Seattle – Today, after months of vague promises, mayoral candidate Katie Wilson finally revealed her homelessness and revenue plans. While her stated plan is to stand up 4000 emergency shelter units citywide in advance of the 2026 World Cup, she has failed to provide an implementation strategy or cost of this plan.

However, estimates based on similar investments suggest a cost of $500 million or more. Additionally, building shelter to this scale would require access to massive amounts of land or existing building space, needed hygiene and sanitation facilities, and the staffing to ensure these shelters are safe and supportive. This depletion of existing resources would require massive cuts in existing housing and other city programs, and would balloon the city’s deficit by hundreds of millions of dollars.

This budget approach is in alignment with Wilson’s limited experience managing budgets at the helm of the Transit Riders Union, where the organization has consistently run income losses for the last three years according to ProPublica records.

Wilson’s stated revenue ideas to help fund this plan include City capital gains and vacancy taxes. These sources would produce– in best case scenarios– approximately $40 million, and would not be available until 2028. This is a fraction of the $500 million in new expenses her homelessness program would incur in 2026, with additional expenses to keep these facilities open and operating.

Here are the details of Katie Wilson’s faulty revenue proposal:

• A City capital gains tax – estimated to raise $30 million at a 2% rate. No other city in the country has a capital gains tax, in part due to the ease of tax avoidance at the municipal level. The earliest the tax could be collected is in 2028 if passed as part of the budget process in 2026.

• The vacancy tax proposed is illegal under state law. A similar vacancy tax in British Columbia raises approximately $10.5 million annually in US dollars in the City of Vancouver. Implementing the tax would require a new law to be passed in Olympia during a short legislative session, meaning the earliest it could realistically be collected is in 2028.

• Changing payroll expense tax rules to fund shelter. Under Mayor Harrell, PET revenues can already be spent on general fund priorities like shelter. This is the latest Katie Wilson flip-flop, after consistently criticizing the mayor for changing how the PET is spent, saying it wasn’t appropriate for “fund[ing] ongoing operations that depend on stable funding from year to year.” Now, Wilson is following Harrell’s lead and proposing the same approach.

Meanwhile, the details of her shelter “plan” are simply fantastical. Wilson is proposing to open enough shelter “to get people inside in time for the World Cup”– in the first six months of her term. Putting aside the lack of budget authority, the required mass permitting, and the physical space required for this plan, the total cost of shelter could range from over $200 million for tiny homes or enhanced shelter in year one, up to over $500 million for behavioral health enhanced shelter, the most needed shelter resource for those experiencing homelessness on the ground. This plan would cost an additional $130 million to $340 million per year as long as they remain open.

While the City has faced structural deficits in each of Mayor Harrell’s four years due to systemic factors, like pandemic recovery, national economic trends, inflation, and the state’s arbitrary property tax lid, Katie Wilson’s deficit would be different: entirely self-created. Mayors must propose a balanced budget – meaning Wilson would need to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in existing programming in order to fund her plan.

Wilson hasn’t discussed where she would make these cuts; however, she previously advocated for the abolition of SPD and endorsed the Solidarity Budget, which proposed a 50% cut to SPD. Public safety investments make up approximately 50% of the City’s general fund, so without cuts to police or fire, Wilson would need to cut investments in areas like parks or human services.

“In sum, the math doesn’t add up. Katie Wilson’s impossible proposal to open 4,000 units in six months means increasing the City’s deficit by hundreds of millions of dollars,” said a spokesperson for the Harrell campaign. “Add to this other unachievable promises with vague spending attached like municipal grocery stores, taxpayer funds for online blogs, and summer childcare, and Wilson is selling Seattleites a bill of false goods with checks that can’t be cashed.”