Nick Federici, Government Affairs Consultant

The past several Legislative Sessions in Olympia, since the Great Recession struck, have been all about balancing the budget during a period of economic and revenue freefall -- a total of over $10 billion in cuts were imposed by the Legislature and Governors over the last five to six years. Many of these cuts exacerbated the negative impacts on low-income and previously-middle-income Washingtonians already buffeted by the economic whirlwind of job losses, the epidemic of subprime lending and foreclosures, and decreased charitable giving.

Finally, in the last year, as we have started to turn the corner economically, it has become possible to begin aspiring toward advancements in policy, restoring some of the most-egregious cuts, and perhaps making some investments to start the road to recovery for those most-impacted by the economy and budget cuts by federal, state, and local governments.

However, many barriers still obstruct our way towards expanded investments in housing policy and ending homelessness -- a continued slow recovery, the fierce competition for scarce budgetary resources, and partisan and ideological divisions between the Democratic House of Representatives and new Governor and the Republican-controlled Senate Majority Coalition Caucus. New requirements and other pressures are drawing funds toward other purposes, especially with K-12 education spending increases required by the State Supreme Court, the need for investments in transit and obsolete transportation infrastructure, and the opportunity for Medicaid expansion and health care reform.

In order to innovate and thrive in this new and changing environment, we continue to work to obtain the resources necessary to house low income families and individuals, and to find opportunities for synergy with emerging policy trends -- housing homeless families with children in school in order to improve educational outcomes, targeting transit-oriented development to help decrease the cost of transportation and other infrastructure, and establishing housing as one of the most-key elements in a healthy community.

Thank you for your leadership and assistance in these endeavors -- legislators and the Governor, no doubt, get tired of seeing and hearing from me, so we need your continual input to them, to help them understand the needs and opportunities in communities across the state, to help Washington recover and thrive.