Legislators consider bills on low-income housing

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 18, 2026

By Ayeda Masood

WA State Journal

As the Washington legislative session is in its final week, bills that could significantly affect Washington’s homelessness and affordable housing crisis are advancing. Among these bills are HB 2266, HB 2442 and SB 6027.

Washington’s most recently released Point-In-Time Count from January 2025 reported 22,173 people were homeless in Washington. This number has only grown each year, with the report noting a 4.4% increase from 2024 and a 4.07% increase from 2023 to 2024.

HB 2266

HB 2266, which passed out of the Senate this past Monday, would make it easier to build and operate shelters and supportive housing across Washington.

The bill would require cities and planning counties to allow transitional housing, permanent supportive housing (multifamily housing for people with disabilities), indoor emergency shelters and indoor emergency housing, collectively known as STEP housing, in zones where residential housing or hotels are allowed. Cities and counties would not be allowed to impose restrictions on STEP housing stricter than those applied to other residential or lodging developments. The bill would also require local governments to ensure enough STEP housing is allowed to meet projected needs identified in their comprehensive plans.

“STEP housing consistently faces barriers that other residential developments do not face,” Joe McDermott, the state relations director for King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, said.

McDermott listed additional required documentation, like permits, licenses and agreements, and legislative approval as examples of potential barriers.

Thomas said that many of these additional barriers are based on stereotypes of people who have disabilities, especially regarding permanent supportive housing.

Virginia Clough, the legislative policy coordinator for the City of Spokane, testified that the bill needs to be amended. She said jurisdictions should be able to verify that operational requirements for indoor emergency shelters are being met, rather than simply receiving written confirmation. She also suggested that there should be more resources available to address unsafe conditions in indoor emergency shelters, such as an on-site contact.

On the Senate floor, lawmakers adopted amendments that addressed some of these concerns. Sen. Chris Gildon, R-Puyallup, and Sen. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, introduced an adopted amendment that would strengthen a requirement for more oversight in emergency shelters. Sen. Sharon Shoemake also introduced an adopted amendment that clarifies that the required on-call contact in an emergency shelter must be someone who can explicitly make decisions and fix problems.

SB 6027

While HB 2266 focuses on where housing can be built, SB 6027 and HB 2442 focus on funding.

SB 6027, which passed out of the Senate on Thursday, March 5, would broaden how existing affordable-housing revenue sources can be used, especially to keep housing units operating.

The bill expands allowable uses of the local 0.1% sales tax for housing and related services to include rehabilitation of existing affordable housing, including emergency, transitional and supportive housing, and operations and maintenance costs for affordable housing. It also expands another state-authorized local sales tax used for affordable housing to allow revenue to pay operations and maintenance for existing affordable housing units, not only newly built units.

HB 2442

HB 2442 would expand and loosen restrictions on several local tax and revenue tools used by cities and counties.

The bill would create a new local sales and use tax of 0.01% to fund services for children and families. It would also allow certain housing-related sales tax revenues to be used for maintaining and operating existing affordable housing units, in addition to building new ones.

HB 2442 passed the House and is currently in the Senate Rules Committee.

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