Category: legislature

legislature, Women

Bill Targeting Sex Buyers Would No Longer Result in Immediate Felony Charges

But an attempt to decriminalize sex work—another component of the “Nordic model”—failed.

By Erica C. Barnett

State legislation that would have made it a first-strike felony, rather than a misdemeanor, to pay another person for sex or “sexual contact” has gone through several revisions since late January, when King County prosecutors gave a lurid, exploitative presentation to the Seattle City Council in an effort to drum up support for the bill. Last week, the proposal passed out of a House committee on a contentious 5-4 vote; from there, it faces an uphill battle in its current form.

In its original iteration, the legislation—sponsored by Democrats Chris Stearns (D-47, Auburn) and Lauren Davis (D-32, North Seattle)—would have made it a Class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, to pay another person for sex. The bill would have also changed the term “patronizing a prostitute” to “commercial sexual exploitation”—the same term used, incidentally, in Seattle’s anti-prostitution laws.

However, after blowback from the county prosecutors’ presentation drew new attention to the bill, the proposal underwent a transformation, including a proposal from Rep. Tarra Simmons (D-23, Bremerton) that would have decriminalized sex work statewide.

Simmons called decriminalization a necessary component of the so-called “Nordic model,” a widely adopted approach that criminalizes sex buyers in an attempt to eliminate demand.

“I was trafficked as a young girl,” Simmons said. “If you want to get to exploitation and get to trafficking and to solve the issue and to protect the victims, you have to do both—not just increase penalties, but allow the victims to be victims and not be criminalized.”

Decriminalization went a step too far for other House Democrats, but the version that passed out of the House Community Safety Committee last week does include some significant changes from the original proposal.

First, it raises the crime of patronizing a sex worker to a gross misdemeanor for the first two offenses, rather than a felony; the third time, it becomes a felony, as in the original version. The amended bill also replaces the phrase “commercial sexual exploitation” with the more neutral term “patronizing a person for prostitution.”

Under the bill, sex work would remain illegal, but sex workers would get two shots at “services”—which Simmons said might include job training, treatment, and counseling—before they’re prosecuted for prostitution, a misdemeanor.

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During last week’s committee meeting, Rep. Davis argued that by not raising the crime of paying for sex to a first-strike felony (that is, by increasing it from a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor for the first two offenses) will only result in more women being exploited and trafficked.

“These women are not entrepreneurs. The term ‘sex work’ implies volition,” Davis said.

“Representing North Aurora. I’ve learned some things,” Davis continued. “There’s a kind of pimp called a gorilla pimp. Gorilla pimps dominate their victims by force and violence. I know of a gorilla pimp who took razor blades to his victim’s back, and another who had his victim mauled by dogs.” In her district, which includes Shoreline, street sex work starts at the Seattle city line, she said, because “there’s no enforcement” of anti-prostitution laws in Seattle. (Other theories include a relative lack of cheap motels and significantly better street design north of 145th.)

Charging sex buyers with a gross misdemeanor, rather than a felony, would “also make it easier for pimps to recruit, because there’s no legal liability, there’s no downside,” Davis said. This is a confusing claim: Promoting prostitution—being a pimp—is a Class B felony, punishable by up to ten years in prison, which seems like a pretty big potential downside. Building a case against a trafficker or pimp is harder and more time-consuming than doing the kind of quick-hit sting operations favored by police departments, however.

Davis pointed out that there’s actually a third part of the Nordic model—ample, freely available services, including treatment and housing, none of which are funded through the amended bill. Simmons agreed that the state should fund more services for trafficking victims, and said she’d like to start with more funding for peer support—people with direct experience in the sex trade who can talk to people who are being exploited and “hold their hand and take them to safety” away from their traffickers and pimps.

“I’ve never seen problems solved through increasing penalties,” Simmons said. “I don’t think johns are going to stop and think, ‘This is gonna be two days in jail [versus] a month in jail.’ They’re not thinking about that.”

Rep. Brian Burnett (R-12, Wenatchee) said his own daughter was trafficked and “raped literally thousands of times over the course of eight or nine years.” As the only trafficking survivor on the panel, though, Simmons said she “felt invisible a lot of times.”

“I also felt like they were missing the point of helping the victims and survivors,” Simmons said. “They’re not going to accept help from law enforcement, because they’re going to run.”

This story originally misattributed Rep. Burnett’s comment to Rep. Stearns. We regret the error.

