Housing & Homelessness Advocacy Day – Friday, March 14, 2025
At 12:30 p.m. on Friday, March 14, 2025, the steps outside the Washington state capitol building in Olympia were awash with handwritten signs, red scarves, and people chanting. “Rent hikes, let’s stop it! Put people over profit!” Rent stabilization, or House Bill 1217, was one of the primary bills people were advocating for at Housing & Homelessness Advocacy Day (HHAD), an annual lobby day hosted by the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance. In addition to passing a rent stabilization bill into law, there was another unifying goal in everyone’s mind as they chanted loudly to the bright blue Olympia sky: vibrant Washington communities where everyone can secure a safe, stable home they can afford. HHAD is an opportunity for people to visit the state capitol with certain policy priorities in mind and meet with their state legislators to convey the importance of voting in favor of bills and budgets that will help people exit homelessness, stay housed, and survive the circumstances that drive homelessness. This year, these bills included House Bill 1858, sponsored by newly appointed Representative of state Legislative District 43, Shaun Scott. The bill closes a loophole in the collection of Document Recording Fees, the primary funding source for many homelessness shelters and services across our state. It would add approximately $25 million in funding, which is especially important since Document Recording Fees haven’t hit revenue projections for the past few years, and funding for these important services have needed to be backfilled (and will need to be backfilled again this year) to ensure no loss of capacity in our state’s ability to care for people’s emergent and basic needs. House Bill 1858 was just one of the priorities that residents and workers from Legislative District 46, which includes the Northgate neighborhood of Seattle, talked to their district’s …