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For this issue of
My View, I wanted to write the
“inside” history of the state’s Housing Trust Fund (HTF). I
thought it would be both interesting and fun to remind everyone
associated with the Trust Fund just how it came into being, how
small it started and how a dedicated group of people can make a
difference. The HTF has now reached two milestones: $100
million, a goal set about 12 years ago by the Low Income Housing
Congress (now the Low Income Housing Alliance); and, its
twentieth anniversary, which will be celebrated in 2006.
Unfortunately, in the brief space of this article, it’s
impossible to acknowledge all of those who played a part in its
creation and infancy.
My goal was to capture the story from some
of the major players but there were many others who played
important roles. After almost 20 years, it was good to go back
and hear the key details. I think it’s a story worth hearing
again—and honoring.
The Washington State Housing Trust Fund: It mattered
then, it matters now
The Holy Grail: Searching for dedicated revenues
First Fruits
The Capital Forum: Housing joins the big leagues
           
The Washington State Housing Trust Fund:
It mattered then, it matters now
The history of the state’s Housing Trust Fund (HTF) starts with
the response from a coalition of advocates to the major funding
cuts emanating from Washington D.C. under the Reagan
administration. For decades, the federal government had helped
subsidize rental housing and underwrite home loans for
low-income families through HUD and other programs. By Reagan’s
second term, two-thirds of the housing money was gone. Local
housing authorities tried their best to address what was clearly
a burgeoning need. Many nonprofits and committed individuals
also worked hard to help bridge the gap between housing needs
and affordability, but even some of them disappeared from the
scene, victims of the cuts.
As late as 1986, relatively little had been allocated from the
state’s budget for creating or preserving affordable housing.
What little that was allocated went only to support homeless
shelters. For the nonprofit housing organizations and public
agencies, it was to be an epic battle to educate the legislature
about the need to do more about housing on the local level, and
then pass the “empty bucket bill” that established the Housing
Trust Fund in 1986. Almost as much effort was required, again,
to fund the vehicle with its first $1 million allocated in 1987.
After that, we acquired some momentum, culminating in the
Capital Forum of 1989-1990, which established housing as a
priority of ongoing importance to the state, alongside education
and the environment.
A Housing Trust Fund for Washington:
"We need one here"
The Washington State Housing Trust Fund was created because it
is absolutely critical to the work of supporting affordable
housing here in Washington. Many people recognized this; many
fought for it. But every great cause needs someone at the very
beginning to ring the bell in the town square and pull people
in. In the case of the Trust Fund, that person was Sharon Lee.
Sharon Lee, Executive Director
Low Income Housing Institute
Sharon is currently the executive director of the Low Income
Housing Institute. In 1985, she was a staffer for City
Councilman Paul Kraabel, working on Seattle’s urban
redevelopment committee. Some two years earlier, she’d
successfully lobbied the state legislature to sign off on some
$800,000 to help rehabilitate the Mount Baker Apartments in SE
Seattle, home to many low-income refugee families. Gary Locke,
then head of the House Appropriations Committee, was the prime
legislative supporter of this.
“It became very clear to me then that we needed a state force
for affordable housing,” says Sharon. In the mid-80s, she became
aware of a national push— orchestrated by the Center for
Community Change and led by Mary Brooks—to set up housing trust
funds. The Center had produced a publication describing how to
create a housing trust fund. “I read that,” Sharon describes,
“and I said, ‘we need one here.’”
Sharon is a dynamic, moving-mountains kind of person, and it
didn’t take her long to gather a coalition. The Housing Trust
Fund Coalition pulled in people from across the spectrum:
churches, nonprofit housers, housing authorities, local
governments. “It took off pretty quickly,” she recalls. “It was
effective, because it was targeted.”
Working with City of Seattle lobbyist Randy Scott and other city
representatives, she got the attention of State Senators Frank
Warnke and George Fleming and Representative Gary Locke. Their
support marked the successful conclusion of the initial phase of
the effort to create a housing trust fund for Washington State.
One of the First HTFs in the U.S.
Washington was one of the first states to have a housing trust
fund. And we were the first state that passed the legislation on
the first try, according to former Senate Committee Counsel Dave
Cheal.
Dave Cheal, former Senate Committee Counsel
At the time, the idea was radical to many, and educating people
about the need for the state to play a role in producing housing
was a huge component of the process. Everyone involved with
getting Senate Bill 4626 on the books—and ultimately
funded—speaks of this time with pride.