 

Affordability, housing, legislature, Maybe Metropolis

Elevating the Affordable Housing Issue

By Josh Feit

How can we increase affordable housing production? According to Senate Bill 5156, one button we can press is elevator reform. Sponsored by State Sen. Jesse Salomon (D-32, Shoreline), the legislation would allow the state to change current elevator rules that—practically speaking—force builders to buy from an elevator manufacturing oligopoly. His idea: Allow smaller elevators as a way to bring down the cost of housing.

In 2024, a 100-page white paper from the Center for Building in North America outlined how a clutch of firms, including Otis and Kone, have signed onto a binding labor agreement  mandating a set of inflexible elevator specifications that define and limit elevator production in the US and Canada. These specifications, including exclusive propriety installation and repair standards, cut out a bevy of reputable and safe elevator makers that serve the rest of the world.

Prompted by the 2024 report, pro-housing advocates nationwide have been making elevators a YIMBY agenda item. As part of this lift, Sen. Salomon’s aspirational bill would allow changes to Washington state’s building code that could, according the urbanist nonprofit Sightline, increase the production of affordable, smaller-scale multifamily housing: “Apartment buildings with at most six stories and at most 24 units,” specifically, per Salomon’s bill.

The logic goes like this: State-by-state elevator regulations mandate unnecessarily oversized elevators.  As a result, according to the CBNA report,  elevators in North America are more expensive than elevators in the rest of the world. The report found that elevators cost around $50,000 to install in Europe while in the US and Canada, “these installations start at around $150,000.”

As the summary report on Salomon’s bill notes, this means that “currently, buildings either must have large elevators or [developers] are likely not to build them at all.” This second point gets at a cruel irony about opposition to the legislation.

One rationale for the current size standards is to ensure that elevators accommodate disabled tenants who rely on wheelchairs and make it possible for medics to fit stretchers onto elevators in emergencies. And it’s true that the elevator downsize recommended for smaller buildings in Salomon’s bill—they could take up about 17 percent less floor space—could mean elevators wouldn’t be able to accommodate a fully extended gurney. Citing emergency response concerns, the Washington Fire Chiefs and the Washington State Council of Firefighters testified against the bill last year, when it ultimately failed.

However, under Salomon’s recommended changes, elevators would still be ADA-compliant (current state law requires elevators to be much larger than ADA requirements). And, as Sightline notes: The new guidelines would still have enough room to spin a wheelchair around, plus another person, as well as a slightly tilted gurney. More importantly, they say, having a slightly smaller elevator is better than having no elevator at all.

“Perversely,” as the proponents of elevator reform at California YIMBY put it, North American rules actually make buildings less safe for people who need to be transported by gurney and less accessible for those who rely on wheelchairs.

“While larger elevator cabins make it easier to transport patients,” a California YIMBY blog post on the former issue argues, “the high costs the requirement imposes also increases the likelihood that buildings will not have any elevators at all, and that emergency responders will have to carry the patient down multiple flights of stairs.”

The CBNA report made a similar point about wheelchairs. “The United States and Canada now require the largest elevator cars in the world … a perverse disincentive that some developers respond to by simply building walk-ups.” In these buildings, people who are unable to navigate the stairs are restricted to living on the first floor.

Stephen Smith, the author of the elevator-reform report, acknowledges that he doesn’t know how many elevators aren’t getting built that otherwise would if the bespoke regulations didn’t govern the US market. But he stands by his report’s conclusion that “walk-up complexes are … being built, at a scale and to heights that are unique in the developed world.”

He explains: “I spent a lot of time poring over new apartment listings in Germany, Italy, France, and Spain and noticed that virtually all new four-story apartment buildings had elevators, and most new three-story buildings did too. In the US, virtually no new three-story apartment buildings have elevators.”

Smith says that when it comes to four-story apartments, his best guess is that it’s about “50/50” split on new apartments having elevators or not. As for the extremes,” Smith adds: “I have found examples in LA of five-story buildings without elevators, and six-story walk-ups in NYC and Seattle.”

Smith’s report does have telling data comparing elevators per capita in European and Asian countries versus in the U.S. and Canada. The difference is dramatic. Canada and the US come in last with four and three elevator cars per capita, respectively. In comparison, Switzerland, Spain, and South Korea come in at 27, 23, and 15. (Greece tops the list at 41.)

