I’m proud to share our 2025 Report to the Community with you!
It reflects another year of bold, strategic advocacy, and real progress in the fight for housing justice in Washington.
We’re living through a time of deep uncertainty. At the federal level, critical safety net programs face devastating cuts. Efforts to reckon with and undo the harm of structural racism are under attack. And we’re witnessing a rise in authoritarian rhetoric and policy threatening our very democracy. Here in Washington, a significant budget shortfall threatened to derail urgently needed investments in housing and homelessness services.
And yet—even in the face of these challenges—our movement showed what’s possible when we come together and refuse to back down. We made real progress in this year’s legislative session. We changed policies that will impact people’s lives immediately, and we grew our movement, setting the stage for even bigger victories in the future.
In 2025, Washington became the third state in the country to limit how much landlords can raise the rent each year, protecting tenants from rent gouging when landlords raise the rent as high as they want, just because they can! We also secured one of the largest-ever state investments in affordable housing, protected homelessness services that were at risk of significant cuts, and increased the state investment in legal support for tenants facing eviction. These investments will ensure more people across Washington can access, and keep, safe, stable homes they can afford.
These victories didn’t happen by chance. They were the result of tireless advocacy, strategic partnerships, and a growing movement that refuses to give up. They were possible because thousands of people took action and because people most impacted by the housing crisis bravely shared their personal stories with lawmakers, shifting hearts and policy.
This report reflects more than legislative wins. It also highlights how we’re continuing to build the long-term movement for housing justice, organizing across the state, growing community leadership, advancing equity and racial justice, and building the public and political will to make housing a human right.
This movement is powered by people like you: advocates, donors, organizers, storytellers, and voters. We know what it takes to solve the affordable housing and homelessness crisis, and together, we’ll keep fighting for the future we all deserve.
Sincerely,
Rachael Myers
Executive Director
State of Housing and Homelessness in Washington
WASHINGTON IS LEADING THE WAY IN ADDRESSING THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS CRISIS!
The state has invested record amounts in homelessness services and affordable homes, adopted strong eviction prevention policies and made rent gouging illegal, expanded funding for rental assistance and much more. But those investments and policies haven’t kept pace with rising housing costs. In Washington, a safe, stable home is still out of reach for many.
• In the next 20 years Washington needs over million more homes. Almost 650,000 will need to be affordable for low-income households.
• Almost 240,000 renter households in Washington are considered extremely low-income, earning less than 30% of the median income in the area where they live. But there are just three affordable and available rental homes for every ten households at this income level.
• Washington has the sixth-highest housing wage in the nation. Affording a modest two-bedroom apartment requires a full time wage of $41.11 per hour. In King and Snohomish counties, that jumps to more than $51 per hour. Because of these high rents, more than three quarters of the lowest income households pay more than half of their income for rent, leaving very little left over for food, transportation, childcare, and other basic needs.
• In 2024, there were more than 23,000 evictions filed in Washington — the highest number in our state’s recorded history — largely due to tenants being unable to keep up with high rents and other expenses. That’s up from 10,425 in 2022 and 16,545 in 2023.
• The point in time count in January 2025 identified 22,173 people experiencing homelessness including over 7,267 people living without any shelter. King County did not conduct an unsheltered count in 2025. Excluding King County’s unsheltered count, that represents an 8.7% increase since 2023.
The Point in Time Count shows trends but is influenced by factors like weather and volunteer availability. Commerce’s Snapshot report combines data from state agencies to provide the most comprehensive estimate of homelessness. The 2025 Snapshot report identified 158,791 people in emergency shelters or unhoused in January 2025.
• Racial disparities exist in every housing indicator, especially for Black and Indigenous people. People of color are more likely to experience homelessness, more like to face evictions, more likely to pay more than they can afford for rent, and are less likely to own their homes and benefit from the generational wealth that is often part of home ownership.
AS THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS CRISIS GROWS, THE COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS DEDICATED TO HELPING PEOPLE ARE ALSO STRUGGLING.
• Homelessness service workers, especially those on the front lines, are frequently underpaid for jobs that require facing trauma and suffering every day. Homelessness organizations are struggling to hire and keep frontline staff — the very people we’re relying on to address the homelessness crisis.
• Many nonprofit and public housing providers are facing significant budget challenges stemming from skyrocketing insurance and other costs and the end of pandemic era rent assistance.
