Hi everybody - sorry that the website has been down the last few days. We were moving our site over to a new host and, well, you know how these things go. Hopefully things should be back up and running correctly now.

Last week, the Low Income Housing Alliance and the Housing Development Consortium were honored to have Congressman Smith join us in Kent to talk about housing and homelessness issues impacting the new and old 9th Congressional District. Joining Smith were Kent City Mayor Suzette Cooke, as well as a panel of affordable housing and homelessness experts including Paul Purcell from Beacon Development, Katie Parker from Mercy Housing Northwest, Tony To from HomeSight, and Dan Watson from King County Housing.

The Fair Tenant Screening Act - which Governor Gregoire signed last March - went into effect this morning. This marks the start of significant new protections for all of Washington's renters, and is a major breakthrough in the barriers tenants face accessing affordable housing. From now on, every tenant will know the criteria a landlord is using to screen prospective tenants. If that landlord decides not to rent to the tenant, or takes an "adverse action," such as charging a higher deposit, then the tenant will have the right to know why.

The Housing Alliance wants to make sure that you know of an opportunity to fund activities that prevent foreclosures or that help to ameliorate the effects of the foreclosure crisis. Washington State was recently involved in a lawsuit against major banks that resulted in a national settlement.

Yesterday, the Housing Alliance welcomed Nan Roman, President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, and Sheila Crowley, President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, who joined us from DC for an engaging conversation around affordable housing and homelessnes

The Center for Community Change's Housing Trust Fund Project released their Spring 2012 Newsletter, including an article about the legislative challenges we've faced in Washington State and the victories we've been able to accomplish thanks to the hard work of local advocates. It's pretty similar to what we have been saying for awhile now: the advocacy efforts of our members and the support from our legislative champions directly results in better results for the folks in need in our state. But it's nice to hear somebody else saying it about us for a change!

I'm pleased to announce the recipients of our 2012 advocacy awards! I hope you'll join us on May 31st to celebrate these committed individuals and organizations, and the power of advocacy.

It's hard to believe that the 22nd Annual Conference on Ending Homelessness is less than a week away! We are really excited about how the conference is shaping up. So far we have over 450 people registered to join us in Yakima to learn new skills, built community and partnerships, and work together to prevent and end homelessness in Washington State.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has been in the news quite a bit lately, driven to the forefront of the national debate around budget austerity as a top target for budget cuts. The latest round of proposals have now gone as far as calling for the elimination of the agency entirely.

After months of relentless and strategic advocacy – we’ve done it. Together, we’ve won new state investments in safe, healthy and affordable homes. We’ve secured funding for the services that prevent and end homelessness. We’ve taken Washington further in eliminating barriers to housing – with the opportunity planted for more progress.  We’ve protected critical safety-net services from cuts and we’ve broken through on revenue and set the stage for more of it next year.