There's no ghost. He's still with us.
You have to, you have to, obviously,
obviously you don't understand how spirits work.
Welcome to County Connection,
the official podcast of the Washington State Association of Counties,
where we dive into the legislative issues shaping the future of our communities.
From budgets to public safety, infrastructure to elections,
we'll break down what's happening in Olympia and how it impacts counties from
across the Evergreen State. Stay informed, stay engaged,
and join us as we amplify the voice of Washington's 39 counties.
Okay. Welcome back everybody to our first episode of the County Connection
podcast. I'm Paul Jewell.
I'm hosting the podcast as the government relations director with the Washington
State Association of Counties. I'm here with Curtis Steinauer.
Curtis is a policy coordinator with WSAC.
He's handling homelessness and housing issues for us this year,
as well as building and permitting.
Good to see you, Curtis. Thanks for joining us.
Yeah. Thanks Paul. Glad to be here.
So Curtis, you started out with WSAC a couple of years ago as a policy analyst.
You were doing some research and some other work.
You were working a lot with kind of the human services and law and justice area,
but you've got an expanded role this year and you're going to do a lot more.
You're going to take a lot more active role with the association,
do an advocacy work up at the legislature. Tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah. So like you said,
I've spent the last two years as a policy analyst, mostly supporting Julianna Rowe
in human services and law and justice issues.
This year I'm taking the lead on building and permitting bills and on
homeless housing bills specifically.
We have another staff member or contractor rather named Kelsey Holst.
It's taking the lead on land use issues, but I'm backing her up as well.
And yeah, just a lot more engaged and working directly with legislators for the
first time. So it's a big step and I'm excited for the new role.
Yeah. Well, we're glad you're here, Curtis, and we're excited to have you.
And we certainly can use the help here with the policy team.
And you're not the only one that's kind of given an expanded role this year.
We've got quite a few new team members.
So it's got a lot of different look and a lot of different personality.
And the one thing you can always count on here in Olympia is change.
And that's true here at WSAC too. So welcome.
Speaking of change, you know, there's,
there's a ton going on at the legislature today's inauguration day.
I think I've said that in every intro so far.
I know you're going to the ball tonight with the rest of the team.
That's right. Yeah. So we're going to see you there.
I think I'm the only one wearing a tux too, which, you know, a little bit of a,
you know, slight to the rest of the team, but
a slight to the rest of the team.
Do you mean you're going to you're going to be the best dress?
Is that what you're thinking?
You know, unintentionally, but yes, I think that's the rest of us.
That's for sure. Yeah. I'll be hanging out with the riff raff.
Well, hopefully you won't have to slum it too much at the gubernatorial ball.
So well, before we get into other things,
I wanted to ask you kind of what you think are going to be the big topics
this year in Olympia around housing and homelessness and building and permitting.
What are you expecting to be working on?
What are you hearing?
Legislators are going to, you know, put a lot of effort behind.
Yeah. Well, in terms of what legislators are putting a lot of effort behind,
I think we've already seen some bills come out and I think we'll continue
to see legislation that attempts to change
local government authority around land use planning and building permitting
in order to allow more affordable housing or incentivize more affordable housing
or just make it, you know, a more permissible building environment.
Obviously, counties have concerns with most of those bills,
so we want to make sure that local controls are retained
and that the bill is affecting the right scope.
For instance, a lot of these bills are really intended to impact
the city's authority over these projects and counties are getting looped
into these bills and we're working to provide feedback to legislators
to make sure they're doing what the bill thinks it does and not affecting
our ability to control zoning in the unincorporated area
or building and permitting in those areas.
Yeah, great. So that's the housing area.
Are you expecting any kind of big changes in the homelessness arena?
Yeah. So the biggest thing with homelessness this session
is just maintaining funding and service levels.
The governor's budget that came out in November, while it was
Governor Inslee's budget and he's no longer in office,
we expect to see some more things as the budgets get put together
later in the session where it's a tough revenue year.
The legislature is looking for ways to make cuts and reduce spending
and programs like rent assistance and
housing programs in counties that are on the chopping block.
And we expect to see some attempt to lower funding levels.
In addition to the budget situation with that housing funding,
counties are facing, as they have for the last couple of years,
a shortfall on local document recording fees
due to a relatively depressed housing market from the last decade.
And the last couple of years, the legislature has been good about funding
a kind of bridge funding for that local document recording fee
shortfall to backfill and keep current service levels in counties.
And we expect that to be a harder conversation this session.
So a lot of my effort around the homeless housing programs this year
is going to be around ensuring that to the extent possible,
we maintain funding and service levels in county homeless housing programs.
Yeah, you know, when times get tough and those shortfalls kind of appear,
the programs, you know, the grant programs, especially
they kind of rise to the top as far as potential low hanging fruit. Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
And protecting those dollars that flow to the communities
and provide direct services to the people who really need them,
especially with the homelessness crisis that we've got going on.
It's got to be a major focus for for you and for some of the other groups
that you represent here at WSAC. Absolutely.
I think we've talked about, Paul, that, you know,
being the stage of my career, it is this is my first cycle ever
where it's not an expansionary budget, where we don't see
extra revenue that we can take advantage of for new programs.
It's the first time I've had to play defense, really,
with these homeless housing funds.
And yeah, there's been a ton of growth, right? Over the last. Right.
Man, probably the last decade.
There's I'll bet you it's probably no comparison if you look at,
you know, what we were spending on homelessness services
and housing programs 10 years ago to what we are today.
Yeah, I mean, a hundredfold increase, probably. Yeah.
And so so it's been interesting for me because there's
there's lots of messaging when it comes to pass through entitlements,
things like Social Security, Medicaid programs.
You know, Governor Ferguson's letter that he put out about the budget
promises to protect those entitlements.
And so one thing we're working to do is make sure that legislators are aware
that those programs and the funding for those programs,
it's rental assistance to vulnerable people.
By and large, and you know, that is an entitlement
the same way a Social Security check is.
And just kind of making that case and holding the governor's office
in the legislature to their value of protecting those types of funds.
Why do you think rental assistance is so important?
Well, you know, you drive through any urban area in the state
and you see that we have a homeless housing crisis, right?
You see people living in a community that's not really
people living indigent on the street.
You see people in a bad way.
And in a lot of communities, that problem would be a lot worse
if you didn't have that subsidy funding to take advantage of open units
for people who couldn't afford them themselves.
Besides that, it is it is the source of funding
that's preventing more vulnerable people from entering this cycle
that you often see in the homeless community, where someone who maybe
had a one time hardship, it spirals out of control and it becomes
a years long hardship once they enter the homelessness community.
And it's so much harder to get back on their feet, to get a job,
to reenter society.
And rental assistance gives them a roof over their head,
gives them a safe place to kind of get their life back together.
And for some people, it can really be the difference between being a,
you know, problem that counties have to address.
They have that responsibility and statute being that person could be a problem
that counties have to address for the next decade.
Or they could be someone who just needs six months of rental assistance
to get back on their feet.
So rental assistance can be that saving grace, I guess,
for folks that actually prevents homelessness in many cases.
Absolutely. And I think the one thing you got to say is that,
you know, homelessness is a housing problem and that rental assistance
is only as good as the housing stock in the community.
So you can use that rental assistance to get people into homes
when they can't afford them, but you can also use it to keep them from
basically getting evicted for non-payment of rent.
Yeah, absolutely.
For a lot of the families in Washington state, I mean,
the vast majority, I think it's still the majority,
don't have enough savings where, you know, even a thousand dollar
unexpected expense doesn't hurt financially to the point where it can
actually create a situation where they may not be able to pay their regular
monthly bills and could find themselves kind of in that cycle that you're
talking about that just takes it could take several months to get out of.
And so already get back on their feet and get that savings back in the bank
so that they have that emergency fund.
And so that rental assistance can really help.
Yeah. And I, you know, prior to my time at Wasack, I was housing coordinator
in Grace Harbor County. And we saw many times this scenario that you
walk through here where you have a family that maybe needs a few months
to get back on their feet and the rental assistance provide them with a safe place.
We saw many times families who weren't able to access that rental assistance,
who weren't able to access that rental assistance, they, you know, become homeless.
And now they're in a situation where they're living indigent on the street
with children, often in a vehicle, sometimes in a camp.
And it is never long before, rightfully, the state steps in and takes custody
of their children because their children aren't in a safe place.
And then they, when they're living in this indigent place and they have this crisis
with their family and with their home, it's hard to keep a job.
It's hard to get a job if they don't have one.
And you can see how these things can quickly spiral.
Yeah, they spiral. And then you're then you're kind of in the system.
And then it's really hard to get out of the system.
So that rental assistance can really serve as that stopgap, right?
To prevent that from kind of hitting that tipping point.
Absolutely. For a lot of Washington families. OK.
Well, it's good to know. So so that that's something that we'll be looking at,
trying to protect as we move forward.
I've talked, you know, with several other of our team members already about the 10
to 12 billion dollar deficit. I mean, there's there's a lot of concern
about different programs and a lot of progress that's been made over the last
several years and how, you know, things might be affected.
It'd be really interesting to see as this legislative session kind of unfolds,
kind of what the priorities are of the legislature and of the new administration.
You know, there's there was a big focus.
I was just talking with Brad a few minutes ago on behavioral health issues,
because that was a major focus of the of the Inslee administration
for really the entire time, all 12 years that he was in office.
