News Homeless and Homeless Advocates Crowd Capitol Building
posted by on February 14 at 12:08 PM
I promised pictures from Olympia, and here’s what I’ve got this morning: About 450 low-income Washingtonians—dressed in loud red slickers—are jammed into the legislative building right now demanding to meet their representatives, who are sequestered in chambers.
On their agenda: legislation I’ve written about before—a bill to prevent cities from outlawing special-needs housing (passed the state house, currently in the senate); a bill to prevent discrimination against Section 8 tenants (passed the house, in trouble in the senate… thanks to Senator Rodney Tom); and top priority—add $100 million to the housing trust fund. Everyone says nice things about this idea, and Speaker Frank Chopp (D-43, Wallingford) is a big backer of the idea, but when tomorrow’s revenue drop is announced, well, it could go poof.
The crowd also wants action on a bill I haven’t Slogged about before, which would put more money, $7.5 million, into a low-income-housing voucher program to cover rent in transitional housing.
I talked to a group of Section 8 tenants from Kent who praised the housing trust fund for saving their low-income building. In fact, the housing trust fund was used to leverage money from a private donor who helped the low-income tenants buy their building. They had been in danger of being kicked out because the owner was planning to sell to a private developer.
Tecla Catuna, center, who lives on about $600 a month and Uh Ha, on the right, are Section 8 Tenants in Kent whose housing was saved by the state’s housing trust fund. They came to Olympia today to urge their representatives to support a bill that would prevent landlords from discriminating against Section 8 tenants.
I don't get it, are they trying to look like communists?
"Demanding to meet their representatives, who are sequestered in chambers (i.e. doing their jobs)." Yeah, that'll work. That money from Olympia will just come rolling in.
Maybe they'd have more income if they spent their days doing something other than playing dress-up.
Right on. These new anti-homeless laws are outrageous and must be stopped. And what's with saying we might not have enough money for the housing trust fund while proposing a $75 million tax break to Microsoft?
@4, a tax break is foregone revenue, not a cash gift. If the state doesn't provide MSFT the break, it may not put the server farms in Washington anyway, which would have the same effect as far as the state's revenue picture is concerned.
As an organizer of the event, it was awesome to see 450 people take time out of their day to come down to Olympia and tell lawmakers to make housing & homelessness a priority.
Have to say, attitudes like Joykiller's are exactly what we are trying to combat. This silly notion that in a state where 250,000 families have to choose between food and rent that somehow the family is to blame, not the system.
Thanks for covering this Josh.
What a great event -- as someone who works at the Capitol, I'd like to thank those who brought the real people down to the people's house to remind their elected representatives who it is that they are working for, and why.
Watching the hired gun business lobbyists looking irritated and harried scurrying around the masses of low-income folks was priceless . . .
Good story, except one comment is incorrect: Those who wore the red jackets were not all low-income. This was not a huge group of poor people; this was a huge group of people of all different economic strata, from poor to high-income. What can be accurately said is that they were people who CARE about their neighbors, their kids, their friends. This is not a poor peoples' issue; it's EVERYONE's issue.
I don't remember Mao wearing a red poncho about housing, but clearly 450 people trekking to Olympia demanding affordable housing means we have a real crisis in this state that needs attention and resources.
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