Seattle Model City Program

Federally sponsored urban redevelopment program; terminated 1974.

Funded primarily through the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development under authority of the federal Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966 to reduce social and economic disadvantages in designated neighborhoods, provide maximum training and employment opportunities, and establish health services for residents of the city's central area; later extended to three other disadvantaged neighborhoods; funding ended in 1974.

Model Cities Program

In response to urban problems of poverty and race in the United States, Congress passed legislation in November 1966 to initiate a demonstration effort known as the Model Cities Program. Called the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Act of 1966 PL 754, the primary goal of this legislation was to improve the quality of urban life. The Model City Program goals and objectives were to reduce social and economic disadvantages in designated neighborhoods, provide maximum training and employment opportunities, and establish health services for residents. Financial and technical assistance was made available to cities, through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to ameliorate social, economic, and physical conditions in needed neighborhoods. City agencies were required to coordinate their efforts and the program emphasized the citizen participation. The goals of the program were to coordinate and concentrate federal, state and local resources, develop innovative programs, and to involve local residents in the planning and development process.

Eligible cities received one-year planning grants to prepare Comprehensive Plans. Implementation and on-going planning occurred over a five-year demonstration period. Seattle was the first city chosen to receive federal funds. The planning process involved creating a Comprehensive Plan in the first eight months, quantifying five-year objectives for the Model Neighborhood Area and developing first-year action plans and programs.

An extension of the Model Cities program was launched August 1, 1972 by the Nixon administration to provide for more review, involvement, and cooperation by various levels of local government and citizens, with less review at the federal level. Nixon approved $2.3 billion to fund model cities from 1969 to 1973. Model Cities funding was terminated June 20, 1975.

Seattle Model City Program

The Mayor and City Council supported an ad hoc committee, which first met in November 1966, to prepare a grant application. The committee defined the Model Neighborhood as the Central Area, Pioneer Square, and the International District. The population of this geographical area comprised about 10 percent of the city's population and about 61% of the city's non-white population. The initial application stated "Seattle is a city which is still short of the crisis situation of the older urban centers…The Model neighborhood is in the initial stages of decay, not the final stages….It is because we do still have time that we have developed the sense of urgency to attack our problems now."

The program was administered by the City's Executive Department. Walter Hundley, 38, was announced as the program director in December 1967. Hundley came to Seattle in 1954 to serve as a minister of a nondenominational church and later joined the State Department of Public Assistance. In 1967 he was Director of the Central Area Motivation Program, an anti-poverty project in Seattle. Hundley was chosen by a 10-member citizen's committee, headed by Charles Brink, Dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Washington.

The major components of the administrative structure for SMCP consisted of an Advisory Council, Steering Committee, staff, and task forces. The Advisory Council consisted of over 80 members representing organizations within the Model Neighborhood.

Task forces worked with staff on planning. Based on work done by the Task Forces, Hundley reorganized and rewrote the drafts and submitted to HUD. HUD announced in December 1968 that Seattle's First-Year Action Program was the first to be approved for funding. The First-Year Action Program proposed projects in nine areas which corresponded to the focus of each task force. The areas included: Arts and Culture, Education, Employment and Economic Development, Health, Housing, Law and Justice, Physical Planning and Environment, Welfare, and Youth. From 1968 to 1971, the SMCP was successful in planning, developing, and implementing a variety of effective programs. Programs were developed in collaboration with the model neighborhood, which included, community activists, and a variety of agencies at local, state, and federal levels.

In 1971, Seattle was one of 16 cities chosen to participate in the Planned Variation or city-wide expansion. The Seattle Model City Program received $5.2 million in federal funds and the program was expanded to include three additional neighborhoods: north Seattle, southeast Seattle, and southwest Seattle. Walter Hundley was appointed to a city-wide post by Mayor Wes Uhlman and Louis C. Warner was appointed manager of the east branch, the city's original program. Jim Hurd and then George Clark were managers of the Southwest Branch; John Ybarra, Jr. was manager of the Southeast Branch; the North Branch manger was John Mitsules.

Seattle's Model City funding ended in 1974 and the program was transferred that year to the Department of Human Resources for closeout. Following the loss of funding, many projects were continued under the auspices of community organizations, larger institutions, City agencies, and other governmental entities. Some received ongoing funding through the Community Development Block Grant program.