The Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) approved its 2023-2027 fair housing assessment on Tuesday, April 18, moving a step closer to securing funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The county, in coordination with Olympia, surveyed 600 individuals and interviewed several community stakeholders to complete the assessment. The document would be used to inform the county’s new consolidated plan, which HUD requires every five years for recipients of the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership Fund.
The assessment revealed several findings regarding the county’s fair housing situation. First is that people of color, people with disabilities, transgender people, and single mothers are more likely to face several housing issues.
These groups have a higher rate of being cost-burdened, meaning they tend to pay more than 30% of their income on housing costs. The assessment reports that renters are more cost-burdened than homeowners regardless of race.White renters use46% of their income on rent on average; other races are burdened at higher rates such as American Indians at 67%, Pacific Islanders at 60%, and Hispanics at 59%.
Of the respondents who were classified as cost-burdened, 62% were either a person with a disability or were living with one. Out of the 15 respondents who identified as transgender, nine were found to be cost-burdened. Similarly, among the 24 respondents who were single mothers, 10 were considered to be cost-burdened.
These groups of people are also at higher risk of displacement. Right to Counsel data from January 2022 to October 2022 shows that people of color and people with disabilities were overrepresented at eviction proceedings, meaning the percentage of these people that seek legal counsel is higher than the percentage that they comprise in the county’s population.
Homelessness is also more prevalent in these groups of people. The 2020 Point-in-Time Count, a measure of people experiencing homelessness used by HUD, shows that people of color, people with disabilities, and transgender people are overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness.
The assessment also found that residents are most likely to experience and report discrimination based on their source of income, disability, race, and family status. Of the 600 respondents, 69% said they themselves or someone they knew experienced discrimination based on source of income, 46% based on disability, 39% based on race, and 29% based on family status.
Of these respondents, 12% filed a complaint, with 63% not choosing to do so as they thought it would not make a difference. Sixty-eight percent said they did not know whom to contact to file a complaint.
Other findings include that the county lacks affordable housing units that meet the needs of people with disabilities. Mold and high heating and cooling costs are the top environmental health concerns for residents.
Part of the assessment includes the identification of priorities to address these findings. The respondents were asked which strategies they wanted to prioritize and came up with the following:
● More affordable housing and financial assistance for low-income individuals and families
● Increasing access to homeownership
● Housing in a variety of types and sizes
● Reducing barriers to accessing housing such as criminal history and credit history
● Education about fair housing rights and responsibilities
● Enforcement of source of income protections
The BoCC will hold another public hearing in June to get feedback on the complete consolidated plan, before finalizing and submitting it to HUD by July.
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