Everett, Wash.
Published: Monday, June 9, 2008

Housing effort tries to keep county from getting too ritzy

Advocates want to build more affordable housing to keep the non-rich from being priced out of Snohomish County.

By Jeff Switzer, Herald Writer

 Though housing prices are dropping, rent and mortgages are still too costly for many of Snohomish County's poor and middle-class families.

Rising fuel and food prices are eating away at income, too, making things even harder for people searching for an affordable place to live.

A severe shortage in affordable housing prompted social service leaders to draft a new $1 billion "Housing Within Reach" plan to put a big dent in the problem during the next decade.

More than 18,000 houses and apartments might be built or kept affordable under the plan, created by the Housing Consortium of Everett and Snohomish County. It also calls for raising the county sales tax by one-tenth of 1 percent to help raise some of the money needed.

"If we don't do anything, the housing crisis is going to get worse and people will be priced out of this market," said Bud Alkire, executive director of the Everett Housing Authority. "Children of Everett residents will not be able to live here anymore."

The plan is Snohomish County's most detailed and ambitious ever to try to boost the availability of affordable housing and chip away at homelessness.

"The need is significant," Alkire said. "We need to step up and have some ambitious plans."

There's a laundry list of problems showing the county's housing crunch, advocates said.

Mobile home parks continue to face closure as they are redeveloped. Working families are facing foreclosures, and housing prices have outpaced wages.

That forces people to live far from job centers and pushes up a family's fuel costs in an area that has fourth highest prices in the country.

It's a big challenge, admits Ed Petersen, chairman of the committee that wrote the plan.

The lull in the housing market might have made housing more affordable, but it's only temporary, he said.

"We know it's going to go back up," he said. Nearly 2 million more people are expected in coming decades in the Puget Sound area -- including many children of families living here now.

"That population growth is going to trigger more price escalation" for renters and buyers, he said.

To take manageable bites out of the problem, the group proposes launching a dozen housing initiatives during the next year.

Each would help different people in need. The poorest families would receive more resources over a longer time, while temporary and emergency assistance would keep people from spiraling into eviction and foreclosure.

The hardest thing is raising enough local money to win state and federal matching grants, Petersen said. That will be a key focus of the new housing effort.

The group's goal would be to build, buy or preserve three times as many homes and apartments as it could under existing funding schemes.

Still, the plan doesn't try to solve all the housing problems. Finding 18,000 housing units still leaves many people on their own, Petersen said.

An estimated 53,000 families paid too great a share of their income on housing -- more than 30 percent -- according to the 2000 census. That figure is forecast to increase to 73,000 families in 2017, he said.

"Snohomish County, as a major urban county, is way behind on dealing with housing needs," County Councilman Brian Sullivan said.

Higher sales taxes might be needed, and land-use zoning to encourage builders to include affordable houses in future developments.

Those two ideas face debate.

County Executive Aaron Reardon is critical of the proposed tax increase and the Master Builders Association opposes any effort to require affordable housing inside future developments.

Many people are more focused on the problem than ever, Sullivan said.

"The times are very exciting for housing right now," he said. "We may actually qualify for a lot of public dollars in the near future."



Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.
© 2009The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA