In early February, Seattle voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 1A, making Seattle the first city in the country to explicitly commit itself to building social housing. Prop 1A funds the Seattle Social Housing Developer, which was created by a 2023 ballot initiative, by taxing companies that pay any of their individual employees over $1 million dollars per year.

Both of these initiatives were spearheaded by a coalition called House Our Neighbors, which included the Seattle chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and other progressive groups. The approach to social housing embodied by Prop 1A, inspired by models like Vienna’s, allows for mixed-income housing, with rents on a sliding scale allowing higher-income tenants to subsidize lower-income tenants.

In Seattle, the Chamber of Commerce, corporations like Amazon and Microsoft, the mayor, and the city council all fought against the social housing campaign. Jacobin spoke to House Our Neighbors co–executive director Tiffani McCoy about the Prop 1A model, how the campaign won in Seattle, and what to expect for social housing in Seattle going forward