, in
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: 20 years. 20 years to accommodate. And
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: 2045.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: 2044 technically is what the Thank you things based on, so thank
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: you. This is your job.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So to do that, [00:45:00] there is not a, there’s functionally not enough public.
I mean, we’re talking trillions of dollars of investment. You cannot get that from state bonding.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. Wait, how many trillions just ’cause I, I should, I feel like I should know this number Well, I mean, how many trillion to build one
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: you could,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: 1.2 million houses,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: somebody has a, has,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: has a, can you, can you even build 1.2 mil million housing units in 20 years?
Is
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: that this
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: possible?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: This, this is the ecosystem argument, which is No, you can’t, we are woefully behind. We are not gonna even be able to, we’re not gonna functionally come close to that. Okay. And that’s because we are not focusing on the system. We’re focusing on specific components and ideologies and populations.
And I’m not saying that’s, we don’t need to do that. Mm-hmm. We just need to walk and chew gum. Right. Okay. And currently we’re not doing that. We’re not focusing on regulatory barriers, we’re not focusing on the right kind of financing tools. We’re not focusing on the public, uh, the, the, uh, the state’s power, the state’s buying power, the state’s lending power.
Yeah. The state’s ability to guarantee loans. Mm-hmm. None of that shit is even being considered [00:46:00] because it would take a constitutional amendment or it, it’s just too hard to do. We don’t wanna focus, you know, I mean, there’s a bunch of fucking excuses that are garbage because we need to do things and we’re not doing it.
Right. Okay. We need to focus on offsite construction. Right. We, you can manufacture housing which United States pioneered and then went away from. Mm-hmm. And you know, there’s, I’m, we’re not getting into this argument, but there’s various reasons why that happened. And some of them involve cagey things for Democrats.
Right. Okay. But Sweden, Scotland involved. Sure. Japan Sure. Scotland’s killing it. Japan. Right. They, 90% of their units are, are, are, are produced in manufacturing facilities at. Cheaper cost, faster production and easier implement, easier installation. Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. I wanna ask you a question ’cause I know we’re kind of towards the end of our time.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: We haven’t even gotten started yet.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I know. And I, I have so many, I have so many questions. But like, if you could, if, if, let’s do the wave of magic wand thing. Like if you could just determine for the next 20 years how things would go, and I’m gonna warn you right now, I need you to articulate a plan that doesn’t [00:47:00] throw tenants under the bus, that protects the most vulnerable Ive to tenants in our safe.
Okay. So, like, I
Producer Doug Mackey: swear to God that that’s,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I’m doing okay, but every step of the way, every step of the way from day one, that, that protects them. Like, how would that go if you, if you could just say how articulate the vision, uh. How would
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: it go? Okay. We would implement a statewide land banking system, um, that functionally created a land strategy that focused on where the public wants to build and develop and create.
Mm-hmm. And not where the market does.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: perfect.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Cool.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Um, that for land, right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Great.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Um, we would, uh, we’ve done a lot of, in that land category currently, we’ve done a lot of CPA exemptions, already smart ones, good CPA exemptions, but we need to be more mindful of tribal concerns, um, and long-term tribal concerns with those CPA exemptions.
There’s a way to do that. I think, um, there is, there is a way to do that, to consult and make it work. It’s very hard for people. For some reason to get around that idea. Um, especially some, you know, [00:48:00] profit based land.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Developers.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: But as you develop, wait, wait. As you develop this vision, I already, you lost me like the last like 30% of what, I don’t know what a CPA is and I’m sorry, but most people don’t.
So, like I state environment, can you articulate the vision at the eighth grade reading level, please?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes. State Environmental Policy Act, which is, you know, was, it was state’s version of the, of the Environmental Policy
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Act. Okay. Go back to the beginning, but seriously, the whole thing at the eighth grade reading
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: model.
Okay. So, land banking is basically, um, you set up public entities who are able to, uh, have powers, public powers that enable them to hold and ready land for development in
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: places that we
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: actually wanna live in. Places that need it, the places that we want it, that also is usually tax free and has the ability to clear title.
