The Power of Effective Advocacy – Winter Shelter Extended through June 15 for 215 people

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Kathryn Murdock - UCC Social Justice Intern

Something unprecedented and special happened in our community this spring. Winter shelters, which usually close on March 31, were extended, first through April 15, and then all the way through June 15th. While we are all basking in the sunshine at the moment, it’s worth remembering how unpredictable our northwest weather is. In the last few weeks we have had cold rain, wind, and temperatures near freezing. The weekend before shelters were scheduled to close on April 15, a hail storm in Seattle highlighted the urgent need for year-round shelter in our city.

The red doors at Seattle City Hall that open to one winter shelter that will now run through June 15

Winter shelter was extended at three locations in Seattle: King County Administration Building (100 men), Seattle City Hall (75 men & women), and at the YWCA’s Angeline’s Center (40 women). There are many people and organizations who collaborated to accomplish this broadening of shelter. Thanks to strong collaboration, persistence, leadership and effective advocacy, 215 men and women will not be left to fend for themselves through rain, hail, cold and darkness. Instead, they will be inside: safe, dry and warm.

Thank You Note to Seattle City Council in front of the Red Doors

Hand delivering a thank you note to the Seattle City Council that symbolized the opening of the red doors that they opened to extend winter shelter.

Today we hand delivered thank you cards signed by Coalition members to the leadership in Seattle and King County who helped make winter shelter a reality in our community: Seattle City Council; King County Council; Executive Constantine; Mayor McGinn; Director of King County Community & Human Services Department, Ms. Jackie MacLean; Director of Seattle Human Services Department, Ms. Dannette Smith. Please also send your own note of thanks to any and all people listed above – without their leadership, we would not have been able to extend winter shelter.

End of Regular Session down in Olympia – Two Weeks until the Beginning of Special Session!

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Kathryn Murdock - UCC Social Justice Intern

Sunday marked the end of the 105 day regular session down in Olympia with no budget agreement in sight. Governor Inslee has called all the legislators back down to Olympia for a special session to work out the budget beginning on May 13. While it may seem frustrating that the legislators couldn’t work out a budget in 105 days, it’s actually really great for housing and homelessness advocates to have an extended session. A special session means that we are more likely to end up with a final budget that reflects what we want: adequate investment in affordable housing (at least $65 million for the Housing Trust Fund + $28.5 million allotted to affordable housing projects by the House) and investment in the services that the people we serve need most, including Disability Lifeline (Housing and Essential Needs and Aged, Blind and Disabled) and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

Your legislators will be back home in their district for the next two weeks, so now it is MORE important than ever before to stay in touch with your legislators. Email them or better yet invite them to your programs and show them how your programs – especially programs that are funded by the Housing Trust Fund or Housing and Essential Needs programs – work! If we don’t keep in touch with our elected officials, we will not end up with the budget that we want in the end – one that protects affordable housing and services for our homeless and low-income neighbors.

Jay Inslee signing the Fair Tenant Screening Act (SB 5568)

Governor Inslee signing the Fair Tenant Screening Act (SB 5568)

The end of regular session also marks a time to celebrate our advocacy as a community this session and what it helped us to win. Our collective advocacy helped us pass part 2 of the Fair Tenant Screening Act, Foster Care to 21, and 72-hour notification for youth shelters. These wins are truly something to be proud of so let’s build on them and ask our legislators to pass a budget that Washingtonians can be proud of!

Some Good News From Olympia last week as the budget process continues

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Kathryn Murdock - UCC Social Justice Intern

Last week was a busy week for housing and homelessness advocates. First, the House passed its proposed budget, a huge improvement over the Senate’s version.

On Wednesday at noon, the House Appropriations Committee released their proposed budget and then passed it through the House of Representatives late Friday night. The House’s proposed budget protects important parts of our state’s safety net and includes revenue. It preserves funding for:

Housing and Essential Needs (HEN)
Aged, Blind and Disabled (ABD)
Working Connections Child Care
Consolidated Homeless Grants (CHG) which funds homeless housing programs across the state, including domestic violence shelters, transitional housing for families, and short-term rent assistance.
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

The House also allocated $71 million for the Housing Trust Fund, more than double what the Senate allocated. This is very important, however, it is still well below the $175 million that we need in our state to create housing that is affordable to low income and working families.

On April 10, the same day that the House released their budget, our friends at Poverty Action issued a call to action to “Save our Safety Net.” We joined them in urging our members to call Olympia to tell their legislators to protect Washington’s safety net. We had some surprising evidence (in addition to people e-mailing us and posting on our facebook page) that lots of people took action: last Wednesday evening, members of the Coalition’s Board of Directors made their calls to the free Legislative Hotline. Board president Emily Meyer called, and began to deliver our short message. After her first few words, “Please vote for full funding for vital programs,” the hotline operator recited the rest of our message back to her, “that really help families and people with disabilities in our community: HEN, ABD, TANF. Please include new revenue and end tax giveaways in the final budget. Thank you.” Now that is what we call effective advocacy!!

