This is the text from our latest newsletter. Please consider making a contribution today so we can keep up our advocacy efforts. Thank you!

This year may go down as the longest one in our lifetimes. .

We’re only about half way through: What’s next?
My biggest concern on the horizon is rent “forgiveness,” the idea that people who have not paid rent shouldn’t ever have to pay it back. Let’s look at what we’ve done so far this year to push back on bad interventions and policy:

• Opposed eviction bans before they were imposed 
• Filed an ethics complaint against Councilmember Sawant for encouraging rent strikes;
• Pushed against extensions of existing eviction bans; 
• Worked to let bans expire and advocated for evictions for Elective Non-Payers;
• Worked for property tax relief;
• Convened and participated on numerous online meetings and calls with housing providers and officials;
• Conducted a survey of unpaid rent in the Puget Sound area (it’s a growing problem);
• Proposed federal legislation for rent relief in ongoing stimulus funding packages; and
• Continued our effort to expose the facts about the non-existant “eviction crisis.”

WE NEED A SINGLE MINDED FOCUS ON UNPAID RENT AND HOW WE RECOVER IT.

While it might feel satisfying, a legal challenge is not the right path for us to take. In short, legal challenges are expensive, don’t usually yield quick results, and often even successful challenges don’t yield wide spread relief. And often the results, not known for months or even years, can be ambiguous or even bad. 

Most importantly, the public perception will be that housing providers are NOT experiencing pain: they have enough money to sue to evict people! 
Win or lose, a legal challenge without a larger, comprehensive strategy only reenforces the narrative that led to such thoughtless imposition of eviction bans in the first place. 

Please support our efforts with a contribution today!
It took many years for us to wind up in a world where people who build, manage, and operate housing are the bad guys. Undoing that isn’t going to happen overnight or just with legal challenges.

We’re looking at what happens to rental housing in the future; will private rental housing survive? Without your help, we can’t continue a thoughtful and strategic approach, one that has a chance of long term and sustainable success!

If you have given, THANK YOU!

If you haven’t, or it has been awhile, please click the button below and give online. Or, if you need to mail a check, send it to Laura Parducci at NWCREI, 117 E. Louisa PMB 185, Seattle, WA 98102

Thank you for your work and efforts to create and provide housing for people during one of the most difficult years in our lifetimes!