Gentlemen Start Your Engines
Now that the election is over and we know the makeup of the legislature, we can start to look ahead to the 2025 legislative session. Although how things play out will depend on committee structure and assignments in the House and Senate, to be decided in a few weeks during organization, we do know a few things that are for sure, and some that are likely.
The elephant in the room, rent stabilization will be back with house progressive and tenant advocates believing that that will be able to quickly move the bill through the house to the Senate. Although bills have not been filed yet, we expect something similar to HB 2114 to be the vehicle in the house since it already passed off the floor last year. The WMFHA BOD, GAC and Partnership for Affordable Housing (PAH) have already started meeting to discuss strategy.
We also expect a pet deposit bill to be dropped again this year as well as a credit reporting bill. We worked with the sponsor of these bills last year to highlight the problems and have made a commitment with them to try and find solutions for these issues next year. As for the other elephant in the room, unlawful detainer reform, we intend to seek solutions on this front as well.
We will also continue to push increased supply as the only long-term sustainable solution to the housing crisis. Altho9ugh a start was made with the “Year of Housing” two sessions ago, there is a lot kore than can be done as highlighted in this recently release report by NAA “Driving Local Reforms with State Pro-Housing Programs.”
With a 30-19 majority advantage in the Senate and 59-39 in the House, our job got slightly harder but we are ready to confront the issues head on when the legislature convenes on January 13. WMFHA Advocacy staff and your lobbyists have already started meeting with legislators including leadership in both bodies.
Mark your calendar for our “Pre-Session Breakdown” webinar on Thursday, January 9th and plan to join us again this year for Day on the Hill February 6th in Olympia.