Take Action Today!

Now that both houses are in the process of negotiating our final budget, please use Poverty Action’s handy email template to keep this message in front of your legislators: our safety net must be protected in the final budget, and our state needs revenue.

The Fair Tenant Screening Act has passed the House and is headed for the Governor’s desk!

We had a piece of GREAT NEWS: on Friday, Part II of the Fair Tenant Screening Act passed the House unanimously and moved on to the Governor’s desk for signature. Thanks for the tireless advocacy of the Tenants Union, the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, and all of you for helping this bill become law!

Sequestration: taking us from bad to worse

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Katharine Revello - MSW Student Intern

Seattle Housing Authority recently accepted 24,000 applications for a coveted 2,000 placements on the Section 8 waiting list. Last week it announced that the 2,000 households had been chosen through a random lottery, but there’s a catch. Due to sequestration, the local housing authority also announced that it would be unable to issue vouchers to any of the selected households in the foreseeable future. This announcement comes amid news that the King County Housing Authority has suspended issuing any new vouchers to households on their waiting list as a result of sequestration. Local Section 8 wait lists are often closed for years at a time because of the overwhelming need for affordable housing in King County. In the space of a few weeks, sequestration has taken the situation from bad to worse, with 2,000 not-so-lucky households added to a wait list that for now looks indefinite.

Our partners at the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance provide a more in-depth look into the effects of sequestration on Section 8 recipients and local housing authorities here. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities provides an overview of the national impacts of Sequestration on Section 8 and other housing and homelessness funding sources.

Huge Success for Youth! But there’s still work to be done!

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Kathryn Murdock - UCC Social Justice Intern

It is true, bipartisanship really does still exist! The 72-hour notification bill (SB 5147/HB 1250), one of the Coalition’s legislative priorities, passed the Senate unanimously and easily passed in the House this past week with only seven voting against it.

This bill sought to reinstate an important part of the Becca Bill which gave youth shelters up to 72 hours to notify a youth’s guardian after they checked into a youth shelter. It had previously been law, but had sunset and had decreased the number of hours down to only eight. Eight hours is not enough time for the shelter to engage with youth and be able to provide rehabilitative services. Many youth also come to shelters after they have runaway from their families and eight hours does not allow families enough time to resolve conflicts and reunify. Thanks to all the legislators of our State, our youth will have a safe and stable place to stay and they will not have to avoid shelters in fear of their parents being notified immediately. We are now asking Governor Jay Inslee to sign the bill into law on Youth Advocacy Day this Friday, February 22 to show the youth of Washington State that their governor and legislators are behind them.

Even though we have a very exciting win, youth advocacy does not stop here. As Youth Advocacy Day approaches, one of the Coalition’s priorities, the Youth Opportunities Act (HB 1651 / SB 5689 ), is still under consideration. Currently Washington is one of only 8 states that makes juvenile records open to the public and available to be published online. This means that people with criminal records from their youth, before the age of 18, are subject to additional barriers accessing housing, education, and employment. The Youth Opportunities Act would seal juvenile records to the public, except in the case of serious violent offenses, and prohibit courts from disseminating or selling this information. This information is currently sold to background check companies who make money at the expense of youth and young adults.

The Youth Opportunities Act would remove barriers for young people seeking opportunities, and keep them from paying for childhood mistakes in their adult lives. Please take action to move this bill out of committee and onto the house floor by making a public comment on the Senate version of the bill or by calling your legislators using the legislative hotline, 1-800-562-6000.

P.S. For a great summary of youth advocacy around these and other important issues, check out Senator Frockt’s blog post!

Section 8 Wait List Open in Seattle

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Katharine Revello - MSW Student Intern

Thousands of entries have already been received for the lottery to be placed on the waiting list for Housing Choice Vouchers in Seattle which opened on February 4th and will close on February 22nd. Housing Choice Vouchers, also known as Section 8 vouchers, provide a rental subsidy to low-income individuals and families that can be applied to private market-rate housing. Recipients of these vouchers can choose a rental anywhere in the city limits of Seattle within a predetermined price range. Renters then pay 30% of their income in rent, and the voucher pays the difference directly to the landlord.

The demand for vouchers is incredibly high and Seattle Housing Authority will randomly select at least 2,000 households to be entered onto the waiting list. This is the first time since 2008 that the waiting list has been opened, and the housing authority is still contacting people from that original list.

