housing

Together, We Banned Seattle Junk Fees!

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Stay tuned for a possible state-wide effort to ban junk fees for all Washington renters. We have a victory to celebrate! Thanks to everyone who wrote letters, testified, told your friends, made awesome signs (including Alison’s new baby chicken) and spoke up in other ways, the Seattle City Council unanimously* banned rental junk fees including pet rent, effective July 1 2027! Hats off to the Stay Housed Stay Healthy Coalition for leading the charge on this effort! The Coalition on Homelessness is a proud member of SHSH.  Please join me to send a quick note of thanks to Mayor Wilson and our City Councilmembers. Electeds are people too and thanking them makes it more likely they will support our goals in the future. Scroll down for an easy email template and a more detailed description of what this junk fee ban means for renters. Join our September 17 Membership Meeting to learn more about this and a possible state-wide effort to ban junk fees, and stay tuned for budget legislation in the Fall to enforce this law and make sure that landlords who break the law are held accountable. *Councilmember Rivera is a landlord and City ethics rules disqualified her from voting due to a conflict of interest What Does This Mean? For rental agreements beginning on July 1, 2027 or later, landlords cannot charge junk fees in the city of Seattle. They must also disclose any mandatory and optional fees and amounts clearly in the rental listing. Banned junk fees include: Landlords ARE still allowed to charge: Easy, Quick, Copy/Paste Thank You Email For Seattle residents/workers Thanking elected officials is important! It makes it more likely they will support similar efforts in the future. If you have time, it’s always great to customize this message and say why you care about junk fees. …

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Speak Up: It’s HUD’s Job to House People

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Recent rulings in two lawsuits against the  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have provided short-term protections for the Continuum of Care (CoC) program and permanent supportive housing that thousands of King County residents rely on to stay housed and safe. Let’s celebrate these victories AND let’s speak up together to fight ongoing threats to essential federal programs. Recently, HUD proposed three dangerous rules that would force many people who live in federally subsidized housing into homelessness. None of these changes are final yet, and we still have an opportunity to prevent them. Submitting a flood of comments has worked in the past to successfully stall or stop harmful rules.  Federal rulemaking is a unique process. HUD is legally required to review all comments and respond to important issues in their final rule. So, it’s important we all submit comments to accumulate as many as possible. You can always submit anonymously if you prefer, so your information won’t be part of the public record. Once you’ve left your comments, please share this opportunity to take action with others. Together we can protect people who rely on federally-funded housing! Time limits & work requirements for public housing put millions at risk of homelessness HUD proposed a rule that, if passed, would allow public housing authorities and owners of certain HUD-assisted properties to enforce work requirements for work-eligible* people, mandating them to work up to 40 hours per week or lose their housing. This rule would also implement an unprecedented two-year time limit on assistance that could result in an estimated 3.3 million people losing their rental assistance, including 1.7 million children.  📢 Leave a comment in opposition to the Time Limit & Work Requirement Rule before Friday, May 1, 2026 Example comment (adapted from the National Low Income Housing Coalition) Everyone needs to live in a safe, stable, affordable home. Federal rental assistance programs help more than …

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Analysis of House Bill 2266 for Housing Fairness (Passed into Washington State Law in 2026)

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Disclaimer: this summary was prepared by Coalition staff in April 2026, and is intended to help the public understand the impact and importance of HB 2266. It should not be used as legal advice. Background Since the Growth Management Act went into effect in 2021, cities and counties are not allowed to prohibit STEP housing (Shelter, Transitional Housing, Emergency Housing, and Permanent Supportive Housing) in certain zones within their jurisdictions. Unfortunately, many jurisdictions found loopholes in that law and imposed unreasonable requirements, restrictions, and barriers – many rooted in stigma or neighborhood opposition – to work around this requirement and make developing STEP housing more costly, burdensome, and vulnerable to disruption. These local regulations include opaque, complex, and arbitrary approval processes, restrictive spacing requirements (i.e., banning shelter within 1,000 feet from another shelter), and unfunded mandates for providers. These practices create barriers that make it extremely difficult to create or operate much-needed shelter and housing. In some cases, these barriers even required existing shelter to shut down. Some examples are listed below. To the best of our knowledge, these will all be unlawful once HB 2266 goes into effect later in 2026. HB 2266 closes loopholes in the Growth Management Act and paves the way for more STEP housing to be created in jurisdictions across the state. Summary Expanding siting: HB 2266 changes how cities and counties must approach siting(approving a location) for STEP housing. It requires cities and counties to allow: Limiting requirements: HB 2266 also places important limitations on what cities and counties can require as a condition of siting or developing STEP housing. Under this bill, cities/counties are generally not allowed to: If a city/county uses a design review process, that process must be administrative (done by the lead city planner, not elected officials) and it must …

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Coalition Support helps the Homeless Student Stability Act stay Alive!

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Katara Jordan of Columbia Legal Services shared the following message with supporters of the Homeless Student Stability Act (HB 1682), which is alive and well (currently scheduled for a public hearing in the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education at 8am, Thursday, March 19).  She especially wanted to thank Coalition members for their great support, calls, and postcard signing which was critical to keeping this bill alive and moving.   Keep calling in and letting your legislators know that our state needs better support for students experiencing homelessness and this is possible with the Homeless Student Stability Act! Visit our bill tracker for most up to date info. Friends, Friday, February 27 was critical in the fight to increase state support for homeless students. That morning, it appeared that the Homeless Student Stability Act would not receive a hearing in either the House or Senate budget committees. The 27th was the last day for bills to pass out of state fiscal committees. And generally bills must receive a public hearing before they are allowed to do so. Your effort calling your Representatives helped us secure a public hearing in Appropriations on the Homeless Student Stability Act —a necessary step to increase state support for homeless students. You were genuinely instrumental in securing a hearing for this bill! THANK YOU!   We have even more exciting to news to share! On March 6, the House overwhelmingly passed HB 1682 (the Homeless Student Stability Act) in a vote of 82-16! Representatives Fey, Stambaugh, and Magendanz all gave great speeches on the importance of supporting homeless students and their families! This bill would provide increased in-school support for homeless students as well as create new housing partnerships between school districts and community organizations. With this bill, we could not just shelter …

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Single Adults Advocacy Committee: Long-term Shelter Stayers

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The most recent Single Adults Advocacy Committee meeting on Thursday, May 8 was focused on long-term shelter stayers and how Case Managers can best assist those who seem to be stuck in shelters to get into housing. Here’s a link to the CEH Progress Report: LTSS. And here’s an brief infographic that summarizes St. Martin de Porres’ efforts: For more information, or if you have any questions, please contact the Single Adults Advocacy Committee Co-chairs, Katie Bilek (CCS) and Mercedes Elizalde (LIHI), at saac@homelessinfo.org.