An Affordable & Connected King County
Acknowledgements: This policy platform was developed in partnership with community, urbanist, and housing leaders including Anna Zivarts, Alison Eisenger, Jeff Paul, Tiffany McCoy, Tammy Morales and many more in their personal capacity. Rebecca Saldana’s campaign is committed to continuing to improve her policy platforms with feedback and through bringing together experts and stakeholders. If you would like to contribute to this platform please email us at Rebecca@rebeccasaldana.com
Building a King County Everyone Can Afford
King County should be a place where working families, young people, seniors, immigrants, and longtime residents can afford to live their best lives, raise a family, and age in community while staying connected to opportunity. But today, too many people are being pushed out of the communities they helped build.
Housing costs continue to skyrocket. Long commutes and unreliable transit steal time away from families. Homelessness continues to rise as rents and inflation outpace wages and our region fails to build enough affordable housing. Working people are being asked to pay more while wealthy corporations and the ultra-rich continue benefiting from an economy that is leaving too many behind.
Rebecca has spent her career fighting for a different vision: a King County where people don't just get by—they thrive. A place where families can afford to live near their jobs, children can safely walk to school and the library, seniors can age in the communities they helped build, small businesses can succeed, neighbors know one another, and every community has access to parks, cultural spaces, grocery stores, childcare, healthcare, and reliable transit.
Affordability isn't simply about lowering costs. It's about creating complete communities where people have the time, opportunity, and a sense of belonging that make their neighborhood feel like home. In D2 it means preventing displacement by protecting and growing Black homeownership and rooting Black and historically redlined communities so we all can share the benefits and challenges of growing together.
As a labor organizer, Executive Director of Puget Sound Sage, and State Senator, Rebecca has consistently championed policies that connect affordability, transportation, housing, climate justice, racial justice and worker power. She believes we cannot solve the housing crisis without solving transportation challenges, and we cannot build a more affordable region without addressing displacement, inequality, and Washington’s deeply regressive tax code.
On the King County Council, Rebecca will fight to build an Affordable & Connected King County where people can afford to stay, move, work, and thrive.
Building Complete Communities start with racial equity
Rebecca believes affordability is about more than housing costs. It is about whether people can build a life in the communities they love.
Every neighborhood should be a place where people can buy groceries, visit a park, walk safely, support local businesses, take transit, access childcare and healthcare, attend cultural events, check out books from their local library, and spend more time with family instead of sitting in traffic.
County government has an important role in making these investments work together. Housing, transportation, parks, public health, open space, economic development, behavioral health, and climate resilience should not be planned in isolation. When we invest together, we create communities where people experience greater affordability, stronger connections, healthier lives, and greater opportunity.
Affordable Housing At Every Level
Housing is a human right. Yet across King County, far too many people are one rent increase, medical bill, or lost paycheck away from housing instability.
Over the last decade, rents in King County have nearly doubled, pushing families out of their neighborhoods, increasing homelessness, and accelerating displacement and gentrification — especially in Black, brown, immigrant, Indigenous, and working-class communities. Young people are struggling to afford their first apartments or buy their first home. Seniors on fixed incomes are being displaced from longtime homes. Workers commute farther and farther because they cannot afford to live near their jobs.
Rebecca believes the homelessness crisis is fundamentally a housing affordability crisis rooted in decades of underbuilding affordable housing, exclusionary zoning, speculation, and disinvestment in communities.
We need bold action equal to the scale of the crisis.
Rebecca’s Leadership
Rebecca has spent years fighting to expand affordable housing, strengthen tenant protections, and address the root causes of homelessness and displacement.
In the State Senate, she:
Championed historic investments in the Housing Trust Fund, supporting more than 60,000 affordable homes and homelessness prevention programs across Washington
Led efforts to end exclusionary zoning and legalize more housing types in more neighborhoods
Passed major tenant protections, including caps on rent increases and stronger eviction prevention protections
Helped advance community-led housing strategies rooted in anti-displacement and equitable development
Supported community land trusts, social housing models, and equitable transit-oriented development
Advocated for the Black Home Initiative and Covenant Homeownership Program to address the legacy of racist housing discrimination
Championed progressive revenue solutions like the Capital Gains Tax and Millionaires Tax to fund housing and essential services
Before elected office, as Executive Director of Puget Sound Sage, Rebecca helped lead regional work connecting housing affordability, environmental justice, transit equity, anti-displacement strategies, and equitable development. She worked alongside community organizations fighting to ensure development benefited existing communities instead of displacing them.
