Mayor Katie Wilson's leader of shelter expansion plan leaves office
Mayor Katie Wilson's policy adviser leading her most ambitious project to shelter 4,000 people resigned Wednesday morning, the mayor's chief of staff confirmed.
Jon Grant's exit comes weeks after Wilson replaced her chief of staff and in the wake of a deteriorating relationship between her office and the Seattle City Council.
Grant's exit is notable because he was helping lead Wilson's promise to add 4,000 new shelter beds during her first term - including 1,000 this year.
Grant recently worked for the nonprofit Low Income Housing Institute, the city's primary supplier of tiny home villages and the state's largest affordable housing operator. Finding and securing new shelter sites became his top job under Wilson - a task that could see him funneling work to his previous employer. He was also one of several members of Wilson's administration tasked with ushering her policy proposals through the legislative process to help speed up that effort.
The council passed all three bills aimed at funding and expediting new shelter. So far, her team has identified two new sites and successfully passed legislation through the council allowing the city's current tiny home villages to grow from 100 beds to 150.
But the council has chafed at how he and other members of Wilson's administration have postured themselves. They've publicly complained about poor communication, missed steps in the legislative process and lack of a specific plan for when, where and how new shelter would be built. Privately, council members have clashed with mayoral staffers over perceptions they were being treated as an extension of Wilson's office, rather than an independently elected body.
Responding to their criticisms, Wilson earlier this month removed her chief of staff and longtime friend, Kate Brunette Kreuzer, and replaced her with a City Hall veteran, Esther Handy.
Handy thanked Grant for his service.
Jon helped develop and implement the mayor's Shelter Accelerator executive order, worked to pass three key pieces of legislation and provided support to the Seattle Social Housing Developer through a key period, she said.
Wilson also consolidated council relations under her deputy mayor, Brian Surratt, whom many members of the council knew before Wilson was elected.
Grant was another staffer who had frequent contact with members of the council.
Though turnover in mayoral administrations is typical, particularly in the first year, Wilson's recent moves stand out as quick and dramatic. Wilson and Brunette Kreuzer go back years to their days working together at the Transit Riders Union, the advocacy organization founded by Wilson.
Grant has been a longtime fixture in housing and homelessness advocacy in Seattle. Previously the executive director of the Tenants Union, he twice ran for Seattle City Council in 2015 and 2017.
Neither Brunette Kreuzer nor Grant had previously worked in city government.
Two other members of Wilson's office, Jen Chan and Edie Gillis, will also soon be leaving to return to their previous jobs. Both departures were preplanned for six months into Wilson's term.
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