Seattle council signs off on Mayor Wilson's shelter expansion plan

The Seattle City Council signed off Tuesday on a bill allowing emergency shelter sites to host as many as 150 people, and one location to grow up to 250.

Previous regulations capped the size of tiny home villages, vehicle lots or other forms of temporary shelter at 100 people. But Mayor Katie Wilson, in her first-year push to stand up 1,000 new shelter beds, believes several locations have additional capacity that could be relatively easy to bring online.

The regulations passed in the bill, sponsored by Councilmember Dionne Foster, are temporary and the council will have to return to make the changes permanent in a few months. Still, the legislation signals support is strong.

It's critical that we act with urgency as neighbors continue to ask what we're doing to support our unhoused neighbors," said Councilmember Eddie Lin, chair of the city's land use committee.

The vote came despite significant friction between the mayor, now nearly six months into her term, and the council over the specificity of her plans and the level of outreach she and her staff had conducted before introducing this bill and others.

Those tensions boiled over in recent weeks after some of Wilson's staff pushed the council to pull proposed amendments or delay voting. Council members took offense at the perceived crossed line between separate branches of government and have made their displeasure well known.

Following the blowup, Wilson made a series of staffing changes last week, including swapping out her chief of staff for someone with more council history.

"This is another big step forward towards my highest priority: rapidly expanding shelter and emergency housing so we can bring people inside," Wilson said in a statement after the council's vote.

Before the vote Tuesday, Councilmember Bob Kettle called for a more fully baked plan to achieving Wilson's goals and criticized the process up to this point.

The bill "has raised many questions about the stakeholder process, standards of care for high service shelter, and lacks a fully thought-out plan on expansion," he said.

Wilson's expansion bill is one of three she introduced to help speed shelter construction. The first two passed earlier this year.

One set aside $8 million in spending to set up and run 500 shelter beds this year, on top of about $9 million tapped by the mayor's office that does not need council approval.

The second gave the city new authority to sign leases for larger pieces of land at market rates, lifting a previous limitation on the size and cost of real estate secured directly by the city.

The expansion bill has proved the most controversial, in part because it touches on some of the underlying fears associated with emergency shelter, namely around public safety, neighborhood relations and whether the people living there have the support and resources they need to eventually move into permanent housing.

"We have to lead with that compassion for our neighbors in crisis but we also have to look out for the neighborhoods," Kettle said.

Once Wilson signs the bill, the total capacity at 15 tiny home villages in Seattle will increase from over 600 today to more than 1,100. Camp Second Chance in Southwest Seattle, which currently has 69 beds, sees the biggest jump to 250 beds.

Wilson and her team have said they agree with council members that the sites need intense services and resources and can't take the bare-bones approach of some existing tiny home villages.

During committee, the council passed amendments requiring sites with more than 100 beds to have a public safety plan, to enter communication agreements with nearby neighborhoods, to maintain a high ratio of case managers and to staff them 24 hours a day.

Members took up three additional proposed changes during the bill's final hearing Tuesday. One, allowing the city to negotiate additional safety agreements with sites close to schools or other transitional encampments, passed, 5-4, amid debate over whether it was redundant or a valuable extra tool.

Another requiring sites with more than 100 residents to have overnight security failed, 2-7, over concerns about cost. Third, proposing sites be subdivided into "neighborhoods with fewer than 50 beds also failed, 4-5.

Wilson has announced two new shelter sites, in Interbay and South Park. She previously said she hoped to add 500 beds by the summer's World Cup, though her staff have acknowledged that's likely a reach.

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This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 11:41 PM.