Cities around the United States are facing unprecedented crises of homelessness and housing insecurity, as escalating housing costs collide with stagnant wages and decades of cuts to social safety net programs.

Last fall in Seattle, a coalition of grassroots and progressive organizations called Housing For All came together to push our city to do better. We quickly emboldened members of Seattle’s City Council to put forward a proposal that would tackle not just homelessness, but also our regressive tax system: the City’s largest businesses would be required to contribute funding for housing and shelter. Mega-corporations like Amazon, which are driving and benefitting from our region’s rapid growth, and which also just got a big Trump tax break, would pay a modest per-employee tax to help mitigate the worst impacts of that growth.

After eight months of coalition-building, demonstrations and direct actions, task forces and public meetings, emails, phone calls, and testimony, five of the nine city councilmembers were prepared to vote for legislation that would raise an ambitious – though still inadequate – $75 million per year from the highest-grossing 3 percent of businesses. We thought we were on our way.

Then all hell broke loose. Amazon issued their now-infamous threat, and fear seemed to shift public opinion overnight. Socialists marched on the Spheres, building trade unions went into a frenzy, and Mayor Jenny Durkan brokered a last-minute compromise that would net $47 million per year and end after five years. The new bill thrilled no one, but on May 14 it sailed through the City Council and for a moment it seemed the fight was over.

We were wrong. Within 24 hours, business lobby groups and corporations had rallied and resolved to fund a repeal campaign. Teaming up with anti-tax neighborhood groups that blame the homelessness crisis on “government waste” and on homeless people themselves, they set to work gathering the signatures needed to bump the legislation to the November ballot. The “No Tax on Jobs” campaign hired conservative consulting firm Morning in America, paid petitioners up to $6 per signature, and was happy to play fast and loose with the truth. Despite our best efforts, as the June 14 deadline neared, it became clear they had succeeded. We began to steel ourselves for the ballot battle ahead.