And and this issue that we're talking about right now with homelessness and housing,
it's actually gotten a lot worse
from start to finish with the Inslee administration,
even with more and more and more and more resources.
As you look ahead, thinking about the Ferguson administration,
are you hearing anything new or innovative or exciting coming out of
kind of, you know, their leadership that you think has some potential
that we might see some traction on even this year?
Yeah, well, I'll suspend
using the descriptors innovative or exciting.
But we have seen a change in focus in the Ferguson administration
and that the Inslee administration really prioritized
the entire continuum of services from emergency shelter to right of way programs
and outreach to transitional housing and rental assistance to affordable housing.
And we haven't heard that from the Ferguson administration in these early days.
We've heard a huge focus on the end of that spectrum, the affordable housing stock.
And we have heard almost radio silence.
And my colleagues at the Department of Commerce and Low Income Housing Alliance
have substantiated that when I talk to them.
It's all about building, all about, you know, capital funding for affordable housing.
And we have just haven't heard what their strategy is around homeless housing yet.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
Like we've talked many times that supply and demand
are the things driving the housing crisis.
Yeah, in many ways, it's just pure economics.
Exactly. We have we have too many people and not enough homes.
And so that creates demand that drives the price up to the point where it's really,
in many cases, unaffordable for a lot of Washingtonians
that it wasn't unaffordable for in the past.
And that's not just the homeownership market.
That's the rental market, too. Right.
Some people even think that, you know, rental vouchers can serve as,
you know, part of the problem there if you have too much of that in the marketplace
and driving those rentals up. So it really, really is.
I mean, at the end of the day, you know, you can talk about the continuum of care.
And that's really important to keep people out of or help people
who are kind of in that spiral that you're talking about.
But bottom line is we got to have more housing.
Got to have more houses.
And I think where we're at is we we're willing to entertain new strategies
to approach the situation.
Like I said, it's gotten much worse through Governor Inslee's tenure.
And so I think we're excited to hear about new strategies
and a new approach from a new administration.
I think the challenge for us isn't necessarily insisting
that things continue to be done as we've done them,
but that we don't get into a place where we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And we have a situation where people right now who are only housed
because of subsidy and are not contributing to the unsheltered homeless population
because they're in a county program right now that's keeping them inside.
We don't want to see those people return to the streets
or go to the streets for the first time.
You know, so during this transition period, where if we are pivoting to a new strategy,
we want to make sure we don't inadvertently make the problem worse
by causing a lot of returns to homelessness
who are currently sheltered through a county housing program.
Interesting. OK. Well, that's good stuff, Curtis.
I'm glad that, you know, you're keeping track of what's going on.
Sounds like there's going to be a lot to talk about this session
as we, you know, dive into housing and homelessness
and we look at building and permitting.
I know I've been watching the bills.
There's already a lot of proposals out there.
It's day three of legislative session.
How are you holding up so far?
I told several people today,
if you had not let me look at a clock or a calendar since session started
and you told me it was day three, I would not believe you.
It is, it's, you know, drinking from a fire hose here.
Well, it's definitely been a fast start this year already.
I can tell you that as a bit of a veteran of legislative sessions,
this one is a little bit more intense than I've seen in the past for long sessions.
But you just never know. Every session is different.
There's always a surprise.
There's always a surprise waiting for you or there's not.
It just kind of depends what, you know, as we kind of wrap up here,
you know, it is day three.
You said it's like drinking like, you know, like drinking from a fire hose.
I think a lot of our county commissioners can relate to that.
But what's if you had to pick out one thing you were super looking forward to
this session, what would it be?
One thing I'm super looking forward to this session.
Well, in addition to my role with Homeless Assistant Housing
and apologize for the last minute issue pivot here at the end of the talk,
but I'm supporting our executive director, Derek Young, in the public defense issue,
which is a top priority for counties.
And I think we this is an issue that's been around for decades, you know,
but I think there's more momentum behind it this session than there has been in a long time.
And I think I want to see what we can get to.
But I'm very optimistic that we emerge with a better outcome for counties than we've had before.
I don't want to promise anything or say that we'll be successful completely in our goal.
But, you know, with we have the Office of Public Defense,
the Defenders Association and counties all aligned on this issue for the first time
I've ever been involved.
So, you know, optimistic on that issue and hopeful for what we can accomplish.
Yeah, well, that that would be that would be amazing, right?
That that would be that would be a big change for counties and certainly a benefit for our members.
Well, Curtis, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for coming on for our first episode of the County Connections podcast.
We're going to have a lot more of these this year and a lot more opportunities.
And we'll be chatting with you, I'm sure, pretty often.
All right. Thanks, Paul. All right. We'll see you soon.