Inslee Promises 'Much More Aggressive Approach' To Housing Homeless

OLYMPIA, WA — Washington state is setting aside hundreds of millions of dollars to better meet the demands of the housing and homelessness crisis.

Speaking at a media briefing Wednesday, Gov. Jay Inslee touted what he called a "new, much more aggressive approach" to supportive housing.

"Traditional housing and shelter options often have taken years, if not decades to get done," Inslee said. "We need shelter and housing options that can be available in weeks or months."

According to the governor, the legislature-approved rapid capital acquisition program will give state money to local jurisdictions, allowing them to quickly buy apartment buildings and hotels and turn them into housing or shelter. The program will also fund the construction of thousands of new units, including tiny house villages.

These programs come in addition to housing programs funded at the local level. For example, King County has purchased ten hotels as part of its Health Through Housing program. Funding from the rapid capital acquisition program would help the county expand that effort.

Already, the program has built 13 facilities across 12 counties, enough to serve over 650 Washingtonians. It has also purchased 412 permanent homes or apartments. Facilities funded by rapid capital acquisition investments are required to offer supportive services like behavioral health counseling, but the most immediate benefit, the governor said, is simply giving Washingtonians struggling with homelessness a private and secure place to stay, and getting them off the streets and out of encampments.

"We are dedicated to reducing the number of folks living in dangerous conditions on our state's right-of-ways," Inslee said.

As the program expands, the Washington State Department of Transportation, the Department of Commerce, and Washington State Patrol will begin working with non-profits, counties, cities and towns across Washington to identify safe and secure locations for new rapid housing efforts.

"Teams are going to be doing outreach to encampment residents, and may be able to begin transitioning people and offering services as early as mid-June," the governor said.

The first round of rapid capital acquisition funding will be distributed sometime this summer.

During his briefing Wednesday, Inslee stressed multiple times that this effort would be undergone more rapidly than previous efforts to fix the housing crisis. That's good news if true, because the state has fallen behind on the issue over the past decade. Data collection on homelessness has not been as thorough the past two years, in part due to pandemic concerns, but a pre-pandemic report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that Washington's homeless population had grown 6.2 percent between 2019 and 2020— the third -largest absolute increase in homelessness in the country, after California and Texas. During that time, 30 out of every 10,000 Washingtonians were living on the streets.

Related stories:

Inslee Signs Bill To Rapidly Expand Housing For The Homeless

Here's How Homelessness In Washington Compares To The Rest Of The Country

Why Efforts To Reduce Homelessness In Seattle Have Fallen Short