In August 1985, prior to the 1986 legislative session, the
Senate Commerce and Labor Committee held its first hearing on
involving the state in funding low-income housing. Frank Warnke,
committee chair, was a strong advocate, as was committee member
George Fleming. They were among the first Washington State
legislators to directly take on housing as an issue. Says Sharon
Lee, “Frank Warnke and George Fleming on the Senate side were
tremendous advocates for this.”
George Fleming,
former State Senator
“There were people who were interested, but before that time it
was really on the back burner,” says Bill Lynch, who was Senate
staff coordinator during this time. Like many of those who
pushed for the HTF’s creation, he believes it set in motion a
statewide groundswell of support for low-income housing. He
remembers many legislators’ initial reluctance to wade into the
housing arena. For some, it was akin to “walking into an abyss
that could drain all the state coffers—because we’d never be
able to address all the need.” For Bill, the Housing Trust Fund
effort was “really important to show the legislature that they
can put together a housing program that does these important
things, is viable—and it’s not going to suck the state dry.”
Frank Warnke puts it simply, “the housing trust fund idea helped
to bring housing issues to the forefront in Washington State.
There was no program in which the state was involved in
providing monies for low-cost housing and for developing housing
programs. It just seemed to me that the time was right. I had
some staff members who were very interested in making this
happen. And I was able to turn them loose and say run this down
and let’s get a bill and let’s put it together.”
Creating the Model
In the fall of 1985, Dave Cheal was in the fortunate position of
joining the Commerce and Labor Committee as a committee
counsel—just as the legislative ball got rolling. Ron Sims, then
on Senate Majority Leader George Fleming’s staff, tapped him to
be the designated bill writer and shepherd. Dave retired as a
senate counsel in 2001 and, he says, “One of my fondest memories
of legal work was this bill.”
Frank Warnke,
former State Senator
He points to a helpful series of meetings with California-based
David Paul Rosen at the outset of the bill’s creation. The
Commission had hired Rosen, a development and financial
consultant on affordable housing and a housing trust fund
expert, to help formulate funding strategies.
Those sessions were memorable. At the time, Rosen was working
through a grant to help states establish housing trust funds.
Rosen’s knowledge of the various funding mechanisms that could
be utilized for the HTF was essential to giving shape and
direction to the bill. “He had a tremendous wealth of technical
expertise,” Dave recalls. “The two days that he was here were a
shot in the arm for everyone—particularly on the technical
side.”
Dave helped organize a strong working group made up of housing
advocates, nonprofits and local governments. Sharon Lee
continued to play an important role. “She was probably the lead
individual not connected with an agency in lobbying for this
thing: she was tireless and very effective.” Lee and others like
Steve Fredrickson of Evergreen Legal Services and Kurt Creager,
representing King County, participated on the “pro” side of the
HTF in a series of hearings held in the legislature.
The Sticking Point Was Funding
The sticking point, as it so often is, was funding. The original
proposal, based on the models offered by the relatively few
states that had renewable non-general fund sources at the time,
called for HTF revenues to be derived from a range of real
estate-related sources:
-
An increase in the Washington State real estate excise tax
-
Interest on mortgage escrow accounts
-
Aggregated interest on escrow agents’ trust accounts
-
Revenue from unclaimed property
-
Interest on tenants’ security deposits
But many on the for-profit side of the housing
industry—builders, developers, realtors and landlords—cried
foul. Dave remembers listening to various people describe why it
wouldn’t work. “Many realtors and homebuilders were opposed to
any increase in the real estate excise tax—any charge, however
small.” They saw an increased tax as a deterrent to homebuyers.
Others voiced more general concerns about having private-sector
housing picking up the tab.
Ultimately, the realtors’ representatives agreed to the
mechanism of contributing the interest earned on realtors’ trust
accounts. This was the first non-appropriated funding source, a
small first step in what ultimately would prove to be an almost
superhuman struggle to find a source of money.
The Empty Bucket Bill
From Sharon Lee’s perspective, some of the more outrageous ideas
about funding sources succeeded in attracting attention to the
problem. “We got the landlords, the brokers—and later, the
Lottery Commission—upset,” she remembers. “What they said was:
housing needs to be funded. There’s a housing crisis, and
there’s a homeless problem, but don’t take it from us. If it’s
that important you should fund it from the capital budget and
the general fund.”
