Current policy and funding priorities are not emphasizing transition to home ownership and asset building for families. Many families now in subsidized rental housing could own with the right structure, something that would free existing rental housing for use by others and create transferable wealth for new homeowners.

Washington needs a Farmworker and Agricultural Housing Authority that can efficiently build housing for H2A and other workers particularly those who work for small and medium sized farms. There are extreme shortages of housing in areas of rural Washington, including areas where fishing and sea food processing provide many jobs but little housing.

The Housing Trust Fund distributes hundreds of millions of dollars for housing unfairly and inefficiently. The process for accessing state funding for housing is arduous and dominated by insiders, political considerations, and state bureaucracy. This means rural counties get few dollars and urban counties get most of the money. That has to change.

Currently the state doesn’t allow local governments to impose rent control. We need to keep this preemption. Rent control discourages housing production, makes housing scarcity worse, and means even higher rents. Rent control favors the lucky who get rent controlled units and hurts people with less money to spend on housing.

Housing production is limited by rules and regulations. When those regulations protects health and safety of users and residents it is worth higher prices. But when land use regulation is political, picking winners and losers, then the resulting scarcity punishes people who have the fewest resources. State and local law is full of needless politically-driven rules and regulations that constrain supply, create scarcity, and punish poor people with higher prices. That has to change.

The Washington Condominium Act was intended to protect consumers but has instead raised risk and liability for builders and developers. This means fewer choices and higher prices for consumers. Condominiums are an important product, encouraging home ownership, reducing housing scarcity, and creating more opportunity for everyone seeking housing.

No other organization or group is raising funds to support candidates and issues on such a wide front from condo liability reform to helping hard working Farmworking families find decent place to live. Hopefully, Fair Housing Washington will make a dent in the discussion in what’s left in 2018 and an even bigger player in important local elections like Seattle’s where there are 9 council seats open in 2019.