Editorial: Funding, changes needed to deliver housing for all

By The Herald Editorial Board

The state’s problems with affordable housing and homelessness comes down to what sounds like a relatively simple equation: too few roofs for the number of people who need one over their heads.

It’s a grim game of musical chairs, with even fewer chairs available at the lower levels of household income.

And too few roofs means that the costs for rent — and mortgages for those who can afford them — have meant increasing prices for housing, sometimes forcing families and individuals into homelessness and unsustainable options for shelter.

Nearly half — 47 percent — of all Washington state households faced unaffordable housing costs in 2019, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent or mortgage.

For a family of four with an annual income of $27,160 — the threshold for what’s considered “extremely low income” — there is a deficit of more than 158,000 affordable and available rental units statewide, according to figures published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Even for those who are at least at the state’s annual median income — about $84,000 — to half of that — $42,000 — there’s a deficit of nearly 198,000 affordable and available rentals in the state.

More locally, in the ten years between 2010 and 2019, Snohomish County has added more than 106,000 residents to its population, but at the same time saw less than 34,000 owner-occupied homes and 12,600 rental units built, and the county could add another 120,000 more residents to its current population of 833,500 by 2035. Over roughly the same 10-year period median household income has increased 8 percent, while the costs for rent have increased 32 percent and home prices by 52 percent, according to figures from the Housing Authority of Snohomish County.

Likewise, Everett’s population has grown faster than its supply of housing.

The City of Everett, in its Rethink Housing Action Plan, forecasts a need for at least 23,000 additional housing units — in a range that includes supportive housing, income-based and rent-restricted rental housing, market-rate rental housing and owner-occupied homes — between now and 2035.

Without those 23,000 housing units, Everett and other communities face a growing inability to allow those who work here — teachers, nurses, police officers, retail employees and others — to live in the communities they serve.

Most of the state’s residents — if they don’t know the figures — know the problem. In a recent survey by the state Department of Commerce, 39 percent of state residents given a list of 12 issues ranked the cost of housing and rent and the growing numbers of those living with homelessness as the top two most-important issues facing the state. The overall cost of living followed at 34 percent; crime and public safety at 26 percent.

Nor is the issue new to state officials and lawmakers.

Gov. Jay Inslee this week reaffirmed a budget proposal announced last month that would place a $4 billion bond measure before voters that would accelerate efforts for affordable housing construction, supportive housing for those experiencing homelessness and increased capacity for mental health and addiction treatment programs.

Earlier, Inslee estimated that the bond funds could spur the construction of 5,300 units in the two years of the next budget and another 19,000 in the three following two-year budget periods, covering a range of programs, including emergency supportive housing, housing for those with special needs, workers making less than 80 percent of the state’s median income and assistance for first-time homebuyers with down payments and closing costs.

Inslee’s bond proposal would provide a significant jump start for housing efforts, but there are structural and societal issues to consider as well, including where and what types of housing will be built.

Calls have been made, especially among Republicans in the Legislature, to streamline permitting and to curb energy, environmental and other regulations, providing more incentive for private developers to build. As well, there’s been a push at the county and city level in Snohomish County to ease restrictions on detached accessory dwelling units — the regulatory term for mother-in-law apartments — in single-family zoned neighborhoods.

But efforts also are building to further diversify residential neighborhoods by providing more space and opportunity for higher-density housing, often called “missing middle housing,” especially with services and transportation, such as bus and light rail lines, within walking distance.

Two bills — Senate Bill 5190 and House Bill 1110 — would override cities’ and counties’ single-family zoning in some neighborhoods to allow duplexes and townhouses on residential lots. The Herald’s Jerry Cornfield reported the Senate legislation describes “middle housing” as: “buildings that are compatible in scale, form, and character with single-family houses and contain two or more attached, stacked, or clustered homes including duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, fiveplexes, sixplexes, townhouses, courtyard apartments, and cottage housing.”

The Senate bill has advanced to its housing committee. A public hearing on the House bill is scheduled for 4 p.m. Tuesday before its housing committee.

But before the calls of “not in my background” can build in volume, consider the potential of the types of development that are possible and now being built or under consideration in Everett.

Under construction in Everett is a 430-unit, five building affordable rental apartment cluster, sited on the former site of a Kmart on Evergreen Way, between 79th Place SE and Highway 526. The complex is expected to offer housing to those earning no more than 80 percent of median income, with a target of an average of 60 percent. The development recently was provided a $1 million state grant to help cover infrastructure costs, such as utility hookups.

And under consideration by the city is a proposal by the Everett Housing Authority to redevelop 12 acres and 244 units of the Baker Heights neighborhood with a complex of 1,500 units of housing, with buildings up to 12 stories in height and 45,000 square feet of space for retail business and cafes. Some of the apartment units would be rented at market rates, an attempt to “decentralize” poverty in the Delta neighborhood, one of the city’s lowest-income areas.

Judging from the proposal and its artist renderings, this isn’t the massive blocks of apartment buildings that sprouted up in cities in the 1970s, an image that still colors public perceptions today. With a range of building heights and designs amid a complex of walkways, greenery, playgrounds and public areas, the plans for the housing authority’s “Park District” offer an attractive alternative to the public housing of 50 years ago.

It also offers an example of what housing advocates are trying to describe in their calls for higher-density housing, and it’s one solution that can help add enough “seating” to end our cruel game of musical chairs.