Housing, homelessness, & human services successes & frustrations

In looking back at the 2018 legislative session, it is encouraging to see how seriously the state took the AWC priority to make a difference on the host of issues contributing to challenges on our streets. It turned out to be an intensely busy session, with four pieces of legislation that were priorities for AWC ultimately passing into law. Several more came very close; and in one case, dying on the last day of session.

Homelessness

HB 1570 from Rep. Nicole Macri (D-Seattle), was the priority bill for AWC as we encouraged the Legislature to give local communities tools to address conditions on our streets related to the exploding number of community members experiencing homelessness. After many years of trying, the bill finally eliminated the sunset date on the preeminent shared funding source for homelessness and made the document recording fee permanent. Moreover, the bill also increased that fee by $22 – increasing funding for local homelessness efforts by over $54 million per biennium. Across the state this will provide a significant addition of resources to address homelessness. We are hopeful this will make a tangible impact for your communities.

HB 2667 fixed a quirk in the law that was forcing people with temporary disabilities and mental illnesses, who were already receiving housing support, to fall into homelessness when their disabilities become permanent. This was a result of different program structures for state funded programs that served people with temporary and permanent disabilities. The last thing cities struggling to care for their communities need is forcing individuals who have gotten back on their feet into homelessness because of a technicality. To put someone in housing only to watch them become homeless again because they went from temporary to permanent disability was a tragedy that was occurring far too frequently, and one that this bill will prevent. This was a great example of a bill that legislators were interested to see cities weighing in on, as we have not historically been engaged this deeply around safety net programs. The outcome will absolutely help on our city streets.

Mental health field responders

One of our priorities going into the session was encouraging the state to help cities that are stepping up to address behavioral health challenges in their communities. A centerpiece of that work passed by the Legislature was the creation of the mental health field responder pilot program. The idea is to help city police departments hire and utilize mental health professionals in partnership with their police, so that we can get people connected with services and care rather than defaulting into the criminal justice system. HB 2892 provides $1 million to fund at least eight grants per fiscal year to support this effort.

This pilot can fund both new programs and expand existing programs, with priority given to communities that are putting a local match on the table. We hope that this program will prove successful and that we will be able to build on it moving forward.

Prescription drug take-back bill passes in the House

The state also passed HB 1047 a first-in-the-nation producer-funded medication take-back program statewide– with at least one collection site in every city. AWC and others have been supporting the creation of a statewide take-back program for many years. The effort to pass this bill is at least ten years in the making. The program has the potential to reduce the availability and abuse of unused prescription opioids as patients will have a new option to safely dispose of excess or unneeded medications.

Behavioral health funding increased

Meanwhile, the budget for behavioral health was also very positive, including:

• $69.3 million provided to county behavioral health organizations for community enhancements;
• $25.3 million in behavioral community capacity funding;
• $46.4 million funding for fines associated with the Trueblood lawsuit dealing with the speed and adequacy of care for the mentally ill;
• $1.7 million for assisted outpatient treatment;
• $14.4 million for opioid treatment and overdose prevention; and
• $15.5 million to fully fund the Institute of Mental Disease (IMD) waiver.

Near misses on affordable housing

Unfortunately, you cannot be successful in everything you work on. There were a few bills to promote cities’ ability to attract affordable housing that came very close to passage, but did not ultimately make it across the finish line. AWC expects these proposals to return next session, and we look forward to making more progress on housing issues then.

Two significant bills to create new local option revenues to address housing affordability were hotly debated this session. HB 1797 contained a variety of approaches that were targeted at different classes of communities including facilitating councilmanic access to an optional sales tax in King County, a new program to reinvest sales tax on the construction of multifamily developments to create more affordability outside of King County, and more flexibility with existing real estate excise revenues. The bill ultimately failed to advance out of the House largely because of concerns about the councilmanic sales tax element of the bill. Some legislators were concerned about the regressive nature of the sales tax, while others wanted to offer this tool to regions outside of King County.

HB 2437 would have created an innovative new partnership between local governments and the state, where a local government would provide a match to draw down a portion of state sales tax to raise revenues to invest in the construction and maintenance of affordable housing facilities. The bill also provided the flexibility to pursue other avenues, like rental assistance, if more appropriate. These funds could be bonded against to make a major investment in affordable housing, to treat this problem with the urgency it deserves. The real challenge with this proposal was the state budget impact – it could cost as much as $20-$40 million per year if every community took advantage. Despite funding for the bill being part of the final budget agreement, the bill died on the final day of session without action from the Senate.

Even though both HB 1797 and HB 2437 were identified as top-tier housing priorities in the House Democratic Caucus, their lack of passage was partially due to the success on other housing bills. There was a belief among some legislators that they had made major progress on homelessness and other associated issues this session, so the pressure to get these more controversial proposals concluded was somewhat diminished. 

AWC’s next steps

• We expect that there will be continued interest in providing additional tools to local governments to generate resources to invest in affordable housing, and anticipate continuing to pursue some of the policies contained in HB 1797 and HB 2437.
• In addition to tools to create more subsidized housing in our communities, there is significant and increasing interest in how to incentivize the private market to construct more affordable housing. We expect a robust discussion about possible tools for cities to proactive attract market rate development, as well as enhanced attention on the regulatory environment and discretionary decisions that local governments are making that have a negative impact on affordability.