Ben Miksch, Affordable Housing Policy and Advocacy Specialist

Last week saw the start of the legislative session, and things are already moving at full-speed. We have a lot to accomplish and not a lot of time to do it! Today (Wednesday) is already day 10 of 60!!!

Likewise, the Housing Alliance team is in full-session mode. Fact sheets and information about all of our issues are up on our website here, the Bill Tracker is up and running, and this email marks the official start of our The Week in Housing Advocacy updates, which will run for the rest of the session.

That means it’s time for all of you to be in full-session mode as well! Keep an eye out for action alerts we’ll be sending and be sure to take action yourself and forward them along to your staff, co-workers, board, and others in the community who want to ensure that everyone in Washington has an opportunity for a safe, healthy, affordable place to call home some day.

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Take Action! Full-session mode means taking action now! Last week saw our first Advocacy Alert of this session, and 88 advocates took action to send a strong message to your legislator supporting a Housing Trust Fund appropriation for this session. Help us send 88 more and take action here!

We had a busy and productive first week. We have bill numbers for Part 3 of our Fair Tenant Screening Act and document recording fee priorities (see our Bill Tracker for more details). We’ve also added two new issues to our Legislative Support Priorities Agenda: the Homeless Children Education Act and a bill improving the definition of service animal. Information about both is also available on our state advocacy webpage.

The bills to eliminate the sunsets on the document recording fees that fund homelessness services are: SB (Senate Bill) 6313 and HB (House Bill) 2368. HB 2368 had an amazing hearing yesterday, and may be up for a vote in the committee later this week. We’ll send a video and highlights from the hearing in next week’s The Week in Housing Advocacy dispatch.

This year we’re addressing the high cost to tenants when they have to pay for multiple screening reports that contain virtually the same information. The Fair Tenant Screening Act bills are SB 6291 and HB 2537. The Senate bill is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow. We have some great testifiers lined up, and will let you know how that one goes.

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Speaking of great testifiers, if you can help with testimony, or would like our help mobilizing your board, your staff, your program participants, or others in your community, please let us know! There are simple ways to get involved that make a huge difference, and we can find a way that works for you.

The big highlight last week was a briefing we had with lawmakers on the Housing Trust Fund last Thursday. We had a packed house with 23 legislators and at least that many staff who joined us for lunch and a presentation on the need for affordable housing, how the Housing Trust Fund helps meet that need, and how the Housing Trust Fund works. Senator John McCoy (38th LD), Representative Marcus Riccelli (3rd LD), and Representative June Robinson (38th LD) hosted the event, and all spoke eloquently about the Housing Trust Fund. This was the largest group of legislators to gather to talk about the Housing Trust Fund in many years (possibly ever) and it ended with a commitment to get folks back together to keep the momentum for affordable housing going.

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Legislators are busy folks, but the fact that so many showed up is probably because they heard the message about how important affordable housing is loud and clear last year at Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day. Great job! But that means we’ll need to keep letting them know this year as well.

Remember, Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day is next week! If you haven’t registered yet, here’s the link: tinyurl.com/hhadreg. After all, you can't have full-session mode without participating in Advocacy Day in some way!