When did it become clear to Dave Cheal that a reliable and
adequate source of funding wasn’t going to happen that first
year?
“It was always uphill,” he acknowledges. “After the bill was out
of committee—before it went to the floor—there was some talk of
taking the appropriations out and putting it in the budget. But
no one was very optimistic about that. Pretty much everyone
agreed, including housing advocates and the members of the
legislature who were supportive, that it would be valuable to
pass the bill whether there was any money or not. That was the
tactic taken, and it proved to be a good one.”
Bipartisan
Support
Happily, the HTF has been a bipartisan effort ever since the
first vote was taken. After a series of additional amendments,
the Senate passed SB-4626 by a vote of 38-to-10. The Senate then
sent the bill to the House, where it was referred to the
Committee on Trade and Economic Development. After a February
21, 1986 hearing featuring testimony by Dave Cheal and others,
the committee passed the bill on February 28, 1986 by a 13-to-1
vote. And, after further amendment, the House passed the bill,
now Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 4626, by a vote of
66-to-30. It was a nearly empty bucket, but it was a start.
The dream held by so many of us who supported this effort at the
outset was a renewable source of funding for the HTF, one not
subject to the vagaries of appropriations year after year. Dave
Cheal agrees. But that was not to be. The good news, from our
vantage point of late 2005, is that HTF appropriations since
1987 have been consistent, and the support from the legislature
strong and growing. But in mid-1986, there was simply a bill—a
virtually empty bucket—and no track record.
But let me amend that. There were also people, within the
legislature and without, who were determined to find a way to
fill that bucket.
The
Holy Grail: Searching for Dedicated Revenues
Where was the money going to come from? “Finding a source of
dedicated revenues for the Housing Trust Fund has been the Holy
Grail since it was created,” says former State Representative
and Housing Committee Chair Busse Nutley. “And it is still true
today.”
Busse Nutley,
former State Representative
and Housing Committee Chair
It’s something of a cliché that the first million dollars for
any enterprise is the hardest to achieve. In the case of the
HTF, it was certainly true. In 1987, the Housing Trust Fund was
a cause looking for crusader, and Busse took it on.
Finding the funding was a very big deal. Busse for one remembers
that year well. “When we started out,” she says, “there was no
place in the legislature for these issues to be articulated.”
During the 1987 session, she, along with legendary House Speaker
Joe King, represented the City of Vancouver. Busse had been
witness to her father’s advocacy for farmworkers’ housing needs
back in the 1950s; she’d trained as an urban planner and worked
for a local homebuilders association. Now, she found herself in
a position in the state legislature to address what she saw as a
growing crisis.
Joe King Creates a Housing Committee
She recalls, “I was the seatmate of Joe King, and I went to him
and said, ‘we need to do something about paying better attention
to housing.’ I told him we needed some kind of joint task force
to allow us to focus on housing for a few years to get those
issues centralized—so we could move forward in terms of
legislation.” Joe King delivered. “He came back to me a couple
of weeks later and said, ‘We’ve created a Housing Committee and
you’re Chair’—it helped to have friends in high places,” Busse
laughs.
Joe King, former State Representative
and Speaker of the House
Finally there was a Housing Committee in the House. “We spent
the first year just listening to people talk about the issues
surrounding housing, and opened our eyes to the fact that there
were many issues that people with limited incomes had
with housing.” That first year, she describes, “we worked hard getting an
appropriation, as well as looking for dedicated funds.” Of
course, many in the legislature will fight having dedicated
funds because when times are tight, there’s no flexibility for
funding essential services.
Fighting for the First Million Dollars
Kenny Pittman was hired on as a staff member of the Housing
Committee in 1987. Kenny served on the Housing Committee until
it was merged with the Trade and Economic Development Committee
in 1992; he’s currently a senior policy analyst with the City of
Seattle. In 1987, his job, in addition to getting a deep grasp
of the housing issues facing the state, was tracking down
funding sources for the HTF. “We basically spent a lot of that
whole first session just kicking around ideas, getting testimony
on the need for the Trust Fund. Some of the people out in the
community were very vital—people like Sharon Lee, who came in
and testified,” Kenny remembers.
Kenny Pittman, former Housing Committee staff member
Funding sources? You name it, they took a look.