That work helped advance community-centered development projects, equitable transit-oriented housing and childcare, community land trusts, and long-term anti-displacement strategies across King County.
Equitable Transit-Oriented Development
Rebecca has been a statewide leader in advancing equitable transit-oriented development — the idea that we should build affordable housing, community spaces, childcare, small business opportunities, and public infrastructure near reliable transit so families can live closer to opportunity and spend less time and money commuting.
Throughout her career, Rebecca has worked to connect transportation investments with anti-displacement strategies so transit expansion anchors existing communities while also inviting in more neighbors.
She has championed:
Affordable housing near transit hubs
Community-led development around transit investments
Priority hire and apprenticeship pathways for higher wage jobs and raising wages for historically lower wage service, care, and hospitality work where we Black, immigrant and women workers are over represented.
Mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods
Reduced car dependence and lower transportation costs
Equitable development initiatives and community land trusts
Public land strategies that prioritize affordable housing near transit
Investments connecting historically underserved communities to reliable transit access
Neighborhood-serving small businesses and local commercial districts
Libraries, parks, childcare, and community gathering spaces integrated into new development
Arts, cultural institutions, and public spaces that preserve neighborhood identity and belonging
Safe, accessible streets where children, seniors, and people with disabilities can comfortably walk, bike, and access transit
Rebecca believes equitable transit-oriented development is one of the most important tools we have to address affordability, climate pollution, displacement, and economic inequality simultaneously.
Rebecca’s Plan for King County
As a County Councilmember, Rebecca will use every available tool to dramatically expand affordable housing, steward green spaces, prevent displacement and create opportunities to return to D2 by applying environmental justice principles to iteratively work with communities to incorporate their priorities and partnership.
She will fight to:
Build hundreds of thousands of new homes across King County, including deeply affordable housing, workforce housing, supportive housing, and first-time homeownership opportunities
Use public land, surplus properties, and transit-adjacent sites for affordable housing development
Advocating for state land banking to maximize the opportunity created by the economic slowdown caused by federal tariffs and reckless wars to acquire property for large neighborhood developments and to scale pre-development, hook-ups, and other infrastructure that will support deeply affordable public and private developments.
Expand community land trusts, social housing, and equitable development initiatives
Increase investments in rental assistance, eviction prevention, and homelessness prevention programs
Build on the community wins of Local Priority Hire and Covenant Homeownership Program by applying identified “distressed” zip codes and the precedent of 120% to more programs, policies, and funding sources.
Strengthen tenant protections and anti-displacement policies
Streamline permitting and remove unnecessary barriers to housing production
Eliminate outdated exclusionary policies that limit housing choices
Expand housing near transit, jobs, childcare, schools and local priority hire and minority business inclusion in how we build and who works in the buildings once they are built.
Ensure housing investments create good-paying union jobs and community benefits
Stopping the unsolicited predation of our Black, immigrant and elder homeowners
Rebecca also believes homelessness policy must center dignity, urgency, accountability, and measurable outcomes.
She supports:
Expanding emergency shelter and non-congregate shelter options
Scaling permanent supportive housing
Investing in behavioral health and crisis response infrastructure
Strengthening outreach and diversion programs
Improving regional coordination while maintaining strong accountability and transparency
Investing in culturally competent services and community-based organizations
Rebecca believes solving homelessness requires both immediate action and long-term structural solutions that address affordability, behavioral health, and economic inequality together.
Transportation & Infrastructure Investments
Transportation is about more than getting from one place to another — it is about access to jobs, education, healthcare, childcare, housing, and opportunity and connecting our communities that have been disconnected because of “color-blind” policies that pushed Black and Brown communities out of D2.
For too many people across King County, transportation is becoming more expensive, less reliable, and less safe. Long commutes increase household costs, worsen climate pollution, and reduce quality of life. Communities that already face economic inequality are often the least connected to reliable transit and safe infrastructure.
Rebecca believes transportation investments should connect people to opportunity, reduce climate pollution, and help build more equitable communities.
Rebecca has long been one of the region’s strongest champions for equitable transit-oriented development because she believes the best transportation and housing policy is one that connects people to affordable homes, jobs, schools, childcare, healthcare, and community without requiring long commutes or car dependence. She believes we must build more housing near high-capacity transit while ensuring longtime residents and communities of color can remain and benefit from neighborhood investments rather than being displaced by them.
She also believes housing and transportation must be planned together. Building affordable housing near transit is one of the most effective ways to reduce costs for families, lower emissions, and create equitable access to opportunity.
