March 16, 2020  

Dear SHA Housing Choice Voucher Clients and Stakeholders:

I want to reassure you that the Seattle Housing Authority is committed to doing everything we can to ensure the health and safety of our participants, partners and staff during the coronavirus outbreak. We are in continuous close contact with public health officials, City of Seattle emergency response teams and other response leaders, and we are following all directives from the governor, county executive, mayor and public health officer.

This morning, Governor Inslee expanded restrictions on public interaction, and strongly stated that any contact, even on a small scale, presents a significant public health risk. He and the public health officer for Seattle and King County emphasized that increasing physical distancing is the only means we have to slow the spread of coronavirus. The City of Seattle, King County and other government and private entities across the region and country have closed public-facing locations.

For your protection, SHA is closing property management offices and customer service centers in all SHA buildings. This closure includes the Housing Service Center on the first floor of our office on Queen Anne Ave N. Other SHA facilities where people normally come in person are also closing.

We remain fully committed to serving SHA voucher participants and partners, and are making services available by phone, email and our website at seattlehousing.org. You can contact your case manager or regular SHA contact at anytime. If you don’t know who that is or how to reach them, you can call 206.239.1728 or email HCV@seattlehousing.org.

On a separate flyer, we are providing more information for participants on how to proceed with common interactions with SHA, and including contacts for the latest public health directives and guidance.

Landlords can continue to list rentals and access SHA via the Landlord Portal on our website.

These are challenging times, but we are here for you. I wish you all the best and echo our governor in strongly urging you to follow public health directives and avoid all contact with other people that isn’t absolutely necessary. We will continue to keep you updated on SHA services during this unprecedented public health crisis.

Take care,

Andrew Lofton
 
Executive Director