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This Week in Housing Advocacy: Taking Action Has Rarely Been This Important

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Our elected officials are facing enormous pressure to compromise and close special session. But devastating choices are still on the table, including the elimination of Housing and Essential Needs and Disability Lifeline Medical, and deep cuts to TANF. And funding for the Housing Trust Fund is yet to be determined.

After months and months of session, the Housing Alliance understands advocacy fatigue. (Believe me, we really understand.) But if we suddenly become silent now, if the emails and calls stop coming, we risk ending with devastating cuts to programs that are literally saving the lives of thousands of homeless and very low-income people in every corner of the state. HEN, DL, TANF and the Housing Trust Fund – each make the difference between having a roof or living on the street. Please renew your pledge to advocacy and make a call today.

Our champions need encouragement and our opponents need to be asked to do the right thing.

Please take a moment to leave one message for all of your elected officials today. Ask them to, “Pass revenue, fully fund the safety net and fund the Housing Trust Fund at $71 million, while taking no action that compromises the capacity of the Capital Budget in years to come.” (A mouthful I know, but the patient hotline volunteers should bear with you.)

Make the call today to the state’s toll free Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000

(Open Monday - Friday 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM, breaking 12:00 – 1:00 for lunch.)

Can you get three other people to call as well? We need a groundswell.

We need as many people as possible joining this call to action. And we need you to help remind them that it is not only okay to take action again, but it is critical that we continue to repeat ourselves until the budget is done and the ink is dry on the Governor’s signature.

You are Being Heard

Last Wednesday, HEN and TANF recipients, service providers and Revenue Coalition members held a press conference in Olympia to highlight the importance of these programs. They shared how these programs have helped them to leave homelessness and to hold their families together. And the Senate Democrats showed that they were listening when they highlighted the testimonials in their blog. Housing Alliance advocates from Serenity Housing in Clallam County and from the Grant County Housing Authority were highlighted. Serenity House brought John Mash, an unemployed construction worker, down to Olympia who helped dispel stereotypes of HEN recipients when he shared his personal story of homelessness and how HEN has offered a path out:

“Disability Lifeline and then the HEN program, provides me a small apartment in Sequim, it’s a palace to me, it got me back on my feet and connected me to the counseling and medical services that I definitely needed. This may sound hokey, but it literally saved my life. Last year I was without hope and on the streets, but this got me exactly what I needed to get myself started again and I’m extremely happy now…like I said it is a tiny little apartment, but I wake up in the morning, see the mountains and wonder how I got here from a year ago.” - John Mash, HEN advocate

Steffanie Bonwell from Grant County Housing Authority actually came to Olympia on December 1st to testify on the importance of HEN during the Fall Special Session and her terrific testimony was again highlighted by the Senate when The Hopper linked back to her speaking before the Senate Ways and Means Committee. It is heartening to have such tangible proof that we are being heard. Thank you and keep up the amazing advocacy! You can read the blog post here.

Progress Remains Slow on Budget Negotiations
Closed-door negotiations reportedly brought all sides closer together last week. Marty Brown, Governor Gregoire’s chief budget writer, reported that new ideas have been brought to the table and that there is, “More understanding among all sides than there was last week.” He also reports, that, “Everyone has good ideas, we’ve used things from every side’s proposals…. and it is a good process for all of us because of that.” Despite his optimistic take, even he reports that there is much left to do and that progress is moving slowly.

Midway through the week, the Governor’s office announced a new idea to address the budget deficit and to avoid further conversation on either the Democrats' one-day school delay or the Republicans' skipping of pension payments. The Governor’s idea, essentially a cash flow fix rather than a cut or implementation of a new revenue source, would allow the state to spend payments owed to local government while the funds are in the state’s possession, instead of allocating it immediately to local governments. It is said that it would allow the state’s budget to have about $238 million more on hand at any given time, which is a compromise between the two amounts saved between the Democratic and Republican favored methods.  Read more about the new idea here.

Capital Budget Update
Meanwhile, progress on the Capital Budget and the Jobs Package not only remained stalled, but some new ideas that have been put on the table in the overall budget negotiations threaten to weaken the capacity of the Capital Budget for years to come. Possibly the worst threat is the idea to permanently redirect current capital revenue streams (specifically, taxes on toxic waste, known as the Model Toxics Control Act or MTCA) into the Operating Budget. While this has the benefit of creating a small amount of more capacity in the Operating Budget, it permanently and substantially reduces the size of the Capital Budget, thereby compromising the Housing Trust Fund, weatherization programs, public facilities, and other important capital projects. This shortsighted attack on capital programs, like similar transfers away from the Capital Budget that have regularly been made in past years, is unnecessary.  Rather than raiding funds from one program or budget to fund another, the Legislature should instead focus on long-term revenue solutions that could expand both budgets and create enough capacity to both fully fund our safety net and invest in the Housing Trust Fund. The refusal of some legislators (particularly the Senate Republicans) to even consider serious revenue solutions, and instead raid MTCA and other existing funds is why we’ve included a new request to elected officials in this week’s action to, “take no action that compromises the long-term capacity of the Capital Budget.”

The Economic Opportunity Institute published a new paper recently in which they argue for the passage of the Jobs Package (including the Capital Budget) because of the job creation and local stimulus that the packages will bring. Despite the noticeable absence of mention of the Trust Fund, the paper does a nice job outlining the need for construction jobs and provides a basic primer on what a bond is. Check it out here.

Lastly, I want to end with a huge thank you to the tremendous, tenacious and hard-working Housing Alliance team who have all held on through every special session with their eyes firmly fixed on the prize. Nick Federici and Seth Dawson and Moque Krape – all most closely impacted by the never-ending sessions - deserve special shout-outs. But everyone at the Housing Alliance deserves deep thanks for their hard, hard work. I’m honored and so lucky to work with such an amazing crew: Rachael Myers, Nick Federici, Seth Dawson, Moque Krape, Ben Miksch, Alouise Urness, Natalia Fior, and Jon Morgan. 

Thanks to every Housing Alliance advocate and to the Housing Alliance team for keeping the advocacy going,
Michele

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