This month we held our Annual Membership Meeting, a two-hour event full of reflection, education, and advocacy. We celebrated some of the Coalition’s most impactful work so far this year, introduced this year’s slate of Coalition Board of Director candidates and debriefed this year’s legislative session with three state lawmakers.
Celebrate YOUR Coalition
Few organizations have lasted more than four decades doing the essential work of organizing, advocating, and providing training support for housing justice. According to our Executive Director, Alison Eisinger, we may be the oldest independent advocacy organization responding to homelessness in the nation.
In celebration of this Coalition’s mission, we highlighted some of our favorite accomplishments from this past year, which are all made possible through our work together:
- We hosted nine educational and community events for more than 1,000 participants! Topics included accessing public benefits, supporting students experiencing homelessness, and civic engagement.
- We supported more than 1,600 students experiencing homelessness through Project Cool. We worked with 16 of our member agencies to provide backpacks, school and hygiene supplies, and age appropriate, culturally congruent books to students in King County.
- We advocated during Seattle and King County budget season to preserve legal help for people receiving public benefits, increased rental assistance, and restored tenant services.
- We held 63 voter outreach events at homeless service sites and resource fairs, where we engaged community members of all ages and backgrounds about their voting rights and resources to allow their voice to be heard.
The Power of Being in Coalition
We know this Coalition can cultivate hope and solidarity in hard times. We also understand just how extraordinarily difficult this time is and frankly, that things are likely to get far worse, especially for folks experiencing homelessness, housing instability, and the people who work with and for them.
This Coalition believes in speaking the truth, no matter how unpleasant or uncomfortable it is, because that’s the way that we prepare ourselves. That’s the way that we think strategically together. And that’s the way that we do our best advocacy, among other things, by insisting that local decision makers, lawmakers, and budget writers take seriously the real threats to the housing stability, rent support, healthcare coverage, Social Security, and other benefits, which are being threatened, and in some cases, already cut.
The Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness gets to speak truth to power because of all of you: our member organizations, our donors, our volunteers, and the people—who work in places where they might not have such freedom—who share information with us.
We are a true Coalition that can speak more powerfully together than any one individual person or organization can.
Gratitude for our Membership
Thank you to all of the people at our membership organizations who show up, speak up, inform us, take action, care for people, push the boundaries of what is considered good enough, and really help to do the work of housing shelter, safety, justice, and community.
Coalition members get to participate in our Board of Directors elections, our Project Cool for Back-to-School, and our Voting Rights & Registration outreach.
If you’re interested in becoming a member of this Coalition, check out the options for individual, organizational, and allied membership here or reach out to our Senior Program Manager, Kevin Lee, at kevin [at] homelessinfo [dot] org.
Board of Directors Candidate Slate
Each year at our Annual Membership Meeting, we have the pleasure of introducing our slate of candidates for our board of directors and opening up the election to dues-paying members.
We received many qualified and passionate applicants this year and had a difficult time selecting only four to be included in our slate. We encourage everyone who applied to our board of directors to stay engaged and involved with this Coalition in other ways!
With that in mind, we are excited to announce our stellar slate for this year’s board of directors election!
- Diana May Pearce
- Diana is Senior Lecturer Emerita, Director and Founder Emerita, and Scholar in Residence of the Center for Women’s Welfare at the University of Washington School of Social Work.
- Katherine Revello
- Katherine is the Senior Director of Quality Assurance at Plymouth Housing, where she supports teams with financial management, training coordination, and standardization of the quality and delivery of Plymouth services.
- Karissa Johnson
- Karissa works for Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King County as a Program Manager of Community Associations, where she supports Habitat homeowners in building sustainable and lasting associations.
- Scott Starr
- Scott is a managing principal partner at SMR Architects, a Seattle-based architectural firm, where he has worked on the design and construction of supportive housing sites, shelters, and service centers with clients including DESC, Compass Housing Alliance, and Plymouth Housing.
Legislative Session Debrief
This year’s legislative session was long (running from January through April) and difficult. The state was facing a HUGE budget deficit and many essential services, including emergency shelters, were at risk of being cut.
Throughout it all, this Coalition helped its community stay aware, involved, and advocating for the bills and budgets we need to support people experiencing homelessness and housing instability in our state.
For this year’s legislative debrief, we joined by three state lawmakers who are fierce and relentless champions of housing justice: Senator Emily Alvarado (LD-34), Representative Shaun Scott (LD-43), and Representative Nicole Macri (LD-43).
Representative Scott sponsored House Bill 1858, which raises money to help sustain emergency shelter statewide by closing a loophole that allowed banks to avoid paying document recording fees.
Document recording fees fund emergency shelters, other important low-income housing programs and the Covenant Homeownership Act, which helps first-time Black and Brown homebuyers impacted by the long legacy of real estate segregation in our state.