Elevator-free apartments also make housing inhospitable to the broader universe of people who can’t navigate stairs easily or at all and who are looking for affordable housing. Conversely, as I noted, if developers do include the pricey, larger elevators in their projects, it raises building costs. And this too undermines the broader universe of people seeking affordable housing by making the housing too expensive.

Certainly, developers aren’t loopy enough to skimp on elevators in tall buildings. That’s why Salomon’s bill puts the focus on allowing smaller elevators in smaller buildings; changing state guidelines per Salomon’s bill wouldn’t violate any federal rules. (Salomon’s bill doesn’t recommend any changes to bigger buildings; it simply directs the state to “support” efforts to harmonize national and international standards in the hope of beginning a multi-state effort to make North American elevator guidelines line up with the rest of the world’s.)

Fortunately, small-scale multi-family housing such as stacked flats, condos, and small apartments are exactly the kind of housing that urbanists believe will have the biggest impact on supply: Four-and six-story developments are examples of “missing-middle housing” that would fit seamlessly into traditional low-density single-family zones; these are neighborhoods that largely exclude lower-income families, renters in particular.

As Uytae Lee, a pro-city videographer who worked with Sightline to promote elevator reforms, says in his elevator-reform agitprop video: By making more neighborhoods accessible, elevators are “an essential part of our transportation network … a core part of a city’s infrastructure.”

legislature, Taxes

“Millionaire’s Tax” Will Be Offset by Cuts to Sales and Business Taxes, Could Be Out Next Week

By Erica C. Barnett

State house and senate leaders say their proposal to pass an income tax in Washington state will be paired with reductions to business taxes the legislature just passed last year, but that the bill will not be “revenue neutral,” as some progressive advocates had feared. That means the new “millionaires’ tax” will help pay for things like public education and health care, rather than being used entirely to offset reductions in other taxes, such as the business and occupation tax.

“More than half has to be additive,” House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon said. “We’ve talked about ranges between 50 and 75 percent [new revenues.” I don’t know where within that range we’re going to ultimately land, but we wouldn’t do this if we weren’t getting a significant revenue boost” of between $3 billion and $4 billion a year.

Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen said he anticipated that the proposal will include tax cuts that will offset between 25 and 40 percent of the revenues from the new income tax.

“Representative Fitzgibbon and the governor and I are arm-wrestling over what the tax reduction will be,” Pedersen said.

The underlying income tax proposal, a 9.9 percent tax on income (including capital gains) of more than $1 million in any calendar year, has the tentative support of Gov. Bob Ferguson, who wants to use the tax to fund the Working Families Tax Credit—an annual tax refund for low- to moderate-income families. In the short term, Ferguson has also proposed tapping funds from the Climate Commitment Act, Washington’s pollution tax, to fund the tax credit, which currently comes out of the state’s general fund.

Fitzgibbon said the cuts to other taxes will probably include cuts to the business and occupation tax increases and surcharge on large businesses that just passed last year. The surcharge—an extra 0.5 percent tax on revenue over $250 million—is supposed to raise about $550 million a year once the state starts collecting it in 2027. ”

“Obviously, there’s some businesses that have plenty of ability to pay [the surcharge], but there are some businesses, like hospitals or food wholesalers, where that increased tax liability makes its way back to people,” Fitzgibbon said. “The B&O surcharge is currently scheduled to run though 2030. The question is, could you sunset it earlier if you had the income tax?”

Pedersen said Gov. Ferguson “has asked for pretty dramatic expansion of the small business credit,” a tax exemption for small businesses that bring in less than $100,000 a year. Ferguson initially predicated his support for the millionaire’s tax on expanding the credit to businesses making up to $1 million a year. “That, as it turns out, is wildly expensive and probably not doable, but we could bump it to to $250,000 or $300,000— that’s a possibility,” Pedersen said.

Ferguson’s office did not respond to a request for an interview.

The income tax bill will also likely include a proposal to eliminate state sales taxes on some personal care and hygiene items, such as diapers and shampoo (“everybody uses shampoo!” said Pedersen, a man with a full head of hair) and prepared foods.

If the legislation passes, it will face at least two further hurdles. First, right-wing initiative funder Brian Heywood has already indicated he plans to file a measure to repeal the tax. If businesses end up opposing the tax and funding an initiative to repeal it, that could help Heywood fund a real campaign—one that’s more successful than his previous anti-tax efforts.

