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The Real Reason Rents Shot Up During the Pandemic
It’s no secret that rent prices ripped higher between 2020 and 2022. Rents on the West Coast were $1,992 in January 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and peaked out at $2,497 in August 2022, growing 25% in just 30 months. Asking rents grew by a modest 2.5% in February 2020 and then…
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Are Evictions Causing Homelessness? The Data Says No.
The Washington Low Income Housing Alliance recently offered a ‘legislative solution‘ asking policymakers in Washington State to ‘invest’ $4.3 billion over 2 years to fund legal counsel for low-income tenants to fight evictions. They claim to have evidence that shows that evictions are a “leading cause of homelessness in Washington” but decline to actually source…
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Real Stories Show Why Rent Control Won’t Work in WA
District 2 “Rent control will not allow you to keep up with the market increases that occur with increased taxes, insurance and maintenance. It will create a class system, those who are included in rent control and everyone else. The solution for me will be to sell all residential rentals. The supply will go down…
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Rental Assistance is the Best Tool for Housing Stability
Homelessness hit a record high in 2023 both in the United States and in Washington State. One of the leading causes of homelessness is an acute housing shortage. National and state lawmakers exploring policies aimed at addressing the rising homelessness rate focus on three main policy approaches to keep people in their homes: rent control…
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Are Lawmakers Listening to the Experts?
If you get a strange rash on your arm, would you try out a random treatment on your own skin to see if it helps? Browsing a platform like WebMD can help you narrow down the cause of your problem, but you should still use caution before trying any of the treatments. Self-diagnosis can be dangerous—trying…
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2024 Washington State Political Agenda
2024 is set to be the most significant election year in history, with about 4.2 billion people from 76 countries headed to the polls. Americans will go to the polls in November to elect a new president, and many states will hold local elections. Washington State is no exception—we’ve got a packed political agenda this…
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Is Homelessness a Housing Supply Problem?
The US Department of Housing and Urban Design (HUD) released a report to Congress called 2023 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR). According to the Point-in-Time count, an all-time high of 653,104 people were experiencing homelessness in the US on a single night in January 2023, a 12% increase from 2022. 28,036 people experienced homelessness in…
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The True Costs of Bad Housing Policy
A December 2023 article published by Publicola co-founder Erica C. Barnett claims that the decline in single-family rental units in the Seattle housing market is not due to “renter protection” laws. This activist piece masquerading as “journalism” referenced a report by the Seattle City Auditor, also published in December 2023. Erica crowed that the Auditor’s…
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Rent Control Will Make the Housing Shortage Worse
No matter which way they lean politically, Puget Sound voters loudly agree that housing, homelessness, and safety are the most significant problems in our state. This should come as no surprise. People experiencing homelessness in Washington state reached 28,036 in January 2023, up 18% since 2020 despite an eviction moratorium during the pandemic. Murder has spiked 51% since 2019 to hit an all-time…
