Inslee proposes $100 million more to clear people from living in freeway rights-of-way
Ahead of the 2024 legislative session that begins Jan. 8, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced his supplemental budget proposals Thursday for housing and homelessness issues across the state.
The governor said that he is requesting $100 million from the Legislature for Rapid Capital Housing Acquisition, a program that was established to move homeless encampments off of Washington’s freeway rights of way and connect the residents living in those encampments with housing resources.
“We are making big progress, big progress, in our effort to resolve some of these homeless encampments along our state’s right of ways, and I’m pleased to say now that this is an example of what we can do when we put our minds to it — to get people into housing, to remove them from our homeless encampments, to see to it that when people travel our highways, they are not seeing a scourge of homelessness up and down our highways,” Inslee said.
The governor added that the rights-of-way initiative has been a “high priority” of his administration, and that more work is still necessary.
“The job is not done, we’ve got to keep this progress going,” he said.
Inslee addressed the high price tag on his request to the Legislature, and said that the cost comes from not only paying those tasked with encampment cleanup and social workers, but also purchasing enough real estate where transitional or permanent housing can be established.
Inslee announced the proposal from a former encampment in Seattle along First Avenue and Michigan Street, months after the encampment was cleared in March.
He was joined by other regional leaders including Washington state Rep. Nicole Macri, D-Seattle, and Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell.
“We know that the response to homelessness is housing and we know the opposite of addiction is connection,” Macri said. “And those values underride this approach to responding.”
Macri said she is “grateful” for the funding for the initiative in the 2023-25 state budget passed earlier this year, and that she is looking forward to continued support from the Legislature.
Harrell echoed the governor and Macri’s sentiments.
“It is my priority as a mayor, and my administration’s priority, to make sure that we house and we treat everyone with compassion,” Harrell said.
Since its inception in 2022, the right of ways initiative has cleared 30 encampments and connected more than 1,000 people to housing resources in Spokane, Thurston, Pierce and Snohomish counties as well as King, according to the Washington State Department of Commerce website. Commerce is a partner in the initiative.
This story was originally published December 7, 2023 at 4:36 PM.
