The state legislature had a robust session on housing and homelessness related bills that advocates say has been a long time coming.
“It’s been a really phenomenal legislative session for affordable housing,” said Michele Thomas, policy and advocacy director with the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance.
Thomas said the breakthrough session addressed issues that groups such as the Housing Alliance have been talking with lawmakers about for a long time — long enough for them to have an understanding of the issues and to get more comfortable voting ‘yes.’
Besides the bills, the legislature invested $107 million in the Housing Trust Fund, which allocates money to affordable housing builders.
“I also think, no matter what — whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican — homelessness is increasing in your district,” Thomas said.
• One of the major bills that passed the legislature was HB 1570, which eliminates the sunset on document recording fees, a major source of funds for homeless services, and raises the fee by $22. At one point, the bill had a local option, but that was eliminated in exchange for a statewide increase. Michael Torres, program manger at Clark County Community Services, said this should amount to about a 60 percent increase in what’s collected by the county. Clark County spends about $5.3 million annually on homeless services. Of that, roughly $3 million comes from document recording fees, but it fluctuates depending on the number of people who purchase homes. Most of the $48 fee for recording the deed of a home purchase goes to the county and the rest goes to the state, which can get redistributed back into the county through the state Department of Commerce’s Consolidated Homeless Grants.
Rep. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver, voted against HB 1570 last year but voted in favor of it this session.
“The timing was just right,” he said. “We need to address the issue.”
Harris sits on the boards for Share and Columbia River Mental Health Services, which both serve homeless people, and emphasized the importance of this funding source. He considers the document recording fee a “fair source” of money for homeless services.
• HB 2578 prevents landlords from discriminating against tenants based on their source of income. A landlord wouldn’t be able to reject an otherwise eligible prospective tenant because they use, for example, a Section 8 housing voucher to help cover rent. Also, landlords can only use the portion of rent that the tenant is obligated to cover when calculating the income-to-rent ratio. Many apartment complexes require that tenants make 2.5 times or 3 times the rent. The city of Vancouver has an ordinance that already mandates this, but it would become statewide through HB 2578. The bill also establishes a landlord mitigation fund.
“It will likely open up more housing opportunities to those who are low income or homeless,” said Kate Budd, executive director of Vancouver-based Council for the Homeless.
The council recently bused advocates to Olympia to help push HB 2578 and other bills. Budd said she testified two weeks ago before a senate committee about how Clark County needs more resources to tackle homelessness.
• Council for the Homeless was excited to see HB 2667 pass because the bill gets rid of what they call “the HEN cliff.” The Housing and Essential Needs Program is an emergency rental assistance program for people with temporary disabilities. It’s been around since 2011 and is managed locally by Share. Participants risk losing that housing assistance if their disability status changes. If they are deemed more disabled and are applying for Social Security, they’re automatically moved into a cash assistance program that makes them ineligible for rent assistance.
Amy Reynolds, deputy director at Share, said this happens to between three and 15 people every month.
“For us there’s been nothing that we can do,” she said.
Thomas said it was causing an “extremely vulnerable population” to become homeless or evicted midlease because they couldn’t pay rent with the $197 a month they got in cash assistance.
“This bill fixes that,” she said. “It acts as a bridge while applying for Social Security.”
Budd called this legislative session “a game changer” and looks forward to seeing its benefits. Some, such as the change in the HEN Program, will be realized immediately, so long as the governor signs off. With HB 1570, it’ll take a while for the dollars to be collected and then contracted out for homeless services.