Housing Committee members and staffers considered many sources,
like interest on earnest money and tenant security deposits. And
then they tried taking on the Lottery.
“Sometimes people don’t
claim their prizes,” Kenny explains. “There was money sitting
there in unclaimed prizes. So initially, we said we wanted to go
after some of that money.”
The Lottery Commission balked,
pointing to a state law that stipulated that a certain
percentage of dollars has to be paid out in prizes. “So we
said, ‘All we want is a million dollars.’”
How did they fix on a million dollars?
“We figured that was probably all we could get,” Kenny laughs.
“We thought it best to start out small. The original idea was,
look, just give us one million, and then as we get additional
dollars in potential repayments back from these trust funds,
we’ll give the money back.” The Lottery Commission still had a
lot of concerns, and the session was almost over. “We pitched
this idea to Governor Booth Gardner’s office about the lottery
proceeds. Busse and I met with Dick Thompson, who was the
governor’s chief of staff at that time, to talk about the whole
idea of getting money, and then paying it back.”
Dick Thompson’s solution was simpler. He suggested taking
general fund money that would be paid back out of the Trust Fund
later. “And so that was how it first started out,” Kenny says.
“The deal was pretty much struck there. After that meeting, we
said, ‘OK, We can do this.’ ” It was put into the budget. After
walking out of the governor’s office, Kenny recalls thinking,
“Man, that was a lot of work for just a million dollars.
But for the housing community, it was more of a symbolic
first step.” This was the first time since 1982 the state had put new
money into a housing program.
Building a Constituency for Ongoing Funding
All those who generously contributed their time to interviews
for this history affirmed two strong themes at work in the HTF’s
infancy. First, its creation was a vital move for the state in
terms of public policy. And second, the one thing critical to
its creation and ongoing support was education.
Legislators frequently were surprised to learn how their own
constituencies were in desperate need of affordable housing
solutions.
Much of the work involved educating legislators to the fact
that, no matter where they lived, their communities had
affordable housing needs. Kenny Pittman points out that many
nonprofits “did an excellent job in identifying all the
different groups that could show there was a need when they met
with legislators on both sides of the aisle. They would say,
‘You live in this community—did you know that there’s a Section
8 development right down the street? And there’s a waiting list
to get in? That many single parent and working poor families
can’t afford to rent in your community?’ That was a great
strategy on their part. They brought it home. It wasn’t just a
downtown Seattle problem.”
Jeff Robinson, the HTF’s first manager and administrator, was
also a fired-up mover and shaker in terms of getting public
attention for funding the Trust Fund. He signed on to his role
in May 1989, and for a time, was the sole staff person for the
program.
I served on the HTF’s Advisory Board back in 1989, and well
remember Jeff hitting the ground running, gathering information
on the kinds of housing projects statewide that merited Trust
Fund support. ”I did an inventory of things ready to go, I was
on the phone, traveling to sites a lot,” Jeff recollects. “I
spent a lot of time in eastern and central Washington, talking
to organizations about shelters and weatherization work … we
went out and beat the bushes pretty hard. We needed to show
legislators when they came back that following January what the
market looked like.”
And that’s what Jeff succeeded in doing. In the end, Jeff
recalls, they had about six times the number of applications
that could be funded. “The first round we got out about
$950,000. We probably had requests for $7-8 million. Clearly
there was a need, whether there was capacity or not.”
The legislation had called for the HTF to be governed by an
advisory board made up of at least two representatives from
different sectors of the housing industry: bankers, realtors,
housing authorities, nonprofit housers, community action
programs, local governments. “It was a great committee,” Jeff
recalls. “Everyone brought a valuable perspective to the table.
The board helped forge the initial design of the program:
whether to issue loans vs. grants; if loans, how to structure
them; the scoring process; and the rating and ranking of
applications.”
First
Fruits
Between June and November 1989 the advisory board met numerous
times; it was able to get the first RFP out the door in November
1989 and make award announcements the following month. “This was
critical, because it was prior to the start of the next
legislative session. We wanted to be able to show it was a great
program and that we’d been able to put it into action,” says
Jeff.
Jeff Robinson, Housing Trust Fund's first manager and
administrator
Following that success, the HTF received a $3M capital budget
appropriation by the legislature. This was the first
appropriation from the capital budget. The fund had grown by
300%, basically in the course of its first operating year, “in
large part because there was such a huge need,” Jeff affirms.
