Gregoire signs law to help the homeless

Darneille measure will raise over $26 million annually to battle homelessness

May 12, 2009

OLYMPIA—Efforts to help the homeless in Washington got a major boost today when Gov. Chris Gregoire signed legislation that will add about $26 million a year to funding for programs and services that combat homelessness.

“Everyone is hurting because of the national recession, but no one is hurting more than the homeless,” said state Rep. Jeannie Darneille (D-Tacoma), who introduced the legislation signed today. “Although community shelters and service-providers are doing heroic work to meet growing needs, without these additional resources they’d be forced to turn more and more people away at the door.”

Beginning July 1, Darneille’s measure will increase funding for a wide variety of community-based services that address homelessness, including emergency shelters, senior and transitional housing, and rental assistance.

Funding will come from a $20 surcharge on document recording fees, which apply mainly to real estate transactions. Documents recording births, marriages, divorces, or deaths are expressly exempt from the surcharge, which is set to remain in effect through 2013.

Before the national recession slammed into Washington, about 87,000 people were homeless at some point in time each year. But the foreclosure crisis—and the doubling of unemployment in Washington—are now driving more people into homelessness.

Seth Dawson, who spoke on behalf of the Washington State Coalition for the Homeless at a public hearing on Darneille’s bill, testified that soaring home foreclosures and unemployment make the prospect of 20,000 additional homeless people in Washington this year “a very conservative estimate.”

Because of the deep national recession, shelters and others who provide services for the homeless are reporting new types of homeless persons, including more people in their fifties, college-educated professionals, and people who have never been jobless before. An estimated one in fifty children will experience homelessness.

Sixty percent of the funds raised by Darneille’s bill will go directly to counties for use in their locally-designed homeless assistance and prevention strategies. Nearly all of the remainder would be channeled to community-based homeless programs through the state’s Home Security Fund, which is administered by the Department of Community, Trade, & Economic Development.

“We’ve learned that when it comes to helping the homeless, as in many other social service areas, combining financial resources from the state with local programs and expertise is the best way to get the job done,” Darneille said.