Published on March 19, 2024
Reported in The New York Times by David W. Chen
As housing costs soar, Washington State wants to limit annual rent increases to 7 percent. Oregon and California have passed similar measures.
With her husband struggling at times to find work, Ms. Horn has maxed out her credit cards to keep pace with the rent. She has relied on public assistance and stayed in shelters. The couple and their two children have moved so many times that she keeps sentimental items like photos and heirlooms boxed up, because no place feels like home yet.
“I’m just in a constant state of waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said Ms. Horn, 42, whose current lease expires in May. “I am one price hike away from being back into instability.”
Ms. Horn is one of thousands of Washington residents who have converged in recent weeks on Olympia, the state capital, to lobby legislators about one of the most closely watched housing bills in the country: A measure that would cap residential rent increases at 7 percent a year.
Deemed a priority by the Democratic leaders who control the State Legislature, the bill has cleared the House of Representatives and is now in the Senate. If it is enacted, Washington would become the third state in the country to adopt statewide rent regulations, after Oregon and California — and all within the last five years.
From coast to coast, housing has emerged as perhaps the biggest statehouse issue this year. The number of households considered by the federal government to be rent-burdened — meaning that rent consumes more than 30 percent of their income — climbed to a record high of 22.4 million in 2022, according to a new report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.
Gregg Colburn, a professor of real estate at the University of Washington and co-author of a recent book, “Homelessness is a Housing Problem,” said he was not surprised that state officials around the country would adopt “an almost paternalistic” approach.
“It is becoming the topic du jour,” he said. “If you’re an elected leader at the state level, you now say, what are we going to do? What are the tools we can use?”
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As housing costs soar, Washington State wants to limit annual rent increases to 7 percent. Oregon and California have passed similar measures.