Introduction
Solidarity Budget launched in September 2020, bringing together 200+ community groups (representing tens of thousands of Seattle residents) united in calling for a 2021 City Budget that could rise to the overlapping challenges of systemic anti-Black racism, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis, and the climate catastrophe. The coalition championed budget priorities that resulted in historic divestments from policing, corresponding investments in community, and reversals of harmful cuts to vital public services that would have slowed Seattle’s recovery from the COVID-19 recession.
Coming on the heels of the summer 2020 uprising in defense of Black lives, last year’s Solidarity Budget sought to center community calls to defund SPD and reinvest in communities. We knew that investments into community care, support, and safety for Black, Indigenous, migrant, unhoused, disabled, queer, trans and low-income communities went hand-in-hand with cuts to policing. One year later, the push to divest from policing and reinvest in community remains central to our vision.
The budget requests reflected in the following pages should come as no surprise for anyone who has been paying attention. We know that those closest to the problems are closest to the solutions, and time and time again our communities have offered recommended solutions to the thorniest problems facing our city. We have participated in dozens of task forces, generated our own community-based research, and offered our wisdom to outside researchers, only to see our recommendations ignored, co-opted, or only partially-implemented. This year’s Solidarity Budget reflects our accumulated wisdom and expertise, and we urge City leaders to implement its recommendations.*
* See appendix for a list of research reports and recommendations we relied on