 Your weekly legislative session update from Olympia! Legislative Session Update, Week 7 Jamala here, with your weekly update! There’s a lot going on right now, so get comfortable and read on!
We’re more than two-thirds of the way through the 2020 legislative session. A huge thanks to all of you who’ve taken time to take action, testify, and advocate. Your voice has been heard and we’re making big progress! Let’s keep it up - with just a few weeks left, your voice will matter more than ever!
All of our lead priorities have advanced in the process save one; HB 2453 - Requiring a landlord to have a legitimate business reason to evict a tenant, or what’s known as “Just Cause.” Unfortunately, it was too much for the Legislature to get through in a short session, but we learned a lot of lessons and built the road to passage in 2021.
Resident Action Project leaders speak out in Olympia! Last Thursday, members of the Resident Action Project went to Olympia to educate lawmakers about what it’s like to live without an affordable home. Senator Lovelett, 40th LD and Representative Macri, 43rd LD co-sponsored this event which was attended by many lawmaker offices. It was a powerful event and a far too rare opportunity for people directly impacted by housing insecurity to share their experiences in Olympia and to tell lawmakers which policies and investments would have the greatest impact on their lives. See below for highlights! Get ready, it’s budget time! The big next push will be all about the budgets. We expect the House and Senate will both release their operating budgets today and hold hearings this afternoon. The House will also release a capital budget today as well and will be heard Tuesday morning. The Senate capital budget that was released last week fully funded our request to invest $10 million into the Housing Trust Fund for preservation of affordable homes! It also included an additional $15 million for enhanced shelter capacity, as requested by the Governor. This is a great sign of what’s to come! Last week’s budget news included an exciting update from the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council that the state received an unexpected bump in one-time revenue. An extraordinary windfall $300 Million. That’s how much unexpected money came through in this month’s state revenue forecast. Budget writers will decide how to spend this revenue and many legislators are pushing for a significant portion of it to go toward affordable housing and homelessness priorities. This could mean we see much more robust investments in our priorities than we expected in a tight supplemental budget year! There will be no shortage of other ideas for spending that revenue though, so to make it real for housing and homelessness, we’ll all have to advocate hard during the last weeks of this session!
Updates on our key bills: HB 1590/ Doglio: Allowing the local sales and use tax for affordable housing to be imposed without requiring a ballot initiative. It’s taken four whole years but Representative Doglio used an amazing Baby-Yoda-like force push to finally get this bill passed out of the House 52 to 46. Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Local Government Committee 8am Thursday February 27. HB 2384/ Doglio: Fixes the property tax exemption for affordable rental housing for very low-income households. Passed the House 96 to 2! Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Housing and Stability and Affordability committee at 1:30pm Monday Feb 24. HB 2634/ Walen & SB 6366/ Mullet: Creates a real estate excise tax exemption for selling property to a nonprofit or public housing authority who acquires it for affordable housing. Passed the House 94 to 4! HB 2634 is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Housing and Stability and Affordability committee on Monday Feb 24. Because of the fiscal impact, the SB 6366 was determined to be exempt from cut-off, and was heard in a Senate committee last Thursday. HB 1694/ Morgan: Require landlords to accept a 3-month payment plan for move-in costs when a tenant requests it. Passed the House 54 to 44! Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Financial Institutions, Economic Development & Trade committee at 8am Tuesday Feb. 25. HB 2343/ Fitzgibbon: Makes improvements to last year’s HB 1923 that created incentives for reducing the cost of building homes. Passed the House 93 to 2! Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Housing and Stability and Affordability committee on Monday Feb 24. HB 2797/ Robinson: Improvements to last year’s HB 1406 so that local jurisdictions can take full advantage of the state sales tax credit for affordable housing. Passed the House 63 to 33! Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Housing and Stability and Affordability committee at 1:30pm Wednesday Feb 26. HB 2535/ Kirby: Providing for a grace period before late fees may be imposed for past due rent. Although not originally on our support agenda, we weighed in with support for this bill. It passed the house 92-4. Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Financial Institutions, Economic Development & Trade committee at 8am Tuesday Feb. 25. Like Fawkes the Phoenix, HB 2907 has risen once more, as HB 2948. If you’ve been following the path of HB 2907 that would allow King County to tax the largest employers to pay for solutions to homelessness, you know that it didn’t make it out of the House before the last week’s cut-off. But never fear, a new bill has been introduced: HB 2948 is being sponsored by Representative Springer from the 45th district, with Representative Macri signed on as a co-sponsor. The Bill is scheduled to have a hearing in the House Finance committee this Thursday, February 27. Thank lawmakers for their leadership! We’re making progress thanks to your advocacy, strategic lobbying, and because we have some incredible housing champions in the legislature. This is a great time to take a few minutes to thank them! Here are a few lawmakers who deserve a big show of appreciation: Thank Representative Doglio for her incredible work on HB 1590. That bill was almost dead several times over the last several days and like a BOSS, she resurrected it several times! Beth.Doglio@leg.wa.gov Thank Senators Frockt and Mullet for including $10 million for the Housing Trust Fund, and $15 million for enhanced shelter in the Capital Budget. David.Frockt@leg.wa.gov and Mark.Mullet@leg.wa.gov Thank Representative Macri for working so hard to get HB 2453 (“Just Cause”) through and for her extraordinary efforts to create a progressive business tax to address homelessness in King County. Nicole.Macri@leg.wa.gov Still some Town Halls coming up A lot of legislators held Town Halls in their districts this past weekend, but there are still a few coming up. The League of Women Voters of Washington has compiled a list of most events. These events are a great opportunity to share your priorities with your lawmakers! Download and bring a copy of our Policy Priorities. Did you attend a Town Hall in your community? We’d love to hear how it went! Send your observations to Caroline Lopez, our Director or Organizing: carolinel@wliha.org.
Don’t forget about our bi-weekly member updates live from Olympia. Register here to join us this Friday Feb. 28 from 12:30 to 1:30 and again on March 13 for an overview of the session which ends on March 12! Highlights from the RAP panel  Lisa Sawyer shared that after her apartment burned down and after her emergency motel vouchers ran out, what it was like the first night she had to survive on the streets. She shared her journey of homelessness that lasted years and what it is like to always be looking over your shoulder and the feelings of isolation and shame she felt. She also shared the joy she feels of having her own apartment now and how it feels to be able to have family and friends over to share what she has accomplished. She hasn’t yet used the stove, that feels like a big step that she is looking forward to tackling soon.  Chris Heer shared how she experienced homelessness last year after receiving a 20-day no cause notice. She still has no clue why the landlord made her move out of her beloved apartment with a deck that she filled with potted plants that her neighbors adored. The 20-day notice set off a spiral of frantic housing searches that have complicated her recovery from heart surgery and has impacted her adult children for whom she had always been able to provide a safe landing place. She is currently sleeping in the living room of a friend who needs help with childcare, but at 70 she is struggling with this arrangement. But next month brings new hope because she has been able to secure a housing voucher with King County Housing Authority and a new apartment. It is miles away from her family and community, but she is looking forward to the stability and a place to rest and heal.  Curtis Steinhauer shared how he and his wife have struggled to find affordable housing in Skagit County after the loss of his job and their long journey through homelessness. They recently secured an apartment but he said that over 20 others had applied. His joy of having a roof over their heads is tempered by the headache of knowing that over 20 other households in his community are still out in the cold.  Qween’B King Rios shared how she was forced to make the decision of leaving a dangerous, abusive domestic violence situation knowing that she would likely face homelessness: “Either I was going to be homeless or I was going to be dead.” She shared how homelessness impacted her health and how it set off a long-term struggle to find stable housing. But she also shared how the injustice set a fire in her to fight for housing justice. Again, special thanks to Representative Macri (43rd LD) and Senator Lovelett (40th LD) for co-sponsoring the panel and making sure RAP voices are heard. Thank you for your advocacy! In Community, Jamala Jamala Henderson Communications Specialist | 
