Lawmakers provided $800M for homeless programs, but advocates say there’s more to be done
For multiple years, the Washington legislature has attempted to come up with new programs to help people in the state who are experiencing homelessness.
This year’s investments, totaling more than $800 million, are the most ever allocated in a session.
While several organizations that worked on legislation this year think the state is on the right path, they still believe more can be done to move Washington forward.
Data from the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness shows that 22,923 people in the state were experiencing homelessness as of January 2020. Even more startling, the USICH said that over the course of a year, 39,972 public school students had experienced homelessness.
Liz Trautman is the director of public policy and advocacy for The Mockingbird Society, which was founded in 2000 with a mission to transform foster care and end youth homelessness. Trautman told McClatchy that the number “is almost certainly an undercount” for young people experiencing homelessness. The rising cost of housing in the state makes it especially difficult for young people, she added.
Representatives for The Mockingbird Society testified on multiple bills to address homelessness at the legislature this year, though not all of them made it through.
Trautman said they were excited to see the passage of a bill to expand the Independent Youth Housing Program, as well as new legislation that allows unaccompanied minors experiencing homelessness to consent to their own healthcare needs. She said the organization was “thrilled to see the level of investment in services and housing in the supplemental budget.”
“It feels like the legislature is finally funding a response commensurate with the scale and scope of the issue,” Trautman said.
However, she said “there remains a lot more work to do” since there were many bills to protect tenants, prevent evictions, and address access to housing for those with criminal records that didn’t pass this year.
In the future, Trautman said that first and foremost, the state “must pursue policy changes that come from and are informed by those most impacted by housing instability and homelessness.”
Others had similar opinions.
Debbie Thiele, senior program manager at The Corporation for Supportive Housing, told McClatchy that when communities lose affordable housing, people who face additional barriers are the first to “fall out of housing.” In addition to youth, people with disabilities, people who experience racism or those facing other discriminatory policies are at a high risk for experiencing homelessness.
Anyone living on fixed incomes and people who are living off minimum-wage jobs are also becoming increasingly at risk of losing housing, Thiele said.
Thiele testified in favor of HB 1866 during the session. The bill, which passed with bipartisan support, established the Apple Health and Homes Program. Those with low incomes, medical risk factors and face significant barriers to housing could find supportive housing under the program.
“It really is groundbreaking in that it lays the foundation for the integration of housing and healthcare in a way that we’ve never seen before,” she said. “It intrinsically linked those services with an investment in actual housing, so it’s really making sure that those people that we know who need housing and services can have access to both.”
Thiele thinks the state is on the right path to address homelessness, but that some major infrastructure problems will need to be addressed to curtail the crisis overall. To scale the need, she said the state needs a new financing mechanism to spur major public investments in housing.
The Chief Seattle Club also supported HB 1866 during the legislative session. The nonprofit is Native-led housing and human services agency based in Seattle.
James W. Lovell, development director for Chief Seattle Club, told McClatchy the organization has been working on Native homelessness since 1970.
“We’ve been treating this like a crisis for 52 years, and it’s really only been the last 5 years that there has been funding that begins to reflect that,” he said. “This year, the legislature approved many proven and novel approaches to mitigating homelessness and the housing crisis, and we are hopeful that this will have real impacts for communities that have layers of needs and services.”
Lovell added that while the legislature provided “meaningful funding packages,” he didn’t think “enough services were carved out for BIPOC organizations.”
“Additionally, the underlying issues around income inequality and regressive tax structures were not addressed,” Lovell said. “Until these are addressed in combination with funding for housing and services, it will be hard to see any effort as being ‘enough.’”
Manageably-sized enhanced shelters where people can stay longer than one night and have access to services are the most immediate need. “All of our outreach efforts are going to be stymied by a lack of enhanced shelters,” he said.
Other efforts to mitigate homelessness in the state were not successful this session.
One of the major items that the governor introduced in his legislative priorities for 2022 was transitioning homeless people who are camped in right of ways into more supportive, permanent housing. However, the bill that was introduced to establish an office within the Department of Health and Human Services to identify and help with those services did not pass.
Mike Faulk, deputy communications director and press secretary for Inslee, told McClatchy that the Governor’s Office was disappointed the bill didn’t make it this session. He said the legislation is still missing “key pieces, namely the statewide coordination elements.”
“It’s the kind of policy that impacts a lot of parties and will require additional stakeholder work, and that’s what our office will be doing in the interim,” Faulk said.
Although the bill didn’t pass, the Governor’s Office pointed out that a proviso was added to the budget to help with right of way removal and transitioning people into stable housing. The process will not include DSHS, but will involve the Transportation (WSDOT) and Commerce departments.
About $8 million was set aside for WSDOT to take “a very targeted approach” to help identify camps that are in “imminent danger” or where dangerous conditions exist.
Additionally, the Department of Commerce will receive about $45 million to help with the process by matching people to potential housing vacancies and moving them into those places. The spokesperson said that the department will coordinate with community organizations to determine where and how that funding will need to be used.
Even with all of those factors in place, the Governor’s Office acknowledged the amount of housing available is still not enough. There are estimated to be more than 1,900 encampments on the roadways in the state.
This story was originally published April 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