For more information about the lottery for the Section 8 waiting list visit the Seattle Housing Authority website or call their waiting list hotline at 206-239-1674. Applications are only accepted by the housing authority, don’t be fooled by scam sites which require credit card information!

The Power of Kids

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Kathryn Murdock - UCC Social Justice Intern

Yesterday, I had a great time as one of hundreds of advocates who joined the Children’s Alliance for Have a Heart for Kids Advocacy Day in Olympia. The marble halls of Olympia are usually filled with the low, booming voices of adults, but yesterday the Capitol was filled with the squeals of excited kids running around. Samantha Kersul, Legislative Aide to Senator Frockt (my senator in the 46th Legislative District!) told me, it was a nice change to have kids around the Capitol.

Before going to meet with our legislators, we marched to the Capitol and held a rally. At the rally, a young girl gave the opening remarks. She called to action all the adults in the audience: “as kids we need the help of adults to get a good start in life. We need you to help fight for us.” She is exactly right: if we as adults don’t fight for the kids of our state, they will not have a fair chance at a future. It was a truly amazing and inspiring speech.

Next, Governor Inslee began his speech with a reference to a photo of a 4-year-old child sleeping on a bench that was captured during the homeless point-in-time count in Olympia and published in the local paper. Moved by this picture, Inslee stated, “I am governor of this state and we should not be a state where a 4-year-old does not have a place to sleep at night.” He spoke about how important it is that we give the kids of our state a fair chance at a good start and a promising future. He spoke about the exciting prospects of the McCleary decision and the possible benefits it could bring to our state, but he also had a warning that he wanted us to pass onto our legislators: “It is not a solution to our educational crisis to create a homelessness, nutrition and health care crisis for our kids” by not funding important state programs. Governor Inslee’s passionate support of the reasons we were all there strengthened our drive and inspiration as we headed out to meet with our legislators and advocate for kids!

I had called ahead to set up meetings with two of my legislators from the 46th legislative district, Representative Pollet and Senator Frockt, and a meeting with Representative Farrell’s Legislative Aide. I spoke with all of them about one of the Coalition on Homelessness’ key funding priorities, restoring the 15% cuts in already-too-small TANF benefits to families with children. I also asked them to fund State Food Assistance, and to help pass one of the Children’s Alliance’s priority bills, the Dental Access Bill (SB5433/HB1516).

Why did I pick these bills to talk about with my elected officials? It’s simple: if a child is hungry, she can’t learn, and if a child is sitting in class in pain with a cavity, he can’t learn either. If families can’t cover the basics of rent, food, utilities, transportation, and clothes, kids will suffer. Jenn Estroff, the Governmental Relations Director with the Children’s Alliance said it well: even if the legislature makes sure that all of our schools have great teachers and the best equipment possible, as long as our kids are still sitting in class hungry or in pain, none of those investments will be worth it.

Having hundreds of parents and children at Have a Heart for Kids Day served as a reminder to the legislators that they are not only voting for those who have the power to vote for them now, but they are voting for the future of every single one of Washington’s citizens. I can hardly wait to head back to Olympia on February 11 for Housing & Homelessness Advocacy Day! I’m going to help make sure that every legislator from King County gets one of our special buttons highlighting the results of the Coalition’s 2013 One Night Count, and excerpts from the powerful comments people have written on the hundreds of advocacy postcards we’re collecting. See you there!

2,736 people had no shelter in King County last night

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Alison Eisinger

The One Night Count of homeless people in King County took place early this morning. We are incredibly grateful to the many volunteers and supporters whose careful work made this a safe, respectful, and accurate Count.

At least 2,736 men, women, and children were found sleeping on sidewalks, under bridges, in their cars, on public transit, and in temporary structures and makeshift campsites. This is 142 more people than our volunteers counted outside one year ago.

The work we do together on this One Night is just the beginning. It sets in motion a full year of education, engagement, and action for all of us who care about this crisis. This morning, returning to warmth indoors, we are especially aware of this truth: everyone should have a place to call home.

Volunteers returned from counting shocked and saddened to see their neighbors sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes or riding Metro buses to keep warm. Many are also inspired to urge public officials to match these basic needs with robust resources. Right now, our State Legislators are debating funding for key housing and homelessness programs: I am asking every person who volunteered for this One Night Count, and every member of our Coalition, to commit to taking action. Let us make sure the One Night Count is more than just a big, sad number.

Are you interested in helping?

Come to a Homelessness Advocacy 101 Workshop in Seattle or Bellevue on Saturday, February 9 ~ register here.
Join Coalition members as we meet with and educate lawmakers in Olympia on Monday, February 11 for Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day ~ register here.
Support the Coalition’s work through a financial donation. Donations made through February 28 will be matched, up to $7,000, providing a unique opportunity to double the impact of your gift. Donate online today.

