For the past 10 years, Dominic Horne has worked at a community health agency in Vancouver, a fast-growing city in Washington state, helping people squeezed by rising rents from becoming homeless.
She sometimes wonders if she might be the agency's next customer.
Because her husband sometimes has trouble finding work, Horne is maxing out her credit cards to help pay for rent. She has relied on public assistance and lived in a shelter. The couple and her two children have moved many times, so they store photos, family heirlooms and other memorabilia in boxes. Because I don't have a place that I can call home yet.
“I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said Horne, 42, whose current lease expires in May. “Also, one price increase will put her in a precarious situation again.”
Horn was among the thousands of Washingtonians who have flocked to the state capital, Olympia, in recent weeks to lobby lawmakers on one of the most closely watched housing bills in the country: a bill that would cap housing rent increases at 7%. One of them. one year.
The bill, considered a priority by Democratic leaders who control the state Legislature, passed the House and now heads to the Senate. If enacted, the bill would make Washington the third state in the nation to implement statewide rent controls, after Oregon and California, both of which have been implemented within the past five years. Become.
Housing has emerged as perhaps the biggest issue in the state Legislature this year.The number of households considered rent-burdened by the federal government, meaning they consume more than 30 percent of their income on rent, has increased. According to a new report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Research, the number of housing units will reach a record 22.4 million by 2022.
“People are facing rising rents,” state Assembly Speaker Laurie Jinkins, a Democrat, said during the legislative session in January. “They're stressed, they're scared, and they're asking us for help.”
When states get involved in this issue, the goal is often to prevent local governments from enacting rent regulations. More than 30 states have done so, with Montana, Florida and Ohio recently added. West Virginia could be next, said Jim Lapides, who tracks the bill for the National Multifamily Housing Council, a group representing the apartment industry.
Washington state blocked local rent control in 1981, the last time Republicans controlled the governor's office and the Legislature. Rather than lifting that ban, the current bill would protect tenants across the state, including those in towns who are unable or unwilling to take action themselves.
The bill faces formidable challenges in Congress, which is scheduled to adjourn on March 7. A similar attempt last year ended in failure. Now, an initial proposal for a 5% cap stalled in a Senate committee after moderate Democrats said they could not support “adopting dangerous policies that could do more harm than good.”
The proposed 7% cap, unlike in Oregon and California, would be flat and could fluctuate somewhat depending on how fast consumer prices rise. The cap is Oregon's inflation rate plus 7% and California's inflation rate plus 5%. Both states have set the cap at 10%.
The Washington bill applies only to lease renewals. Landlords will be free to increase the rent when renting to new tenants. State Rep. Emily Alvarado said the restrictions would not apply for the first 10 years the building is occupied to avoid inhibiting construction. Lead sponsor of this bill.
Greg Colburn, a real estate professor at the University of Washington and co-author of the recent book “Homelessness Is a Housing Problem,” said he wasn't surprised that state officials across the country found themselves in this situation. It will take a “nearly paternalistic” approach.
“It's becoming a hot topic every now and then,” he said. “If you were an elected leader at the state level, what would you say right now what are we going to do? What are the tools available to us?”
“Year of Housing”
Median home rents in Washington rose 34% between 2001 and 2019, after adjusting for inflation, and outpaced renters' incomes by 21% over the same period, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Research, a national research group. exceeded.
In 2023, dubbed the “year of housing” by some state leaders, lawmakers focused on housing supply, passing legislation to allow the addition of duplexes, quadruple homes, and accessory dwelling units in residential areas. Meanwhile, a record $400 million budget was earmarked for the Housing Trust Fund, which supports low-income families. Residents with income.
This year's shortened Congress has been marked by bills related to housing affordability and new revenue increases, most of them proposed by Democrats with little or no support from Republicans. In addition to the rent bill, lawmakers are considering a tax on real estate transactions over $3 million and an excise tax of up to 10% on short-term rentals such as Airbnb.
“The holy grail of holy grails is rent control,” said state Rep. Andrew Barkis, a Republican who represents Olympia East. “They're desperate to do it, and they're on the brink of thinking they can do it,” he said of Democrats.
Mr. Barkis, who owns a property management company, is also an associate of the Washington Multifamily Association, which represents major property management companies. In January, the group sent 150 members to Olympia's lobbying effort, the largest in its history.
Louder than the landlords during the legislative session were the hundreds of tenant activists who filled the Capitol campus for a midday rally organized by the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, a statewide coalition. was.
They also joined the Manufactured Home Owners Association, which represents people who own homes in mobile home parks and rent their land, as well as older residents living on fixed incomes. They too are facing rising rent costs.
For Horne, a community health worker, the most tense moment at the Capitol came during a standing-room-only meeting with MPs from the Vancouver area, which had the highest per-capita rate of eviction filings in the province in 2023. . One after another, voters shared stories about evictions and homelessness.
Monica Zazueta, who attended the rally with her 9-year-old son Aries, said Aries had become increasingly discouraged by the family's precarious housing situation.
“The Youth Crisis Task Force came to help us because Aries said he didn't want to live anymore,” she said, crying.
Another group with a permanent presence at the state Capitol is the Washington Rental Housing Association, which opposes rent control and represents small property owners like Mike Frost.
Mr. Frost, a 67-year-old native of Montclair, New Jersey, one of about 100 rent-regulated municipalities in New Jersey, owns two buildings in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, totaling 26 units, and does his own repairs. I'm doing it. During a tour of the 1950s-built garden apartment, Mr. Frost said he was proud to offer relatively affordable units ($1,385 a month for a 430-square-foot one-bedroom) in a fast-changing neighborhood. He said he was there.
Across the street, new townhouses are selling for $800,000. His five-story building on the left has 56 micro units (studio units as small as 272 square feet, one of the city's newest affordable efforts) that can be rented for $1,200 a month. Masu.
Frost said that statewide rent control, like the one being discussed in Olympia, It would hurt small landlords already struggling with ballooning costs and bureaucracy, and prompt some landlords to sell their buildings.
“It's going to bring in more bottom-fishing people,” Frost said of potential buyers.
One of Frost's residents, Brittany Moses, 37, an interior designer, recently suffered a seizure that has limited her movement. She is paying her $955 in past due rent. But Frost, she said, “is a really great landlord,” who helped her access community grants and other resources so she wouldn't fall further behind.
Since moving in three years ago, Moses' monthly rent has increased once by $120 (9.5%). This increase was mind-boggling.
“I’m all for anything that keeps rents low,” she said. “But I also understand the landlord's opinion. I know how expensive it is.”
room with view
Local governments are also grappling with housing issues.
In Seattle, a proposed ballot initiative currently in the signature-gathering stage would impose an “excess compensation payroll tax” on companies paid more than $1 million a year to companies that pay them more than $1 million a year.
Edward R. King Jr. and Kelly Burnside are tenant activists in Bellingham. In an interview at the Little Cheerful Cafe, which King once owned, King said that 10 years ago, after struggling with multiple sclerosis and a divorce, he finally bought a one-bedroom apartment in a complex for $750 a month in 2015. He said he had found an apartment. Mr. Burnside lives.
When a Michigan-based management company acquired the property in 2021, King's rent was $850, but quickly escalated, first to $1,100 and then to $1,750.
His next home was a 2007 Saturn Vue.
“I just couldn't afford to move anywhere,” said King, 59.
He eventually made it to the top of an eight-year waiting list for public housing. And he was appalled that many of his former neighbors were forced to emigrate, sometimes to other states.
“I stopped counting at 20,” Burnside said.
