Meet Tacoma City Council candidate Catherine Ushka
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of interviews with candidates running for Tacoma City Council. In each interview, The News Tribune asked every candidate two questions: what they pay in rent or mortgage, and if they could correctly state the median home sale price in Pierce County, which is around $500,000 as of April 2021.
Catherine Ushka is running for re-election to the Tacoma City Council District 4 seat, which represents parts of Eastside and South End neighborhoods.
Ushka was first elected to the position in 2017 and previously served as a member of the Tacoma Public Schools Board of Directors.
Ushka, 52, has lived in Tacoma for more than 20 years. She currently chairs the city’s Community Vitality and Safety Committee and the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center Board, in addition to participating in various committees such as the Pierce County Regional Council, the Opioid Prevention Taskforce and National League of Cities. She’s also the board president of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
Ushka said she was compelled to run for re-election because the city is facing an “unprecedented crisis” in terms of health, social justice, the economy, homelessness and housing.
“I have the experience to create policy that actually creates positive effects, and I think it’s critical that we act quickly to get us back to where we were before the (COVID-19) pandemic,” she said.
Ushka said that housing and homelessness are two of the biggest issues facing Tacoma today. While she feels the city’s efforts to stand up more shelters and warming centers have helped to alleviate some of the problems faced by people who are unhoused, the city must take innovative approaches for housing stability.
If re-elected, Ushka said she will continue to advocate at the state and federal levels for greater flexibility and funding for affordable housing, shelter and support for mental health and substance abuse recovery.
That includes a “low-barrier” shelter site, meaning there are fewer barriers to entry for people in need of shelter. The city is looking at potential properties for a low-barrier site.
“I think that we have an opportunity to teach people that people who are experiencing homelessness are not going to ruin the neighborhood. They’re not dangerous. They just need help,” she said.
Ushka said the city’s agenda should include asking the federal government to review the rates it pays people with disabilities, who struggle to live off that income.
“Those rates haven’t been visited since the ‘70s,” she said.
To address the lack of affordable housing in Tacoma, Ushka said she feels the city is behind when it comes to increasing zoning density to allow for more housing options. That should include design standards to ensure existing characteristics of a neighborhood can also be maintained, she said.
Ushka said the city will consider options and programs to help people coming out of the statewide eviction moratorium at a committee meeting this week.
The city should also look for more affordable housing tools, she said. The city’s Multifamily Tax Exemption tool can require, in some instances, developers to preserve affordable units, but it was not created as an affordable housing tool and there have been limited MFTE projects in District 4, Ushka said.
“It’s not a good enough tool,” she said.
Aside from housing and homelessness, addressing police reform is an important focus for Ushka. Ushka supports a recent study commissioned by the city that recommends changes to the Tacoma Police Department’s use-of-force policies, in addition to a separate study that determined some emergency calls could be diverted to an alternate response team rather than sworn officers.
“You need mental health professionals to respond to mental health crises, for instance,” she said. “There is a deficit of mental health resources in this county, in the state — that is nothing new.”
At the same time, she said law enforcement is needed in Tacoma, as indicated by local crime rates. Homicides skyrocketed in 2020 compared to previous years.
“I understand the call for slashing the budget, but I interpret that as transformation,” she said. “... We can’t change the past; we can only change the future.”
Ushka said she’s also committed to environmental justice in all forms, from addressing food deserts — Eastside Tacoma has historically been known as one — and preventing the use of fossil fuels in city buildings, an effort that recently was approved by City Council. Ushka said she’s had pushback about some efforts, such as making sure all buildings are equipped with electric car infrastructure, but she argues that not doing so could create another urban desert in the future.
“Eastside and South Tacoma have the least tree canopy of the entire Puget Sound region,” Ushka said. “... When we look at public health outcomes, we know that somebody who grows up on the Eastside of Tacoma is likely to live 12 years less than people in other parts of Tacoma.”
During her time on Council, Ushka voted in support of halting expansion of fossil fuels on the Tideflats as the city and other local jurisdictions work on a plan to decide the future of the Port of Tacoma.
“I think that we have to take fossil fuels seriously in relation to global warming and climate change,” she said.
Ushka said she also understands the concern by members of the business community about what stricter industry regulations might mean for them, but said there needs to be action.
“It is true (that) if you have instability in a major port that has a global network, that’s going to influence what kind of investments go there,” she said. “But it’s been three and a half years. And I’m not sure that we’ve gotten any further than we were before, and we need to make progress.”
What do you pay in rent/mortgage?
Ushka pays $1,215 a month on a house she’s lived in for 20 years.
What is the median home sale price in Pierce County?
“The median house price in Pierce County is up over half a million.”
This story was originally published June 23, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