Having grown up in South Seattle, Jeff remembers in particular
one of the HTF’s first projects. The Trust Fund assisted Seattle
Housing Resources Group (SHRG—now HRG) with the acquisition and
rehab of the Kingway Apartments on MLK Way. “SHRG stepped in
under the leadership of Nancy Smith. They put financing together
that included three banks, the Trust Fund and Fannie Mae. We
were able to restructure the debt, acquire the property, do a
gut rehab. This was one of the very first projects undertaken by
King 5’s Project Home Team. It involved a huge volunteer
contribution—it was great community effort,” he says.
Leveraging Success
The Trust Fund began to get more recognition both within the
state and nationwide. Though it wasn’t the first state housing
trust fund to be put on the books, Jeff’s recollection is that
“we were the first one to get dollars out the door and projects
constructed.” Over the next few years, he was invited to consult
to groups and governments in Sacramento, Mississippi, Chicago
and elsewhere. People around the country wanted to know what had
been accomplished by the HTF in Washington—“and how we
succeeded,” Jeff explains.
He points out that one strong selling point for the HTF was the
fact that “we were leveraging large amounts of other money. In
the first couple of rounds, for every dollar that the Trust Fund
was investing, we were probably leveraging six to seven dollars
back into projects, either through private financing, other
government funds, or gifts of property.”
“It was a very exciting time,” continues Jeff, who is now VP and
Manager of Community Development at US Bank. “We were testifying
in front of legislative committees, doing a lot of one-on-one
meetings both with legislators and their staffers, working
closely with OFM and their policy analysts. Because we were the
new kids on block, we were able to really play a strong advocacy
role in Olympia with legislators and others within the industry,
to try to build up both the recognition of the need for the
state to be involved in housing and also to build a constituency
around the state that could help support the HTF’s ongoing
funding.”
To Jeff’s mind, one of the keys to the growth of the program was
having governors who were supportive of it in those first years:
Booth Gardner and Mike Lowry. “And with Harry Thomas, chief of
staff for Gov. Lowry,” he adds, “we had a friend and advocate of
housing in the Governor’s office.”
Capital Forum Makes Housing a Priority
What kicked the HTF to the next level was the work hammered out
by the people who formed the Capital Forum in the early 1990s. The
Capital Forum represented another milestone in this history of
truly visionary individual efforts and prodigious teamwork,
along with a steady broadening of constituencies that believed
in the affordable housing imperative, and a willingness of
people to put minor differences aside to work for the common
good.
Like everyone else who played a part in seeing the Washington
State Housing Trust Fund grow from an empty bucket to a
cornerstone of the state’s essential work in helping house those
who most need help, I’m proud of how far we’ve come. And I’m
grateful for the efforts people have made in that growth, not
just in those first years but in every year since. Where would
we be today without them?
The
Capital Forum: Housing Joins the Big Leagues
The Housing Trust Fund (HTF) finally joined the big leagues, in
terms of budget priorities, as a result of the Capital Forum
budget plan, which passed in 1991. A $1 billion increase in the
state’s debt limit provided funds for four key constituencies:
higher education, K-12, the environment and housing. But, as you
will see, the negotiations were really a two-year battle to
ensure housing would be included in the new allocation, and the
cast of characters reads like a Who’s Who in Washington State
politics.
Mike Lowry, former Washington State Governor
The story begins in the late 1980s when a new aura of confidence
and well-being started to blossom around the state. The economy
had recovered from the recession of the early 1980s. Boeing
was building and selling planes at a record pace. And our
economic fortunes no longer depended on airline manufacturing,
as Microsoft established itself as the 800-pound gorilla of the
technology industry. Inflation had been tamed, and mortgage
rates came down into single digits. Money magazine
recognized Seattle as the “most livable city” in the U.S.—and
suddenly it seemed everyone wanted to buy a house in western
Washington. Real estate values were booming with no end in
sight.
Widening Affordability Gap
Unfortunately, the silver cloud had a dark lining. Former
Governor Mike Lowry calls it “the affordability gap.” In 1989
Mike was teaching at Seattle University and making news as
co-chair with former Governor and U. S. Senator Dan Evans on the
board of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition.
In
1983, Dan had defeated Mike for the U.S. Senate seat in a hotly
contested race. So the fact that they were working together,
lobbying for more state-level funding for parks and wildlife,
attracted a fair amount of attention from the press.