After seeing what our community came together to accomplish in a few short hours this morning, I’m confident that together, we can ensure safety for people who are homeless today and end the crisis of homelessness once and for all.

Visit our website for the 2013 street count results in more detail.

Fair Tenant Screening Act – What’s At Stake in the 2013 Legislative Session?

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Kathryn Murdock - UCC Social Justice Intern

In 2009, advocates proposed a bill in our state legislature that would become the Fair Tenant Screening Act. Intended to solve the unjust and unfair tenant screening system in Washington state, the bill’s overarching goals were to:

Prevent & address homelessness
Maintain housing access for survivors of domestic violence
Reduce burden on nonprofit housing providers by increasing tenants’ access to the private rental housing market
Ensure access to justice, and fair & accurate tenant screening
Address affordability of tenant screening reports

This was a community effort with many organizations, including the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, endorsing the bill.

In the 2012 Legislative Session, part of the bill successfully passed through the legislature. The Fair Tenant Screening Act, passed in 2012, guarantees increased transparency for tenants when applying for housing. Landlords are required to disclose the criteria they use to screen tenants and the screening company they hire to run the reports. Landlords must also give tenants “adverse action notices” explaining why prospective tenants are rejected for tenancy. What does this mean for tenants? When a company screens a tenant and there is a mistake on that individual’s record, the tenant will know what the mistake is and who to contact to fix it. Before this was passed, tenants had no idea what was on the screening reports and why they were constantly being rejected by landlords. They would spend hundreds of dollars in screening fees at each rental property they applied to without ever securing a place to live and not being told why.

This was a huge win for tenant rights in Washington, but as only part of the proposed bill passed, there is still more to be done in 2013 to create a just and fair screening system. Advocates for tenant rights are proposing a robust agenda for the 2013 Legislative Session on fair tenant screening, here are some highlights:

Prevent tenant screening companies from showing eviction cases on records where the tenant prevailed or was not found guilty. Currently when a tenant prevails in an eviction charge or settles with their landlord, it still shows up on their record as an eviction – preventing them from getting housing from another landlord.
Work on portable screening reports. In order to reduce costs, advocates are proposing implementing a system where a prospective tenant could pay for one screening report that would be accepted by multiple landlords. This would help low-income tenants avoid the hundreds of dollars they are forced to spend on screening fees each time they apply for a place. This idea is still not very popular in the legislature, but advocates will continue to work on this idea and research into how it might be possible to implement in Washington.
Make sure that victims of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalkers are not further victimized by the system. Right now, law forbids landlords to discriminate against prospective tenants based on their history of sexual assault. However, related incidence reports show up on screening reports, influencing landlords and contributing to the refusal of housing even though it’s against the law. Advocates will push for this information to be removed from screening materials so that landlords do not include it in the criteria they consider.

What can you do to help make sure that fair tenant screening legislation passes this session? You can take the following actions to make sure your voice is heard:

Come to Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day and tell your legislators how important this act is to you.
Write letters, call, or email your legislators and remind them of the importance of this act. Not sure who your legislators are? Click here to find out.
If you are a service provider and have clients who have stories to share about their experiences as tenants, you can help connect them with the Tenants Union or Washington Low Income Housing Alliance. Their stories can help educate legislators on the importance of this bill.

How Can You Help Protect Food Stamps?

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Kathryn Murdock - UCC Social Justice Intern

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program, otherwise known as food stamps, is on the cutting block in the fiscal cliff discussion. This is a crucial time and your legislators need to hear from YOU about how important this program is to sustaining the lives of many Washingtonians. The Anti-Hunger and Nutrition Coalition states that over 1 million Washingtonians rely on food stamps and that if the Farm Bill passes in its current state, then the monthly food budget of at least 234,000 homes in WA will decrease by $90 and 80,000 homes will be ineligible for the program.

The Food Resource and Action Center (FRAC) commented that it is very important to contact your legislators NOW because if the Farm Bill, which includes our nation’s food stamp program, becomes part of a larger legislative package, it will be much harder to convince legislators to vote against it. To contact your legislators, simply call the Legislative Hotline and they will connect you to your legislator’s office: (202) 224-3121. You can also write your legislator an email. If you are not sure who your legislators are, you can find out on the Washington State Legislature Page.

Here are some sample messages you can use from FRAC when contacting your legislators. Make sure to educate your representatives on the impact this bill would have on WA families (see above details).

“Over time, spending money to reduce hunger in America is a good investment. It more than pays for itself because it reduces long-term social costs such as the problems hungry children have in school and the health problems of people who don’t eat properly.”

“The food stamp program is working for the most vulnerable people in our nation. It is the country’s first line of defense against hunger, and cutting help for this most basic human need would be immoral.”

Make the call today, your representatives want to hear from YOU!

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