Fitzgibbon said he’s “pretty confident we can withstand a ballot challenge … especially if voters are seeing investments in things like education and health care.”

Pedersen said he’s seen polling that suggests people are less concerned about getting relief on specific taxes, like the state sales tax, than they are about the need to fund critical services and make the tax system more fair at a time when the federal government is subjecting blue states to ideological tests and funding cuts.

“If we have a more or less even campaign, where we can get out messages about the tax system and this 9.9 percent tax could lead to $4 billion a year of income that could help us invest in public schools and health care and avoid cuts, we think we will have a winning campaign,” Pedersen said. “If the spending is five to one against us, then it starts to become tough, because then the airwaves are full of ‘the legislature can’t manage its way out of a paper bag.'”

If the legislature passes a statewide high-earners’ income tax, and if voters agree it’s worth preserving, there’s still one more obstacle to a statewide income tax: A 1933 ruling by the state Supreme Court, which found that a progressive income tax would violate the state constitution’s uniformity clause, which says that different types of property can’t be taxed at different rates. Many legal experts believe this ruling, which defines income as a type of property, is weak, and are eager to open the decision to scrutiny after 92 years.

Speaking to PubliCola on Tuesday, Pedersen said he hopes to have a proposal to present publicly by next Friday. “The house, the senate, the governor, and leadership are mostly aligned on this. We still have a bunch of work to do. We have to talk to our caucuses. But we’re in a very different position on revenue than we were last year on the wealth tax, where there was enthusiasm from the caucuses but no support from the governor.”

housing, legislature

Legislation Would Open Up Commercial Areas, and Ground-Floor Spaces, to Housing
Sen. Emily Alvarado, D-34

By Erica C. Barnett

State Senator (and former Seattle Office of Housing director) Emily Alvarado (D-34, West Seattle) is sponsoring a bill this year that would require cities and counties to allow housing in every area where commercial development is allowed.

If it passes, the legislation will be another win for housing advocates who’ve worked over the past several sessions to pass bills aimed at local NIMBY regulations, including a bill from Sen. Jessica Bateman (D-22, Olympia) that forced cities like Seattle to allow at least four housing units per residential lot.

Bateman’s a co-sponsor on Alvarado’s bill, which came as a request from Governor Bob Ferguson. It could significantly change the landscape in suburban cities like Redmond and Kirkland, where anti-growth activists have fought plans to replace low-density commercial uses—like two sites in north Kirkland where a Michael’s and a Goodwill are currently located—with housing.

Seattle’s zoning generally allows housing in neighborhood commercial areas, so that part of the bill wouldn’t require huge changes here. But the bill would impact Seattle in a different (and, many urbanists would argue, long-overdue) way: It would also prohibit cities from requiring ground-floor retail spaces as part of new mixed-use housing developments, except in areas around light rail stations. Seattle requires ground-floor retail in most mixed-use areas.

Currently, according to a report by HR&A Advisors, 71 percent of the lots, or land parcels, that would be impacted by the legislation have prohibitions or restrictions on ground-floor residential development.

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Housing advocates and developers have long argued that mandatory ground-story retail is an impediment to housing development, since retail space often remains vacant; that vacant space costs money to build and maintain but provides no revenue, and can be detrimental to neighborhoods.

“There is a lot of underused land, and that’s especially true as the market dynamics have changed for both office and commercial,” Alvarado said. “We’re seeing lots of vacant strip malls, empty office parks, and even in mixed-use zones, you see a lot of vacant retail.”

At a hearing on the bill last Friday, opponents argued that allowing people to live on the ground floor of residential buildings will harm cities’ ability to raise revenues, hit job targets, and support small businesses. “Sales taxes are untapped and can be very significant compared to residential property taxes, which are capped and much smaller,” Association of Washington Cities representative Carl Schroeder said. “We are hearing from cities who are concerned that this will erode their ability to support local small businesses who are not in a position to build standalone structures, in contrast to national chains.”

Scott Bonjukian, a Seattle urban designer, argued that removing prohibitions on ground-level housing outright seemed like “a bit of an overreach based on a temporary economic situation. … These [mandates] are usually in place for good reason, in limited locations to reinforce downtown main streets or shape a transit oriented development.”

Testifying in favor of the bill, Sightline’s Dan Bertolet pointed to an analysis by the pro-housing group that found the bill would increase the amount of land where housing is allowed by 62 percent statewide.

