A blistering new report and a loud tenant march have put the Seattle Housing Authority directly under the microscope. At Rainier Vista in Columbia City this week, tenants and supporters marched through the complex to hand over what they described as thousands of unfinished work orders and to demand faster repairs and clearer accountability. Residents talked about mold, persistent leaks, pests and repairs that languished for years, turning a long running dispute over SHA maintenance into a very public fight over whether public housing is truly safe and livable.
Got Green's findings
Got Green's report, released this week, sketches out widespread problems across SHA properties and a sizable backlog of repairs. According to The Urbanist, inspection records show that 95% of units inspected between 2022 and 2023 had unaddressed maintenance issues, and 61% were flagged for health and safety concerns. The report says 3,372 of SHA's roughly 8,777 households have repair requests that remain incomplete and that many of those requests have been waiting 100 days or more. Got Green counted 6,475 open work orders through August 2025.
Tenants and organizers speak out
Organizers say the problems are concentrated in south Seattle properties and are already affecting residents' health and livelihoods. In its account of the Rainier Vista action, Got Green describes tenants submitting stacks of repair requests together and sharing stories of repeated flooding, moldy carpet, broken refrigerators and plumbing troubles that dragged on for years without lasting fixes. The campaign frames those experiences as proof that the maintenance system is failing tenants and also straining the workers who are supposed to keep up with repairs, according to Got Green.
SHA pushes back
The Seattle Housing Authority defends its performance and says the overall numbers tell a different story. SHA notes that roughly 90% of its federally subsidized properties have received passing scores from HUD's Real Estate Assessment Center since 2022 and says it completed about 74,000 maintenance requests in 2025, figures reported by The Urbanist. The agency also points to planned multi-year weatherization and decarbonization projects and warns that shifts in federal support, including the end of Emergency Housing Voucher support in 2026, complicate long term repair planning, per a post on Seattle Housing Authority's website.
Why a passing score isn't the whole story
HUD's REAC inspections produce a single numeric score that is meant to summarize physical conditions across a sample of units in each property, but that snapshot can hide what is happening inside individual apartments. Critics and investigative reporting have found that the system sometimes misses recurring hazards even when a building receives a passing grade. For an overview of the inspection program, see HUD, and for reporting on inspection gaps, see ProPublica.
Tenant demands and the legal backdrop
Tenants have organized their push around four central demands: clear the repair backlog, guarantee swift and accessible repairs, treat residents with dignity and give tenants formal bargaining power and recourse with SHA. Got Green's platform calls for specific repair timelines, including electricity, water and heat restored within 24 hours, appliances and plumbing fixed within 72 hours and all other repairs completed within 10 days, along with legally enforceable habitability standards. Washington's landlord tenant law outlines tenants' remedies, cure periods and a standard 10 day timeframe after notice for many repairs; see RCW 59.18 and Got Green's demands at Got Green.
What's next
SHA's 2025 budget and planning documents lay out plans for additional maintenance positions and a deferred maintenance crew intended to start chipping away at long delayed work, but advocates say clear, tenant-centered accountability measures are still missing. Organizers signal that public pressure will continue as tenants and community groups push city leaders and SHA officials for enforceable repair timelines and more transparent reporting. For SHA's planning and maintenance proposals, see the agency's budget materials from Seattle Housing Authority and the agency overview at Seattle Housing Authority.
