Housing and Affordability: Revisiting Katie Wilson’s First Interview on Converge

By a narrow margin, Katie Wilson is projected to win the 2025 Seattle mayoral race against incumbent Bruce Harrell. With fewer than 1000 ballots remaining as of Wednesday, November 12th, it became mathematically impossible for Harrell to win, leaving Seattle with its first democratic socialist mayor-elect.

In light of her win, Converge looks back on Wilson’s first interview with Trae Holiday on The Day With Trae on April 6, 2025. Wilson, a self-described community organizer of 14 years and founder of the Transit Riders Union, spoke about her decision to run for mayor and what she planned to prioritize in office. 

Wilson says she initially envisioned her role in community organizing as distinct from running for office. 

"When people have said, 'Oh, you should run for office,' my answer has always been no,” she said. The shift came after the February 2025 special election regarding the funding for Seattle's new social housing developer, the spark that ignited her campaign.

Wilson criticized Mayor Harrell’s alignment with major corporations like Amazon and Microsoft. The success of the new social housing initiative is critical, she said, fearing it "could easily fail and be seen as a boondoggle" if the city's elected leaders do not actively support it.

According to Wilson, this concern solidified her decision to run. 

"If I had to sum up my campaign in one word, that word would be ‘housing,’” she said. "So many people in our communities are feeling the pinch of high rents and unaffordable housing."

Her background in organizing, which began with the Transit Riders Union in 2011 to fight proposed cuts to bus service, has shaped her approach, she explained, highlighting victories like the Orca Lift low-income fare program and free transit passes for youth across Washington state. 

For organizing, Wilson said her work expanded to a multi-issue approach, including running a successful initiative in Tukwila to raise the minimum wage and advocating for stronger protections for renters in Seattle and seven other cities around King County. She also stressed the importance of progressive revenue, citing her role in winning the JumpStart payroll expense tax on corporations.

"All of this is coalition work. And that's been my role has been to really bring together like many many organizations, individuals, and coordinate these large coalitions to win these victories which really put money back into the pockets of working families in our region,” she said. 

When asked how she would remain connected to community voices as mayor, Wilson explained that her time on “the outside" of elected leadership has informed her view of the "inside" job. According to Wilson, she aimed to dismantle the negative perception that city hall is remotely separated from the city’s constituents. “We're supposed to be representing you,” she said. 

Beyond housing, Wilson addressed economic disparity, proposing policies to help communities displaced by development, such as supporting the Africa Town and community land trust models to create “affordable home ownership opportunities.”  

For small businesses, Wilson said she seeks ways to facilitate access to low-interest or no-interest loans. She also expressed a desire to explore ways to regulate commercial leases and develop a strategy for commercial rent control, suggesting a "master lease”  of many ground floor small business spaces, taken out by the city, to gain control over rents and intentionally curate a "mixture of uses" to benefit neighborhoods.

As we move forward toward the mayoral inauguration and Wilson’s term, Seattle will see what promises the mayor-elect will deliver on.

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