In cities like Seattle, “there’s no shortage of retail spaces in the vast majority of our downtowns and commercial centers,” Bertolet said. “What those centers almost always do have, though, is a shortage of housing, and the problem is mandating money losing ground floor retail and new apartment buildings only makes it less likely that new housing gets built.”

Alvarado said “there has been far more pushback” on allowing housing on the ground floor of apartment buildings than allowing housing in commercial areas more broadly.

“I think cities want the autonomy to determine the look and feel of their communities. and they think that markets are cyclical and at some point there will be more opportunity to bring in more retail on ground floors,” she said. “My argument is there is a lot of stalled development right now, and if we can reduce barriers to get some housing built, that in and of itself is an economic benefit to cities, counties, and the state.”

 

legislature, Mayor Wilson, podcasts, Police

This Week on PubliCola: January 18, 2025

SPD Is Still a Boys’ Club, the Wilson Era Begins, and More.

Monday, January 12

Seattle Homelessness Programs Get Temporary Reprieve as Anti-Trump Lawsuit Moves Forward

Seattle’s permanent supportive housing programs got a temporary reprieve from federal funding cuts, when the US Department of Housing and Urban Development walked back its new rules limiting the kind of housing programs that are eligible for federal assistance. But uncertainty remains about this year’s funding; and in 2027, all bets are off.

Seattle Nice: City Attorney and LEAD Founder Set the Record Straight on Drug Diversion

On the first of two Seattle Nice episodes this week, we talked to City Attorney Erika Evans and LEAD diversion program founder Lisa Daugaard about Evans’ plans to divert misdemeanor drug defendants into services instead of jail. Last week, the head of the police union falsely claimed that Mayor Katie Wilson had declared amnesty for all drug defendants.

Tuesday, January 13

Legislation Would Give Prisoners Serving Long Sentences a Path to Release

Washington state has no parole, meaning that people must serve out their entire sentences before they can be released. State Rep. Tarra Simmons has proposed a bill that would allow some incarcerated people to ask a judge to reconsider their sentences, something only prosecutors currently have the authority to do.

Wednesday, January 14

In 2025, 90 Percent of New SPD Hires Were Men

The Seattle Police Department hired only 17 women in 2025—just 10 percent of 165 new hires last year. That’s a significant dip from SPD’s already dismal numbers in 2024, when just 14 percent of the 84 people SPD hired were women. It’s also less than half the average for police departments across the US.

Thursday, January 15

Bills Would Crack Down on City Efforts to Banish Homeless People, Shelter, and Housing

Pro-housing state legislators want to stop cities from taking advantage of loopholes that have allowed them to prohibit market-rate and emergency housing, and to revent cities like Seattle from banning ground-floor apartments, among other proposals to crack down on local NIMBY policies.

New Police Directive: “Be Respectful,” “Don’t Interfere” When Responding to Calls About ICE Raids

A new Seattle Police Department directive tells officers to exercise caution and beat a quick retreat if there’s any possibility they may be in danger from ICE in Seattle, adding that cops should in no circumstances “interfere in federal immigration enforcement actions.” It’s a far cry from Police Chief Shon Barnes’ headline-grabbing statement, back in July, that he would probably be arrested for resisting federal intervention in the city.

Wilson Issues Orders to Speed Up Transit and Shelter, Will Replace More Harrell Appointees

Mayor Katie Wilson issued two executive order on Thursday. The first is aimed at speeding up the production of shelter in the run-up to this year’s World Cup games and beyond. The second will help speed up the city’s slowest bus, the 8, by finally painting a long-planned bus lane on Denny Way.

Also this week, Wilson replaced the directors of City Light, Labor Relations, and other city departments.

Friday, January 16

Scott Lindsay, Deputy for Ousted City Attorney Ann Davison, Doesn’t Mince Words

Voters soundly rejected Republican city attorney Ann Davison last year, but her deputy, Scott Lindsay, says her policies cracking down on drug users and shoplifters were popular, sound policies that helped neighborhoods that are being “destroyed” by people with addiction and “prolific offenders” who commit a large percentage of the city’s misdemeanor crime.

 

homelessness, housing, legislature

Bills Would Crack Down on City Efforts to Banish Homeless People, Shelter, and Housing

By Erica C. Barnett

In previous legislative sessions, lawmakers have successfully overruled efforts by cities, including Seattle, to keep renters out of neighborhoods that were once exclusively single-family, and have even reined in suburban cities that have tried to ban shelter and emergency housing altogether. (Thanks, Jessica Bateman!)

