I am writing regarding the capital budget, which is currently being debated by the Washington State Legislature. Washington currently has a significant homelessness crisis, evidenced by data including but not limited to One Night Count statistics. In fact, hundreds of diverse South King County community members identified housing affordability and homelessness as the top two critical community issues in Multi-Service Center’s 2016 Community Needs Assessment.

We are greatly concerned that the Washington State Legislature has not yet passed a capital budget. If the legislators do not pass a budget by Jan. 17, affordable housing projects will lose access to millions of dollars in federal tax credits, and these projects will go unbuilt. Missing this deadline means hundreds of people who need access to affordable homes now will have to keep waiting, and homelessness will grow. We cannot afford to keep leaving our neighbors out in the cold.

Robin Corak, Multi-Service Center CEO