• Affordable housing and homelessness services providers are bracing for a federal budget that could include devastating cuts.
BANNING RENT GOUGING AND MUCH MORE!
House Bill 1217, passed the legislature on the last day of the session and took effect on May 7! The bill caps annual rent increases to the lower of 7% plus inflation or 10% for most residential tenants. For manufactured homeowners renting the land where their home sits, rents increases are limited to no more than 5%.
Rent stabilization passed despite a fierce and expensive opposition campaign led by the real estate industry and their lobbyists. While it wasn’t the cap we wanted, this bill prevents the most egregious rent gouging and protects tenants from the 20%, 30%, and even higher rent increases that had become all too common. Thousands of advocates, including impacted renters, spoke up in support of this commonsense bill, along with legislative champions including Senators Emily Alvarado and Yasmin Trudeau and Representatives Nicole Macri and Strom Peterson. Our collective advocacy made us just the third state in the nation to limit rent increases statewide and gave us momentum on which to build for even better tenant protections in the future!
House Bill 1858, sponsored by Rep. Shaun Scott eliminated an exemption that previously allowed financial institutions that buy and sell mortgages to avoid paying the document recording fee. This change will generate an additional $78 million every two years for homelessness services and the Covenant Homeownership Program.
House Bill 1491, sponsored by Rep. Julia Reed increases density near transit on schedule with comprehensive plan updates. To take advantage of the increased density, new housing developments must include some units that are affordable to low-income households.
The Housing Alliance supported many other bills. See more details about outcomes from the 2025 session at wliha.org/2025-public-policy- priorities/2025-priority-bill-tracker.
INVESTMENTS IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS SERVICES
The capital budget included a record $605 million to build and preserve affordable homes through the Housing Trust Fund and an additional $9 million for youth and young adult shelter and housing programs.
The operating budget included over $229 million to fully replace the shortfall in document recording fee revenue that funds homelessness services including rental assistance, emergency shelters, and other programs critical to preventing homelessness. That includes a 5% inflationary adjustment to help service providers keep up with rising costs. This represents an extraordinary investment in a year with such a massive state budget deficit!
The operating budget also included enough funding for the Right to Counsel program to provide lawyers for low-income tenants facing eviction in the 2026 fiscal year. Approximately $3 million more will be needed in next year’s supplemental budget to meet the need for the next fiscal year.
The budget included other important investments including maintaining last year’s increase to the Housing and Essential Needs rental assistance program, Operations, Maintenance and Services funding for permanent supportive housing and other affordable housing, funding to resolve encampments by providing shelter, housing, and services for people living unsheltered, and more.
THE TESTIMONY AND STORIES FROM RENTERS AND MANUFACTURED HOMEOWNERS FROM ACROSS THE STATE GUIDED THE EFFORT TO PASS HB 1217 TO END RENT GOUGING, CAPPING A MULTI-YEAR EFFORT THAT INVOLVED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE!
The journey to pass legislation to end rent gouging was long and full of twists and turns, and when the final bill passed on the last day of the 2025 session, it included strong protections for manufactured homeowners with annual rent caps of no more than 5%, and limited annual rent increases for residential tenants to 7% plus the Consumer Price Index, with a cap of no more than 10%. The new limits on annual rent increases were won thanks to the dedication of core advocates and thousands of new supporters. Over the past three years, they sent messages, signed petitions, and shared personal stories about rent hikes and the urgent need for relief.
Dozens of allied organizations from across the state also helped win this progress by mobilizing their members to call and write their lawmakers and to sign in and testify at hearings. Over 5,700 people signed in to support this bill at committee hearings, far outnumbering the opposition every time!
We honored some of the advocates and lawmakers who led the way during our Post-Legislative Session Celebration hosted live in Seattle and Spokane, as well as online, in June.
We awarded our annual Nancy Amidei Movement Builder Award to two incredible advocates, Tina Hammond and Duana Rick’s-Johnson. Nancy was true movement builder, who spent her career helping others learn how to use their voice for social change. This year’s award was bittersweet as Nancy passed away in April.
We recognized Tina Hammond from Spokane for her advocacy, including sharing her story of how repeated rent increases in her manufactured housing community forced her to ration medications and to turn her heat off at night during the winter months to be able to keep up with her rent increases.