FW: UPDATE re: Vital Bill on Homelessness Needs YOUR Help!
Christine Johansen
Good afternoon.
The House Ways & Means vote on SHB 1768 has been delayed. (For one thing we are still some additional behind the scenes work securing support for this measure).
But if you have already contacted your Representatives as requested last week, that is fine. Your messages are none the less timely and helpful, and now your legislators even have a little more time to consider your thoughts. And, if you have yet to contact your members on House Ways & Means, you still have some time to do so.
If you happen to receive a particular response from any of your legislators and don’t mind sharing that with me it could be very helpful.
Attached is an updated briefing paper you can forward to your legislators and keep for future reference. Please discard the one sent last week and use this revised version from this point forward.
Thanks again for any/all help you can provide this legislation – it continues to take a lot of effort from a lot of people/groups!
Regards, Seth
From: Seth Dawson [mailto:Sethd...@att.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 11:30 AM
To: 'Legislative News & Views for Advocates'
Subject: Vital Bill on Homelessness Needs YOUR Help!
Importance: High
Good morning.
SHB 1768 (Concerning a surcharge for very low-income and homeless housing assistance) is scheduled for a vote in House Ways & Means this Monday afternoon (3/21) @ 3:30. Please ask any and all Representatives you have on this committee (see membership list and contact information down below) to vote “yes” on this critical piece of 2011 legislation! If you don’t happen to have any Representatives on this committee you could thank Rep. Hunter, the Chair, for hearing this bill and for calling it for a committee vote.
The measure may look pretty complex and detailed, but it is best to keep your communications at a high policy level, along these lines: If SHB 1768 is not enacted we expect that as a bare minimum there will be over 27,000 more Washingtonians homeless than there are today by the year 2013 -- for the following reasons:
· Over the years the legislature has shifted more and more services for people who are homeless from the general fund to the Home Security Fund (which contains nothing but the revenues generated by a dedicated fee for recording local real estate documents). Currently, there is virtually no general fund money devoted to homelessness; and now there are no less than 11 different line items funded in the House Security Fund. We even opposed, unsuccessfully, the more recent additions (such as Secure Crisis Residential Centers, Crisis Residential Centers, Street Youth Funding, etc.) because we knew that Fund revenues would not be sufficient to cover these services – although nobody knew just how bad the economy would get.
Because of the HSF overload and the drop in recording fee revenues due to the mortgage crisis and declining home sales, we are now staring at a $12m deficit in the HSF going into the next biennium. If the legislature does not intervene by closing this gap, the Department of Commerce estimates that an additional 5,600 people will go homeless in this state because of the service cutbacks that would be necessary.
· We likewise anticipate homelessness to increase in the next several years for additional reasons – the elimination or drastic reduction of cash assistance for people on Disability Lifeline (which may be addressed to some extent by substituting a housing stipend, which we support and which will be helpful, but which will also be seriously underfunded compared to need), and reductions/eliminations of mental health and other human services that will indirectly swell the ranks of people without a home or shelter.
- The $5 recording fee increase proposed in SHB 1768 would at least close the $12m gap in the Home Security Fund and at least keep existing services whole. In a time when need is increasing so dramatically we really cannot afford to go backward and reduce services!
(If at some point in the process the fee might be increased to, say, $10 then we could generate some additional money to help address this additional need that we are and will be experiencing. But right now we are just focusing on moving SHB 1768 as is – with the $5 increase.)
· SHB 1768 also extends a 2013 sunset on a $20 recording fee increased in 2009. If this sunset is not extended the Department of Commerce estimates that the attendant loss of over $40m in biennial revenues for addressing homelessness will cause another 21,000 people to become homeless; and that estimate does not factor in the aggravating factors of Disability Lifeline and other human service cuts we expect to be imposed by the end of this session. With so much at stake we do not want to wait until the last moment to try and extend this sunset, so SHB 1768 pushes the expiration date on the $20 fee increase of 2009 and the new $5 increase we are proposing out to 2019 – to make sure we get through this mortgage crisis era as best we can.
· Some additional points you could add:
1) If legislators oppose the recording fee we ask that they please make an exception to their normal position on this fee in this highly exceptional fiscal era. You could tell them that we have asked the House Community Development and Housing Committee to convene a work group to seriously examine during the interim possible alternatives or supplements to the document recording fee and all legislators/stakeholders would be welcome to participate, but in the meantime we really need to enact SHB 1768 this session at least as a stop gap measure.
2) I’ve attached a copy of Maslow’s Hierarchy, which I’ve been handing legislators throughout the session as a way of prioritizing government services. Maslow’s top priority are the basic survival-related human services – such needs as food and shelter; and you could share this document and point with your legislators if you wish. Without a home how do kids learn, how do people get cleaned up for work and job interviews, etc.
3) I’ve also attached a briefing paper on the Home Security Fund and its uses, which provides more background information and which you can hopefully forward to your legislators with your own message.
4) Because housing/shelter is a fundamental need that cuts across so many services this bill is supported by a wide range of human service groups (such as those listed underneath my name down below, among man others!)
5) As always, feel free to refer legislators to me if they have questions or need additional information.
6) Of course you may have your own arguments, facts & figures to relay, as well.
Thanks for any and all assistance you can provide this essential legislation the rest of the session, starting with Monday afternoon’s committee vote! I don’t see us being successful unless a number of people/groups speak up for SHB 1768!
Regards & Gratitude, Seth
Washington State Coalition for the Homeless
The Washington State Community Action Partnership
The National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI Washington
The Washington State Coalition for Children in Care
The YWCA for Seattle-King County-Snohomish County
YouthCare
House Ways & Means
Toll-Free Legislative Hotline: |
Committee Members
For additional contact and background information click on the Representative’s name below:
Representative | District | Phone |
|
Hunter, Ross (D) Chair | 48 | ||
Darneille, Jeannie (D) Vice Chair | 27 | ||
Hasegawa, Bob (D) Vice Chair | 11 | ||
Alexander, Gary (R) * | 20 | ||
Bailey, Barbara (R) ** | 10 | ||
Dammeier, Bruce (R) ** | 25 | ||
Orcutt, Ed (R) ** | 18 | ||
Carlyle, Reuven (D) | 36 | ||
Chandler, Bruce (R) | 15 | ||
Cody, Eileen (D) | 34 | ||
36 | |||
Haigh, Kathy (D) | 35 | ||
Haler, Larry (R) | 08 | ||
Hinkle, Bill (R) | 13 | ||
Hudgins, Zack (D) | 11 | ||
Hunt, Sam (D) | 22 | ||
Kagi, Ruth (D) | 32 | ||
46 | |||
Ormsby, Timm (D) | 03 | ||
Parker, Kevin (R) | 06 | ||
Pettigrew, Eric (D) | 37 | ||
Ross, Charles (R) | 14 | ||
Schmick, Joe (R) | 09 | ||
Seaquist, Larry (D) | 26 | ||
Springer, Larry (D) | 45 | ||
Sullivan, Pat (D) | 47 | ||
Wilcox, J.T. (R) | 02 |
*Ranking Minority Member **Asst. Ranking Minority Member
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