Rebecca’s Leadership
Rebecca has been one of the Legislature’s leading champions for equitable, affordable, and climate-focused transportation investments. As Vice Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, she helped shape a transportation vision centered on transit riders, workers, climate responsibility, safety, and public accountability.
Rebecca was a co-architect of the Move Ahead Washington transportation package — the most climate- and equity-focused transportation investment package in state history. The package made historic investments in:
Public transit
Rail and ferry modernization
Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure
Bridge preservation and repair
Climate resilience
Reconnecting communities harmed by past transportation decisions
Family-wage union jobs tied to public infrastructure investments
Rebecca also helped expand fare-free transit for youth statewide, reducing transportation costs for families and helping students access schools, jobs, and after-school opportunities. She has consistently supported reduced transit fares for low-income riders and fought to ensure transit remains a public good — not a privatized service focused on cost-cutting at the expense of workers and riders.
Rebecca has also been a strong advocate for transit workers and labor standards. She has worked to improve safety for transit operators by supporting investments in operator barriers, transit safety personnel, behavioral health response coordination, and safer transit infrastructure. She also supports recognizing PTSD as an occupational hazard for transit workers who experience traumatic incidents on the job.
She has championed transportation investments that address historic inequities, including Tribal Mobility Grants and the Reconnecting Communities Program, which invests in neighborhoods harmed by highway construction and exclusionary transportation decisions.
Rebecca’s Plan for King County
On the County Council, Rebecca will fight for a transportation system that is affordable, reliable, accessible, climate-forward, and centered on people’s daily lives.
She will:
Prioritize housing near transit and major job centers
Expand equitable transit-oriented development
Support Sound Transit expansion and “Build the Damn Trains” especially the Graham Street Station and building out the spine.
Use surplus public land for affordable housing near transit
Reduce displacement near transit investments
Support walkable, mixed-use communities near transit
Connect housing, transit, and childcare investments
Protect and expand bus service across King County
Lead the effort for a county-wide transit levy to ensure that we are able to expand service and ensure every household has access to the places they need to go
Accelerate RapidRide and bus-priority investments
Improve safety for transit riders and transit operators
Expand safe sidewalks, ADA improvements, and protected bike infrastructure
Fund the construction of missing sidewalks, and sidewalk repairs, protected bike infrastructure and crossings that prioritize safety over speed
Improve safety, accessibility, and cleanliness around transit stops
Fund the installation of bus shelters and benches at every transit stop in King County
Expand trail networks and safe connections between communities especially in underconnected communities in District 2 like routes in Rainier Valley and S. King County trails.
Continue and expand fare affordability programs for youth, seniors, and low-income riders
Support regional rail and future high-speed rail investments
Ensure transportation investments support climate goals and environmental justice
Make sure we apply priority hire and apprenticeship utilization on as much of the work as possible and take up the cause first championed locally by Got Green to create paid career pathways for young people.
Leverage our right-of-ways and county roads to improve safety, mobility, and community benefits
Rebecca also believes infrastructure investments must create broadly shared prosperity. She will continue fighting to ensure public investments create family-wage union jobs, apprenticeship opportunities, and pathways into the clean energy economy.
As King County continues transitioning toward a greener future, Rebecca believes working families must share equally in the benefits of that transition. Climate action and economic justice must go hand in hand.
Making King County More Affordable
Rebecca believes affordability must become the organizing principle of county government.
That means building more housing, expanding transit, reducing displacement, supporting union jobs, investing in childcare and behavioral health, and creating communities where people can afford to live near where they work.
It also means continuing to right-side Washington’s upside-down tax code.
In the Legislature, Rebecca helped pass the Capital Gains Tax and championed the Millionaires Tax because working families should not continue carrying the heaviest tax burden while the ultra-wealthy contribute far less than their fair share.
On the County Council, she will continue fighting for progressive revenue solutions that allow King County to invest in housing, transit, infrastructure, behavioral health, childcare, and economic opportunity.
Rebecca believes an Affordable & Connected King County is one where every person—whether they've lived here for generations or are just starting out—can afford not only to live here, but to belong here.
It is a county where children can safely walk to school, families can spend less time commuting and more time together, seniors can age in place, workers can live near their jobs, local businesses can thrive, and every neighborhood has the parks, libraries, cultural institutions, transit, and public spaces that build community.
That is the future Rebecca is fighting for: a King County where public investment creates not just affordable housing or better transit, but stronger neighborhoods and a better quality of life for everyone.