Cool. Basically it lowers economic, uh, it lowers financial barriers to developers. One of the fastest increasing barriers for development is land costs and land entitlement. Okay, cool. Whats next? So’s next thing. So you get public entities to do that, right? Got it. Uh, you, you, you, you, you remove environmental exempt, you know, environmental com regulatory, uh, uh, [00:49:00] components to development that have no bearing on actual environment.
Right. So for example, you’re in the north end, you don’t like the color or that the, the apartment is blocking your view. They’ll use a SEPA argument for that. Right? Okay. Which is not what SEPA’s intended for. Okay. SEPA’s intended for, you know, the Cuyahoga River’s on fire, right? That’s what CIPA is for.
Okay.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: that’s
no.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Using the environment, that’s
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: very simple. But
that’s
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: to be a nimby.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah. But that doesn’t mean that you’re, you’re building buildings that are actually environmentally degradating, like I
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: hear you. I, I understand you. You’re all
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: for the environment. Buildings are actually very environmentally friendly.
Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. Got it. Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Okay. So those are the two things. In land, uh, in financing, we would create. Lending systems at the state level, that when the market was not functioning, you could go to the state for a, a, a loan, a revolving loan that allows you to functionally create housing at a cheaper level. So when you talked about, um, you know, rents rising, blah, blah, blah.
Right? A lot of way, if you have a really good hearted, there’s a number of market landlords who are good landlords mm-hmm. Or good developers, and they [00:50:00] want to do good. Mm-hmm. They have to meet a debt service, they don’t have a choice, right? Mm-hmm. Based on the loans it took out to build and whatever.
Mm-hmm. Right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: If you are able to beat the market on that, using public lending. That becomes a really great tool to ensuring
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So cheap, cheap financing. Financing for good landlords. Yes. We gotta keep this at the eighth grade reading level, then
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: chief financing. Okay. I mean, chief
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: financing for law.
You could, you should hire me.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes. Chief financing for good Landlords.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Uh, also, uh, loan guarantees are really, really beneficial. The, the federal government does this. The state government does not. Again, because of constitutional issues. I don’t buy that shit at all. I think we can do constitutional amendments.
I think people are smarter to figure it out, but it’s a heavy lift for legislators don’t like to do it. Okay. Um, in the permitting construction. Right. So permitting huge. Right. Design, review, uh, streamlining, permitting, putting AI and permitting would be a fucking game changer. This is not, let’s be on,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: okay, so
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: this is not bad ai.
This is
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: not No, no, I understand. I understand. Distinction. That’s data
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: center ai. This
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: is, it’s a rabbit hole. We don’t have to go down. But you’re saying streamlining permitting processes [00:51:00] so that it’s easier for builders, developers to get stuff done. Easier for staff. Everybody’s having easier time.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: 70% of permit staff.
And most cities are spending their time on the phones answering questions that a chat bot could fucking answer in 30 seconds. Okay,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: cool. So we’re streamlining.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes. Uh, and then the construction, the big construction thing right, is, is offsite. Right. Formalizing doing some incentive structures to incentivize offsite construction companies to come into Washington State and build in manufacturing hubs, ship to site to assemble in half the time a third of the cost.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. So this is efficiencies in the construction process itself, correct? Yes. Cool. Okay. Interesting. Next,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: the last thing would be the economic, right? The economic stability and workforce. Right? So creating robust new training programs, whether it’s a statewide AmeriCorps that basically says,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: so that we have enough labor to build
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: all
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: of this.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Exactly. But also that we are providing a, so this, this comes back to the tenant piece, right? Which is if tenants don’t have the money [00:52:00] for their rent
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: mm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: And they have a full-time job or a part-time job, or they’re disabled or whatever it is. A hundred percent cheaper to just supply them with that rental subsidy than it is to either evict them and fund something on the back end.
Right. Or to let the process play out. I, or, or to put or, or to get ’em or have them in a shelter. If they are home, they go homeless and now it’s $70,000 a night.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. So you’re saying for, for the people that for whatever reason, cannot meet market rent Yes. With their labor or whatever, like, we’re just gonna subsidize that ’cause that’s cheaper than
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Absolutely
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: everything
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: else.
