Gov. Inslee delivers State of the State with an eye on housing and homelessness
.jpg "Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee gives his 2023 State of the State address in the House Chambers of the Legislative Building in Olympia on Jan. 10, 2023")
Gov. Jay Inslee outlined his priorities for the next 104 days of the 2023 legislative session during his annual State of the State address on Tuesday.
The 2023 Legislature convened in person in Olympia for the first time since 2020 on Monday.
“I know we have big challenges. As leaders, we will be called upon these next few months to act with decisiveness, ambition and audacity,” Inslee said. “The good news is that here in Washington state, ambition and audacity is in our DNA.”
Because of the work that’s been done in both chambers of the Legislature, Inslee said he can “proudly report” that the state of the state is “strong.”
The governor talked about his newest ideas to expand affordable housing in the state.
Inslee’s proposed budget, which he released in December, would be $70 billion over the next two years, and at the end of the 2023-25 biennium Washington’s total reserves are expected to sit at about $2.6 billion.
Additionally, Inslee is seeking an additional $4 billion in bonds over the next six years to fund creation of enough affordable housing to keep up with the pace of demand. That proposal, in addition to passing the Legislature, would also need to be voted on by Washingtonians in November through a referendum.
That money would be seen as early as the next biennia, with $1.3 billion going towards housing and homelessness initiatives.
While Inslee noted that behavioral health and chemical addictions do play a role in homelessness, until the housing crisis is fixed, thousands of people in the state will remain homeless, he said. He said the state is currently 81,000 housing units short of what is needed to accommodate the population, but that will increase every year. To keep up with demand, he said 1 million housing units will need to be built over the next 17 years.
Zoning restrictions also need to be addressed, he said, and the state not only needs to address middle housing -- housing that falls between single-family homes and apartments -- but needs to increase housing density.
More behavioral health support, substance use treatment, and employment services are needed in tandem with housing support, he said.
While lawmakers have addressed behavioral health support in the last few legislative sessions, more will need to be done to expand services and space in facilities, said Inslee.
“Community-based care is what works,” Inslee said.
Education, too, needs to see continued efforts, the governor said. Inslee said he would like to see increased funding for special education services, and he has proposed more than $120 million for school districts to support students “no matter how complex the needs.”
Altogether, the governor is proposing an additional $3 billion in spending for K-12 schools.
While the governor said “tremendous” progress had been made on climate issues, the new focus is on implementation and investment.
“On the investment side, the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) we passed in 2021 is now live,” said Inslee. “Our state’s new cap-and-invest program will allow us, this year, to transform how we invest in transportation and our communities.”
He noted too that the CCA will provide $1.7 billion to use for “projects to drive down emissions, create jobs and make communities healthier.”
Additionally, the CCA is helping the state invest in salmon recovery efforts, he added.
The governor touched on public safety issues, gun control, and reproductive protections as well. Legislation has already been introduced to ban assault-style guns in the state, and to provide more training for police officers. A constitutional amendment to protect abortion services has been introduced already as well.
While Democrats stood in applause at the mention of some of those proposed measures, Republicans remained seated.
Reporters had the chance to question House and Senate Republican Caucus leaders following the governor’s address.
House Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox said he felt frustrated that many of the newest proposals by Democrats in the Legislature this year were measures that had previously been proposed by Republicans.
“Perhaps after a few years of flailing away at things like public safety they recognized that serious mistakes were made and that the solutions that were proposed by our two caucuses made sense after all,” Wilcox said. “And there’s certainly things that we’re going to join in, along with him (Inslee), to support.”
Republicans also weighed in on Inslee’s push for more housing.
“There’s this antiquated notion that to increase housing units you just plop a house on a piece of property. That’s just not how it works,” said House Assistant Floor Leader Peter Abbarno, Centralia.
He explained that other expensive work needs to be done before houses can be put down, such as infrastructure to support those houses.
“If we want to focus on housing, or we want to reduce the cost of a house or even rent, we need to build units and to build units in a lot of communities outside of the Puget Sound...starts with infrastructure,” Abbarno added.
Republican leaders were also given the chance to respond about the proposed $4 billion in bonds by the governor to build housing.
Wilcox said “it wasn’t the worst suggestion” he’d seen. Before deciding if he will support it, he first wants to listen to testimony and go through the process, he said.
Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, however, said he doesn’t believe that the math works, especially with the rising costs of inflation. But, he said he’s willing to have the discussion if the private sector can be involved.
Legislators will be tasked over the course of the next couple of months with not only passing transformative policy issues regarding housing, homelessness, and workforce shortages, but also ensuring that the state’s two-year operating budget is adopted before the last day lawmakers meet in Olympia this year.
The last day of this year’s session is April 24.
This story was originally published January 10, 2023 at 12:31 PM.