Frank Chopp,
State Representative and Speaker of the House
However, under the radar, even bigger and better things were in
the works. On the northwest shore of Lake Union in Seattle,
Sharon Lee was working for Frank Chopp at the Fremont Public
Association.
Today, Frank serves as Speaker of the House in the
Washington State Legislature. Prior to his election to the
legislature, Frank was a bona fide community activist,
protesting, lobbying and building coalitions to support better
living conditions for low-income people.
The Key Meeting at Seattle U.
As Frank recalls, “Sharon Lee and I heard that Mike Lowry was
working on an idea to raise funds for Washington wildlife and
recreation programs. We heard this and Sharon said, ‘Let’s go to
Mike and tell him we think they should give an equal amount for
housing.’
“I requested a meeting,” Frank continues. “Sharon and I, along
with Sue Taoka, executive director of the Seattle-Chinatown
International District Preservation and Development Authority,
and one or two others met Mike at Seattle University. We said,
‘This is a golden opportunity. You get fourfold leveraging;
who’s going to argue against giving money to poor people?”
In fact, it wasn’t difficult to convince Mike Lowry to get on
board. He was already there. As Mike tells it, “Even back then,
the affordability gap on housing was getting worse and worse. I
thought anybody that actually looked at it would see that these
are two things—housing and the environment—that are critically
important to our state and are not being addressed. If you put
funding for those together with increased support for higher
education and K-through-12, we would be a stronger state
economically.”
Frank sees that meeting at Seattle University as a critical
first step because Mike Lowry was so supportive. “Mike did an
excellent job of following through. He was able to convince the
other constituencies to have four components to the Capital
Forum.”
Making the Case in Olympia
That was the starting point for negotiations. At the time, of
course, the public schools and universities, along with prisons
and other essential state building projects, were already
receiving significant funding through the capital budget. The
challenge, then, was to increase the funding for the capital
budget and to agree on a formula for allocating the additional
dollars.
Booth Gardner, former Washington State Governor
As it turned out, the new money came from raising the state’s
debt limit. Frank says this idea was within Dan Evans’ comfort
zone, because he had used similar strategies during his tenure
as governor from 1965-1977. The universities, schools and
conservation groups were also supportive.
With the core
coalition in place, it was time to present the idea to Governor
Booth Gardner and the state legislature. Mike recalls meeting with Governor Gardner, his chief of staff
Denny Hecht and state budget director Len McComb, “They listened
to us and contributed a lot of ideas of their own.” Governor
Gardner moved quickly to establish a hearing process, which
included a series of public hearings.
Broadening the Coalition
Meanwhile, back in Fremont, Frank, Sharon and other colleagues
were busy making plans and expanding their housing coalition.
One of the key recruits was Bill Longbrake from Washington
Mutual. Frank recalls that “Bill was CFO at Washington Mutual
Bank at that time. He got interested because he was serving on
the board of a local nonprofit, the Capitol Hill Housing
Improvement Program with Chuck Weinstock, the executive
director. The connection with Bill was perfect. He had a major
corporate position, plus he was heavily involved in the issues.
He knew financing. He was on the board and knew nonprofit
issues, development concerns. Everything. We were very
fortunate.”
As co-chairs of the housing coalition, Bill and Frank worked
together to draft the document that made the case for including
housing as one of the essential needs the state should address
in the capital budget. This document was distributed in the fall
of 1989.
Frank also acknowledges Bill’s formidable presentation skills:
“When we would testify before the legislature, I would sit in
the front row, plus a lot of our supporters in the hearing room.
I would sit next to Bill Longbrake. Bill would get up and give
our testimony. Bill has a good manner and instant credibility.
He’d say, ‘This is good for everybody; it’s good for low income
people; it’s good for the business community; there’s a
partnership with the banks, as well as with public funds: It
will have a ripple effect, a leveraging effect…’ and people
would listen. He was incredibly effective.”
Lobbying and Grass Roots Support
Another key recruit was Mike Ryherd. As Sharon Lee puts it,
“Mike was an incredible lobbyist. I was part of the effort to
hire him. We went to Bainbridge Island in a group which included
Kurt Creager and Norm McLaughlin, where we interviewed and hired
him.” Mike directed the lobbying effort in Olympia that was so
successful in educating legislators about housing issues and
building bipartisan support. In addition to legislative leaders
such as Helen Sommers and Dan McDonald, staffers also played an
important role. Mike Lowry credits the efforts of Bill Robinson
of the capital budget staff, Mike Groesch of the Senate
legislative staff, Booth Gardner staffer John Fricke, Jim Reed
and a lot of other people.