It’s the house and choice voucher program at the, at the federal level and
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Alright. And we don’t have to convince any above that. You’re just saying we’re works
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: wonderfully.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay, cool. That’s your plan? Yes. Cool. We’re gonna subsidize some people.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Those are the four thing those,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: and we’re gonna pay for that by, how are we gonna pay for that?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So I have an idea,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I’m listening,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: you know, which would basically say that rising tide lifts all boats. So effectively everybody pays. But wait, so. Let’s say you’re, you have a rental payment, let’s, your rental pay is [00:53:00] $1,500, let’s call it. Right? Okay.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: That’s what
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: it’s, I mean, you’re, you’re getting a really good deal if you have a 1500 month rental
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: payment.
Just, we’re just using a round number.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I mean, can we use like a real one,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: like $2,000?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: There we go. Okay. Your rental payment is
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: 2000, so you would have to figure out what you need to fund the system overall. Right? So you’d have a, a tall number at the, at the end that you’d have to then backfill into who pays what.
But let’s say outta that $2,000 that you pay for rent.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Let’s call it, half a percent goes back into a whatever, right?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So 50 cents on the dollar, is that right? Is that I, wait, I’m so bad at math.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: 1% would be what? 20 bucks. So half percent, 10 bucks.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So 10% of now, now that $10 is not added to your rent.
It’s taken off of your rent. So landlord’s actually getting less money. ’cause part of that money’s going into. Whatever. Then the landlord has a matching amount that they have to pay. Mm-hmm. Right. And it matches that maybe.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So every month on my $2,000 a month rent, $10 of that is going
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: into a
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: fund, siphoned off into a fund and $10 from the landlord is going into a fund.
Yes. Or
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: maybe even it’s, it’s, it’s more, maybe it’s 15 for the landlord.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay, cool.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Now the re now that’s tagged so [00:54:00] that the landlord has every
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: month.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yeah. The landlord has no incentive to raise the rent ba for that. They have incentive to raise rent for other things. Yeah, but not on that. Because if they raise it, let’s say they say, okay, we’re gonna raise the rent to pay for that thing, you know, for the, for the, for the fee.
’cause they’re not, now, they’re not getting that $10 per tenant. Right. Let’s say whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That they just have to increase. They, they’d have to increase their, their match. Right? Mm-hmm. So there’s no incentive to do that. You just have, you just siphon it and then there’s a property, small property tax for homeowners.
Right. Okay. That goes into a giant bucket. Mm-hmm. That then is now available for. To supplement the document recording fee that we talked about. Mm-hmm. So the document recording fee has too much stuff in it?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: You could just take a bunch of stuff out of it and just, just leave the homeless programs and the, and the, and the, and the, the Covenant Homeownership Act and the document recording fee, pull everything else out.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: And you’re gonna fund those through other channels
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: that No, that goes into this new fund. Okay. Plus the rental assistance.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: But it’s basically would be a new voucher system.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. So
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: that’s one idea.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I mean,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: there’s, there’s a number of other ways you could do it. I mean,
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I’m say I kind of don’t love it.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: A
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: lot of people just be like, yeah, like what about the billionaires man?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Okay, so here’s, yeah, but here’s the problem.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Don’t you tell [00:55:00] me they don’t have the money.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: No, that is not the problem at all. The problem is getting something passed through the legislature.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Okay. But this is, you waved a magic wand, Nick.
This was the, this was you made in a magic wand. You can wave the magic wand. What is the rate? What is the, are we just having an actual estate task for the first time in history in the state? Like, are we gonna actually like
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes. Tax wealth to, but you have to understand like, what does that go to? I mean, if we’re gonna tax wealth sure.
