Legislature Aims to Make Investments in Affordable Housing & Maintain Current Homelessness Programs

This session, the legislature has continued its trend to appropriate significant, new funding for affordable housing and homelessness alleviation programs.

The state provides the largest source of capital funding for affordable housing construction through the Housing Trust Fund (HTF), and this year’s budget will add between $50 and $100 million dollars to the HTF.

While the House capital budget proposal contains higher levels of investment in the HTF, both chambers’ proposals would increase the HTF by over $50 million. This increase is spread across various program areas, including traditional multifamily housing projects, special supportive housing for clients with mental health needs and developmental disabilities, manufactured home communities, and tiny home projects.

The operating budget proposals seek to maintain current service levels in county homeless housing programs. Counties are required, under RCW43.185C.050, to plan for and address homelessness in their communities. These programs are funded primarily through a document recording fee (DRF) assessed by the county auditor on real estate transactions. In recent years, the real estate market throughout the state has cooled substantially, leaving many counties with a shortfall in this crucial funding source. Counties are also struggling to replace funding handed to them by the federal government during the Covid-19 pandemic. These simultaneous funding shortfalls pose a serious threat to current service levels in county homeless housing programs.

In the 2023 session, the legislature appropriated $9 million to compensate for this shortfall. This January, the Department of Commerce released a statewide study that showed the true shortfall to be much greater, with a statewide need of $70 million. The House operating proposal seeks to fully fund the shortfall, with a DRF backfill of $39 million for the upcoming fiscal year and a $40 million dollar grant program to shore up programs created with Covid-era funds. The Senate proposal does not include this grant program and funds the DRF backfill at $29 million dollars.

WSAC staff are advocating on counties’ behalf that the final supplemental budget includes the funding levels in the House proposal. If you are concerned about current homeless housing service levels in your county, please reach out to budget writers and express the importance of these investments for your community.