Ensuring affordable housing options for the Puget Sound

Annie ChanAdvocacy, Events

If you think the Puget Sound region is busy now, picture our future: by 2050, we are expected to have 1.8 million more residents than we do today. We need strong legislative solutions to alleviate current housing pressure and ensure that we have enough housing for everyone that needs a place to live.

Those solutions were the focus of the 24th annual REALTOR® Housing Issues Briefing at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue. Over 100 REALTORS®, state legislators and King County residents running for 2018 election to the state legislature gathered this morning to talk about housing policies that will restore affordability and build strong communities that can absorb our future growth.

“The hard truth is that we don’t have enough housing units for everyone that needs a place to live,” said Seattle King County REALTORS® President and event moderator Shane Davies. “It’s responsible for our skyrocketing prices and rents. It’s the reason median-income, moderate-income and low-income households are being displaced.”

The event featured a panel of speakers that have knowledge about land use and housing issues. Panelists included Margaret Morales, Senior Research Associate at Sightline Institute; Senator Guy Palumbo, 1st Legislative District; Senator Joe Fain, 47th Legislative District; and Representative Tana Senn, 41st Legislative District. Read what the panelists had to say about working legislative solutions to the crisis.

Despite hard truths about homelessness, transit, affordability and displacement that are side effects of our inventory shortage, the Housing Issues Briefing focused on common-sense, bipartisan solutions that will make our communities better places to live and work. “Fixing this is the biggest challenge you will face as an elected official,” Davies said. “But it can be fixed. We are assembling an enormous coalition to stand with you to get the job done.”

For more answers about housing issues facing our communities, visit HousingTranslator.com. View Davies’ full remarks here.