For the past year, Building Changes has worked closely with local governments in Snohomish County to develop recommendations for supporting affordable housing. We are very pleased that on June 17th, Snohomish County Tomorrow unanimously approved our final report and passed a resolution to co-convene a task force to implement our recommendations. The complete report can be accessed here.
During the course of this project, we've spoken with over 75 stakeholders in Snohomish County, including council members, mayors, city and county planning staff, representatives from the private sector, and leaders in the affordable housing field. What we've learned is that while cities understand the huge unmet needs for safe, affordable housing in their communities, most jurisdictions don't have the
Last month, I gave a presentation to the Steering Committee of Snohomish County Tomorrow, which includes elected officials and other representatives from the 19 cities and towns in Snohomish County. As part of our work to research and promote collaboration between jurisdictions on housing issues, I worked with our clients at the County and the City of Lake Stevens to develop a short presentation on (1) what is affordable housing, (2) who needs affordable housing, (3) where is it located in Snohomish County, and (4) how is affordable housing created?
It can be difficult to communicate just how great the need is for housing in our region, and how the benefits of affordable housing spread beyond individual families to the entire community. A key takeaway from this presentation is that all kinds of working families need to balance housing costs with other essentials, such as health care, food, and transportation. When the people who work in our cities - from food service or retail workers to teachers and police officers - cannot afford to live there, the whole community suffers. In Snohomish County alone, more than 55,000 families that earn less than the median income are paying more for housing than they can afford, and that number is growing.
We also wanted to send the message that there is no single solution for meeting these affordable housing needs, but it really does require combined efforts from the private sector, dedicated nonprofit agencies, and local, state, and federal governments. Our goal was to give elected officials a solid grounding in the fundamentals of affordable housing in their communities, and get them to think about new ways they could work together. In late February, we will return to the SCT Steering Committee to continue this conversation on what cities and the County can do together to promote healthy, viable communities that have affordable options for all families.
Note: Our presentation was specifically focused on Snohomish County, but part of our inspiration was the Affordable Housing 101 educational curriculum developed by ARCH, the affordable housing collaboration between 15 Eastside cities and King County. This is a great resource with even more detail on the needs and strategies for affordable housing.
Some of the most innovative and inspiring work to end homelessness in Washington State has been made possible through the landmark
Housing and Homeless Assistance Act of 2005, which among other things, created the statewide
Homeless Grant Assistance Program (HGAP). The HGAP program has provided flexible, three-year grants to counties to create new, innovative programs that address the needs of the local community.
Since 2006, the State Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development (CTED) has awarded 24 HGAP grants to a total of 20 counties, through a competitive application process. Building Changes has been providing technical assistance and the grantees since the initial round of funding, and it has been a rewarding and eye-opening experience for all of us. It gives us the
In December, the Snohomish County Council approved a one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) sales tax increase to support mental health and chemical dependency services. This sales tax option is available to each county, as enabled by the state legislature in 2005. I think this makes Snohomish at least the tenth county to implement the local option (after Clallam, Clark, Island, Jefferson, King, Okanogan, Skagit, Spokane, and Whatcom Counties). You can see more information on the background and implementation of the local sales tax option for mental health and chemical dependency services here.
How does this connect to housing and homelessness? Sadly, in a great many ways. Study after study have shown that the people living on the streets disproportionately suffer from untreated mental illness
In our current challenging economic climate, it is encouraging indeed to see the City of Seattle working to develop creative new tools to promote affordable housing. Seattle is currently working on plans to expand its incentive zoning program beyond the Downtown neighborhood to other areas of the city experiencing growth and upzoning.
The proposed concept is relatively simple: when an area of the city is considered for residential upzoning, like Downtown was in 2006, the incentive zoning program would allow a housing developer to build at a higher density in return for setting aside a percentage of the new housing units so that they are affordable to families at low or moderate income levels (or in some cases, paying an in-lieu fee to the City to be dedicated for affordable housing