Mike Ryherd, former lobbyist
As important as these efforts were, Frank Chopp thinks the grass
roots support from local groups was decisive. “We organized
groups from all over the state to set up meetings with their
legislators.
It was a very diverse group including local
churches, local banks, realtors, occasionally the local union
guy because of the construction jobs and the local nonprofits.
When you have all of them lobbying the legislature, it’s seen as
coming from the grass roots up, and that’s enormously powerful.”
Booth Gardner Stands Tall
It’s important not to overlook the support from the man at the
top, Governor Booth Gardner. Frank recalls that, at some point
in the process, he invited the Governor to Seattle in order to
give him a tour of current and prospective housing projects. To
this day, he remains impressed with Booth Gardner’s ability to
connect with people.
In Frank’s own words, “I had him meet home care clients in their
homes. Booth Gardner went in and immediately established rapport
with the people. I said to myself, ‘Damn this is impressive.
This guy is good.’ He asked people how they were doing. He
showed he cared.”
“Then he showed me places where he worked when he was young. He
took me to the Central Area Youth Association where he was a
youth counselor or coach for inner city kids. I started the day
wanting to take him on a tour. By the end of the day he was
taking me. I just think the world of him. I’m still working with
him on issues. Booth was fun. That was another key development
when he got on board.”
Closing the Deal
The public hearing process was a major success for housing.
Frank still recalls the excitement. “I was so happy that day it
was amazing. We were like the poor cousin. To get included with
the big interests [higher education, K-12 and wildlife]. We went
there and said, you have three, make a fourth!”
After the hearings, the Capital Forum continued its work,
examining the data and establishing specific spending
priorities. Mike Ryherd recalls that it was often a contentious
process. The education interests were starting from a
substantial funding baseline, and had legitimate needs and
interests that they needed to protect. The group tried to
imagine a worst-case scenario, where the state would have only
an additional $200 million for capital projects in a given
budget cycle. In that case, it was agreed that the money would
be split evenly four ways: $50 million each. Housing advocates
believed this was an equitable formula that should be applied
consistently going forward. In fact, Ryherd observes, “As soon
as it was over, it was as if the Capital Forum never happened.”
In other words, future budgets were subject to negotiation.
Nevertheless, the equal split determined the shape of Governor
Gardner’s budget request. As the Seattle Times opined on
December 16, 1990: “There’s not a lot to dislike in the major
state bonding proposal that Gov. Booth Gardner has unveiled: A
total of $1 billion, split equally for common-schools
construction, low- and moderate-income housing, purchase of
wildlife and recreation lands, and higher-education
construction. It will sound awfully good to many
Washingtonians.”
The
Times raised a few caveats. There were other worthy
capital needs that would not be addressed. And the statutory
debt limit would have to be raised. “But considerable thought
and effort went into the proposal,” the editorial continued.
“Through months of effort in the Capital Forum, leaders of the
Legislature, state agencies, and private-sector financial
experts examined the debt, offered better management methods,
and assessed a wide array of capital and building needs.”
The legislature passed Gardner’s Capital Forum proposal in April
1991. Clearly, the housing advocates had done a good job of
making their case. As Frank Chopp concludes, “We were ecstatic
because we got in the door. Our goal was to get something
significant for housing and be treated as equals, in terms of
the additional money from the Capital Forum effort. Most
important, we established affordable housing as a permanent
priority for the capital budget.”
Acknowledgements: Other invaluable contributions to this edition
of My View came from Stephen Buxbaum, Assistant
Director for Housing at CTED and Majken Ryherd Keira, Chief of
Staff for House Speaker Frank Chopp.
NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
About Us
The Washington State Housing Finance Commission is a self-supporting
agency that provides below-market financing to buy, build or
preserve affordable housing and nonprofit capital facilities. The
Commission builds partnerships with the private sector to raise
capital needed to further these social and economic objectives at no
cost to the taxpayers of Washington State. For more
information about the Commission and its work, visit
www.wshfc.org or call
206-464-7139 or 1-800-767-HOME (4663) toll free in Washington State.
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