But like you have, I don’t
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: know, it’s your magic
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: wand. You have education, you have environment, you have Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, economic development. You have all kinds of just listen, you have all
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: housing is foundational and that’s your new agency.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: You’re, you’re correct. Which is why if you focus this new line of revenue to, to support what is mostly effective as a, as a rental assistance to prevent people from becoming homeless.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Then tagging it to the actual housing ecosystem itself makes sense because you get business buy-in, you get landlord buy-in.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I see.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Okay. Because if you, if you do it in that way, now you [00:56:00] have business and landlords who don’t wanna see anybody on the street any more than anybody else does.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Nobody does.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Okay. So that’s the argument you use, say, listen, we’re going to, everybody’s gonna get tagged with this and we’re going to fix this problem, or we’re gonna do it together so that you don’t have to see people in the outcome of your business when you open up in the morning. You don’t have to drive down the street and pretend that there isn’t a family fucking eating out of garbage can.
Right. Right. Like, we can fix this if we all just do it. But you can’t, it’s harder to do that if you just say, well, we’re gonna do this wealth tax and we’ll just take the wealth tax and we’ll feed it to some stuff. This has tangible like, like, we’re gonna fix this for this reason with this system and, and we’re gonna make it whole based on what, what the problem is, which is rent.
Right. Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So that was, that was interesting Nick.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Okay.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: It was really interesting. I feel like, you know, this podcast is not going the way that all of the podcasts that I do go, but I think what’s really nice is this was like a conversation we’re having, a heated conversation we were having and, uh, we get, we get [00:57:00] to have it in public and I don’t know if anybody will find it useful.
I know I’ve learned a lot, I’ve learned a ton from this conversation, and I have, I’m gonna have a thousand more questions for you next time we talk.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Let’s do it.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah. Have
Producer Doug Mackey: you,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: maybe when I get a new job,
Producer Doug Mackey: have you learned anything from this conversation, Nick?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: What?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: You are very passionate. Huh?
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I’m not the one yelling.
Alright. I’m, I’m really glad that you were willing to come on. Yeah. And, um, I, I’m really excited to see like what happens going forward. I mean, as stormy as everything is right now, it does seem like we’re at the nexus of new stuff.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: We
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: have to be with the way housing goes. We don’t a choice. We can’t keep doing it the way we’re doing.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: No. We don’t have a choice. We have to change
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: everybody’s in enough pain to actually make some
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: changes. Yes. The system has to, has to be changed. We have to think about it differently. We have to be willing to take risks. We have to be willing to innovate. Yeah. Uh, and that’s, you know, bringing it back to the housing department.
I mean, that’s the intent that I always had with, with the original draft when I was thinking about this, when I was working [00:58:00] for the governor, is that we have to have a housing department that is not solely just giving money to the subsidized units. We have to function. We have to have something that says, you know what?
We should have competitions. To, to figure out who can do something best and then implement that, whether it’s AI in permitting mm-hmm. Or whether it’s a system of building homes in manufacturing that, that incorporates local talent training. Um, you know, and, and, and can functionally be a a, I mean, the way that we, the way that we could do this right, is the way that America typically does, which is like we have three big fucking manufacturing hubs in the United, in the state of Washington, and they pound out all the new fucking housing.
Mm-hmm. Right? And they start to take over the market because it’s cheaper, it’s faster, whatever.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Mm-hmm. But
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: we could also do it differently. We could say, you know, we could put one of these in each region. Functionally we could have 30 of these. Mm-hmm. And we could have a manufactured housing plant that is doing offsite construction and training the next [00:59:00] generation in not only ai, but CAD engineering and whatever.
Producer Doug Mackey: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: And it can serve Grace Harbor County.
Producer Doug Mackey: Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Right. And so now you have a hub in Grace Harbor County using Grace Harbor County Wood. Right. Using timber from that com that, that area employing labor from that area, training people at Grace Harbor College. Right? Yeah. And now they, they ecosystem, now they have a, they have a port that they can ship this out to other count, like mm-hmm.
We can think about this in a way that makes fucking sense. Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: I sense, I sense the frustration of a man who’s been working in government
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: for a while. I’ve been trying this for so long. Yeah. So, so anyway, uh, so I am, I, I, I am very passionate about this. I, I. We can do things better and, and there is a way to do them better.