Document recording fees are not a fixed revenue stream. They fluctuate based on the amount of real estate transactions occurring. Over the last several years, the projected amount of money coming into the state through document recording fees dipped, which put shelters and other important services at risk of being cut. That’s why HB 1858 was so crucial in preserving state-funded housing services this year.
Thanks to HB 1858 and Rep. Scott, $30 million per year will be added to the state’s fund for these important housing services.
Rep. Scott also reflected on the dire need for progressive revenue in our state—specifically in the face of brutal cuts from the federal government—to keep cash assistance programs, higher education, and housing funded properly. He looks forward to next year’s legislative session, which will be his second representing District 43, and continuing to work on securing the necessary funds to help communities grow stronger, more inclusive, and healthier.
Sen. Alvarado sponsored HB 1217 for rent stabilization, which passed this session. This is a particularly joyous accomplishment for Rep. Alvarado and Rep. Macri, who have been working on this bill for many years.
HB 1217 is an anti-gouging bill for Washington state. It caps annual rent increases at 7 percent plus inflation for tenants (or up to 10 percent) and 5 percent for manufactured homeowners.
HB 1217 can be enforced by the Attorney General, which means the Attorney General’s office can sue landlords who don’t comply with the new law.
Rep. Alvarado reflected that the passage of this bill demonstrates that the general public and legislators alike understand that reasonable rent regulations are necessary for a fair housing market.
Rep. Alvarado also reflected how the passage of this bill was made possible thanks to people power. She shared:
“This was 100 percent about movement building over the years of advocates and regular folks who just came and shared stories and demanded change. We were up against moneyed special interests who did absolutely everything possible to kill this bill. But what happened was a groundswell of advocacy, of coordinated advocacy, that not only helped move the bill but held elected officials accountable.”
HB 1217 changed significantly during this legislative session, ending up with higher rent caps than many advocates wanted. Rep. Alvarado said: “Compromise is always part of the legislative process… At some point, I think it’s important for all of us to get a law in place, take the win, and figure out what a long-term strategy looks like to make improvements as we see as necessary in the community… There’s always time to make things better.”
Rep. Macri was vice-chair of the House Appropriations Committee and played an instrumental role in crafting the state budget this session.
The state was facing a $16 billion budget deficit over the next four years. Thanks to the budget Rep. Macri helped write, the state raised historic amounts of new revenue (more than $9 billion) but still made significant budget cuts ($7 billion).
Rep. Macri explained that part of the reason the state was facing such a shortfall is because the cost of providing services and the demand for those services has gone up.
Additional dollars were invested in housing and homelessness services in this budget, Rep. Macri said, but this will only help sustain existing services rather than adding more.
“The state funding will not fully backfill what communities need,” Rep. Macri said. “But it goes a lot further than our ability to backfill in many other areas of the budget.”
Rep. Macri and her colleagues approached writing the budget with a focus on food, shelter, and health and protecting access to food, shelter, and health for the most vulnerable Washingtonians.
The legislature allocated funding to continue homeless youth diversion and tenant right-to-counsel programs, which were previously funded with one-time dollars. Both these programs help people retain their housing and stability.
The state budget also includes:
- $128 million to sustain programs that help people access food
Continued investments for immigrant refugees and new arrivals, particularly asylum seekers
The legislature also delayed the implementation of good new policies in order to save money. These changes will result in the state continuing to garnish benefits that should go to low-income families and people with disabilities. These delays include:
- Delaying the 100 percent child support pass through, so the state will continue to collect part of child support payments made to families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits
- Delaying the recovery of people’s Age Blind Disabled (ABD) payments after they receive their federal disability
Other cuts will impact healthcare:
- One percent reduction in Medicaid reimbursement rates for both physical and behavioral health
- A 20 percent reduction in the Recovery Navigator program, which helps people with substance use disorder access outreach, treatment, and recovery services
Even with these cuts, the state was able to maintain its Apple Health expansion program for immigrant residents and its ability to provide subsidies for people who get healthcare through WashingtonHealthCareFinder.org who may not be eligible for Medicaid.
Next year, Rep. Macri will look to:
- Attempt to restore cuts made in this year’s budget
- Invest in subsidized housing operations
Rep. Macri reminded us we need to remain mindful of how cuts from the federal government will impact us at the state level. The federal government is attempting to make dramatic cuts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Medicaid, and SNAP food assistance. The state will not be able to fully backfill these cuts, Rep. Macri said, and we need to create more equity in our tax code to be able to respond to these growing needs and the shift in funding from the federal government to states.
Sustained advocacy and engagement with our democracy will be key.
And that’s a wrap!
Thank you for joining our Annual Membership Meeting and Legislative Debrief.
Our next meeting is Thursday, June 12 from 9-10:30 a.m. over Zoom.
Please note that this General Membership Meeting is a week early, due to the Juneteenth holiday the following week.
Please join us! Register here.