(The Center Square) – Cities and counties across Washington state would have no choice but to allow the development of STEP housing if House Bill 2266 passes the Legislature. STEP housing is Shelters, Transitional, Emergency and Permanent Supportive housing.
The bill has already cleared the House of Representatives.
This legislation would “require cities and planning counties, within urban growth areas, to allow transitional housing, permanent supportive housing, indoor emergency shelters, and indoor emergency housing (STEP housing) in certain zones,” according to the bill summary.
The bill aims to increase the supply of STEP housing by preventing cities and counties from using local zoning or ordinances to block these projects.
Transitional housing or permanent supportive housing would be allowed in any zone in which residential dwelling units or hotels are allowed. Indoor emergency shelters and indoor emergency housing would be allowed in any zones in which hotels are allowed.
Discovery Institute Project Coordinator and Research Fellow Marsha Michaelis noted that “This puts residents in real danger of increased crime and lawlessness and leaves the homeless housed but without the real help they need.”
Rep. Strom Peterson, D-Edmonds, is the bill’s primary sponsor.
“We know that there’s a housing crisis in Washington, and it’s a housing crisis that goes across all economic ladders,” he said. “This will set a standard across the state, so developers know what to do.”
During a Feb. 20 Senate Housing Committee hearing, Peterson said the Association of Washington cities testified “other” on the bill this year, and he counted that as a win.
“That is a big move from where they’ve been in the last number of years, when we’ve been with them,” he said. “I think we really moved a lot in their direction, but the key is that this is a supply side bill to make sure that we can house people and get them back on their feet again.”
A March 4 op-ed on published at The Center Square authored by Michaelis noted that staff at many of the largest supportive housing projects are making a lot of money.
“Consider: In 2024, the top eight employees at Seattle’s Plymouth Housing development shared $2.3 million in salary and benefits among themselves,” she wrote. “In 2023, the CEO of Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington (which owns and operates many public housing projects) took home two separate full-time compensation packages from affiliated nonprofits, each worth about $300,000.”
Andrea Suarez, founder of We Heart Seattle, a nonprofit community organization of mostly volunteers, has spent the last five years picking up trash and drug debris left behind in homeless camps all over the city.
She is sharply critical of the legislation to expand the Housing First model – that is, providing housing to people, without requiring treatment and participation in services.
“This is just bringing drugs into the neighborhoods,” she said. “It’s warehousing of people with different abilities, whether it’s untreated mental illness or physical disabilities or co-occurring disabilities altogether. It’s chaotic for the neighborhood and chaotic for the people living indoors.”
She told The Center Square she recently interviewed a couple of men living outside a Downtown Emergency Services Center door stoop.
“They said they walked out of their housing because it was so bad. They’re evicting themselves at this point because there’s crime, there’s pedophilia,” Suarez said. “You know, sex offenders, rapists, drug dealers, and there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that you’re going to go into one of those environments and be like, ‘Hmmm, I think I’ll get clean and sober today or work on my best path forward,’ when the fox is guarding the henhouse. It’s awful.”
Suarez said today’s addicts are not the addicts of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
“We really were supposed to house the most chronically disabled, seniors, people who need nursing care or have severe mental illness,” she noted. “I just don’t think it was ever intended to house fentanyl addicts, and that is where things have gotten out of control.”
Assuming SB 2266 passes, there could be potential conflict with the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, granting municipalities broader authority under the Eighth Amendment to enforce public camping bans, regardless of available shelter space.
This story will be updated after an anticipated vote in the Senate.
