Nearly everyone in our state knows we have a housing and homelessness crisis, and everyone needs to understand that our sky-high rents are the biggest driver of homelessness and the biggest impediment to solving it. No where in the state is Social Security nearly enough to pay the rent. The elderly and people with disabilities are particularly hard hit by Washington’s sky-high rents. And I am included in that group.

Last summer, my husband and I moved to Mountain Villa Estates here in Enumclaw. We purchased a manufactured/mobile home with a mortgage. Before we even celebrated our first anniversary, we were hit with a rent increase letter in May, effective with September’s space rent payment, which was $964. We are getting hit with an $80 increase (an increase higher than our current inflation rate!). Our Social Security wages did not increase nearly this much.

A recent Out of Reach report states that, on average, current residents need to earn $36.33 per hour to afford current rental rates for a modest 2-bedroom apartment! Way higher than our minimum wage here in Washington. This makes Washington the fifth-highest housing wage in the nation!

Washington needs to build 650,000 new affordable homes over the next 20 years in order to meet the growing need. If rents continue to rise, that number will grow as more and more households are unable to afford rent on the for-profit market. That means a small number of landlords make outrageous profits while all of the rest of us struggle to solve the problem they are causing.

Our elected officials failed us during the last session, rejecting all rent stabilization discussion; to put reasonable controls on rent increases to ensure that people can stay in their homes, and to invest in the creation of more affordable housing. Without those commitments, I don’t see any way that we can decrease homelessness here in Washington.

Janet Worden

Enumclaw