I just, I get, I get frustrated when I, the way that I think is big, right? Mm-hmm. I think systems level, I think uptight, I look at everything at scale and I look down and go, what will work and what won’t work. And so I am not multi-tenant. I’m not multi-tenant rights. I just, I [01:00:00] fear that it, that the, the hyper micro focus is just not going to serve long term the way that, that they’re trying.
That’s all.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So, final words, Nick, like what would you, what would you like to leave us with? You’ve said so much today and you’ve had a lot of big ideas. Like what, what do you wanna leave people with
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: that, that we have the ability to fix this problem? We can fix the housing system, we can make it work for everybody we can functionally, whether it’s within the system that we currently have, we talked a lot about the kind of the economic system.
Mm-hmm. And its limitations. Um, and, and, and, but the system that we have right now as a system that we have
Erik Hanberg | Channel 253: mm-hmm.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Um, we are not going to, we’re not gonna be a socialist state in three years. It’s just not gonna be, it’s not the case. You know, it’s just not gonna happen. We are still gonna be functioning within the capitalist system and the housing system’s not function within that.
We can make it work. It is not wonderful for ideologues. [01:01:00] Right. Myself included. I’m not like a lover of capitalism. Right, right. But I am functionally looking at a system that we have to make work within that system. Right.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: So you’re saying for now, while we are in the system that we are in progress can be made?
Hundred percent yes. And it might not look like what people think it.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Yes.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Needs to
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: apply and, and, and, and to a certain extent it is, it may be the only way that progress can, can be made, right? Because the, we haven’t even gone into costs, the cost of a affordable unit to produce in Washington state in the areas that we need it, which is, you know, let’s just say Everett.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: right. Seattle Tacoma.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Very expensive.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It’s like 750 fucking thousand dollars per unit just to build.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah,
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: we’re talking about multifamily apartment units.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Yeah.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: That is unsustainable,
right?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: It is unsustainable. The market market can do it much cheaper. So if we’re just looking at it from a, what do we have from a tax base?
What do we have from a, a subsidy amount and what do we [01:02:00] have, as you know, in the market, they can build it at half the cost, if not less.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Mm-hmm. All right.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: So. We have to find a way to like continue to subsidize and build those units for the lowest income that we can. Mm-hmm. We have to find a way to lower the cost substantially through all the mechanisms I talked about from land financing.
Mm-hmm. Permanent construction. Mm-hmm. Economic stability. We lower the cost and we lower the cost curve long term with new technology and new deregulatory actions, I should say regulatory relief actions. Right? Mm-hmm. We’re not deregulating, we’re just trying to mm-hmm. Find smart ways to reduce barriers.
Mm-hmm. You can get that cost down enough that you should be able to build affordably and house affordably without subsidy for the majority of Washingtonians.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Alright. All right. Nicholas Carr.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Thank
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: you. What’s your job title again?
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: Housing Policy Strategic Advisor at the Department of Commerce in the housing division.
Housing Policy, strategic Initiatives Unit.
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: Thank you for [01:03:00] coming and sharing all of your knowledge with us today.
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I appreciate it. Thank you for, uh, hosting me in my first podcast. I’m
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: very excited. Excited. Well, you killed it. You killed it. Well, thank you. Most swears in any move to Tacoma episode. Yes, that’s the
what
Nicholas Carr | Housing Policy Advisor WA State: I was looking
Marguerite Martin | Move to Tacoma Podcast Host: for.
You get the trophy. Thanks Nick.
Producer Doug Mackey: If you like this podcast, check out, move to tacoma.com. Move to tacoma.com is a neighborhood guide, blog and podcast to help people in Tacoma Pierce County and beyond find their place in the city of Destiny. More information@movetotacoma.com. Move to Tacoma is part of the Channel 2 5 3 Podcast network.
Check out these other shows. Nerd Farmer, interchangeable White Ladies, citizen Tacoma Crossing Division, grit and Grain. What Say You and Kitchen. 2 5 3. This is Channel 2 5 3.