City of Seattle Office of Planning and Community Developments Understanding of and Approach to Displacement

In Seattle, immense growth has caused displacement due to heightened unaffordability that has disproportionately impacted underinvested communities of color. The City of Seattle has developed analytical tools and implementation strategies to both better understand, identify, and combat displacement. The City created a mapping tool, the Anti-Displacement Risk Index, that forecasts areas of Seattle where displacement of marginalized populations is more likely to occur. Policy and programmatic responses that center equity such as the inclusionary zoning change “Mandatory Housing Affordability,” the Equitable Development Initiative which provides direct investment in communities that have historically been unable to access funding or direct government investment, and the Duwamish Valley Program that advances Seattle’s environmental justice goals and promotes equitable development in residential neighborhoods. The City continues to focus on ways to reduce displacement by limiting barriers to access through legislation and evolving community-driven opportunities that drive generational wealth building and neighborhood stabilization.