This year, pro-housing lawmakers want to stop cities from taking advantage of loopholes that have allowed them to prohibit market-rate and emergency housing, and to stop cities like Seattle from banning ground-floor apartments, among other proposals to crack down on local NIMBY policies.

Rep. Strom Peterson (D-33, Edmonds) has introduced legislation, House Bill 2266, that would require cities and counties to allow all forms of STEP housing—that’s shelter, transitional, emergency, and permanent housing—in any area that isn’t zoned for industrial use. The bill would also prevent jurisdictions from passing regulations for these types of housing, including shelter, that are more restrictive than the ones the apply to any other type of housing.

The bill expands on 2021’s House Bill 1220, which required cities to allow shelters and permanent housing in all areas where hotels or market-rate housing are allowed, but provided a carveout for “reasonable” restrictions “for public health and safety purposes.” Cities, Pedersen said, took that loophole and ran with it, rejecting shelters because they were within 1,000 feet as the crow flies from another shelter or a school, “even through it wasn’t really 1,000 foot walking distance,” Peterson said.

Last year, Peterson and other legislators proposed a fix that would have given the Department of Commerce “a very big hammer”—if the department determined that local rules limiting housing weren’t reasonable, they could withhold state funds—but that idea proved too unpopular, and potentially expensive, to pass last year.

“‘Reasonableness’ is the word that haunts me,” Peterson said.

This year’s legislation is more straightforward, and it doesn’t include dispute resolution through the Department of Commerce; instead, it states flatly that jurisdictions must allow all types of STEP housing and can’t apply zoning or design rules that are different than those that apply to other residential housing.

Peterson says the changes reduce the potential cost of the new rules—an important factor in a year when lawmakers are trying to close a more than $2 billion budget gap—and takes out any ambiguity about “reasonable” restrictions.

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Cities have been more receptive to some parts of the bill than others, Peterson said. “On the plus side, and I think this is a pretty significant step, cities have said that they believe permanent supportive and transitional housing shouldn’t be treated differently than market housing. … Where we’re running into some issues is on the shelter and emergency housing side.”

Some cities have argued they should be allowed to impose requirements that would preclude certain people, such as people who have criminal records or active addictions, from accessing shelter, a proposal Peterson says could violate state fair housing laws. Others have argued that shelters should be subject to special regulations on noise and litter. “My retort back is, doesn’t the city have noise and litter restrictions? Why is [shelter] being treated differently?”

Rep. Mia Gregerson, D-33 (SeaTac), has proposed legislation this year that could work in tandem with Peterson’s prohibition on shelter and housing bans. House Bill 2489 would prohibit cities and towns from passing bans on sleeping and other activities necessary for survival “unless the city or town can demonstrate that adequate alternative shelter space was available at the time and place of the conduct.”

Gregerson said the proposal is a clarified version of last year’s House Bill 1380, which would have required cities that restrict people’s ability to sit, lie down, keep dry, or sleep on public property to have “objectively reasonable” regulations on these activities. “Last year’s bill was an attempt to really provide total local control” over anti-camping laws, Gregerson said; but as with 1220’s “reasonable” restrictions on shelter, the phrase turned out to be too squishy. “Cities wanted more definition,” Gregerson said.

This year’s bill says that cities can’t ban such “life-sustaining activities” unless adequate shelter is available, and defines the minimum requirements for a shelter to be considered “adequate.” For example, shelters must allow people to stay with their partners or pets, be accessible to people with disabilities, and be located inside the city that has a law banning homeless people from public property.

That last provision could be controversial. Cities without any year-round, general admission homeless shelters at all, like Burien, have passed laws banning people from sleeping in public; in other cities, such as Kirkland, efforts to establish shelters to get people out of parks and off sidewalks have met with fierce resistance. (Burien has one year-round high-barrier program that includes shelter for nine women.)

“One low-turnout election” can completely upend the leadership of small cities, Gregerson noted; in that context, “We’re trying to be the adults in the room—can we come around the table and say we all want people to have a space to live?” After last year’s “productive conversations” about HB 1380, Gregerson said she’s hoping to get traction on a bill that balances local control with the reality that banishing homeless people doesn’t solve homelessness.