OLYMPIA—Rep. Chipalo Street, D-Seattle, a first-term legislator, will be sending three bills to the governor’s desk as the 2024 legislative session wraps up.
As a child, Street grew up in a working-class family. Because of these roots, many of the bills that Street introduces fight for the basic needs of everyday Washingtonians. In 2024, these bills include:
- House Bill 2012: This bill is one small step towards helping us build our way out of Washington state’s housing crisis. Expanding the eligibility criteria for a property tax exemption targeting nonprofits building affordable rental housing incentivizes creation of this scare resource. It passed off the House floor on Feb. 12 with a vote of 69-28 and passed the Senate with a vote of 36-13 on March 1. “I firmly believe that we need to enable local governments to incentivize affordable housing projects—it’s a simple, common-sense step towards expanding our supply of housing,” said Street.
- House Bill 2348: “I introduced this bill to expand healthcare services to the needs of King County and beyond. Some of the services our unhoused population needs are healthcare and mental health services. Harborview is a premiere provider of these services for our community. Currently, 70 percent of the people who receive care at Harborview are on some kind of government medical assistance. It also houses the only psychiatric ER, outside of the state’s psychiatric hospitals. With 40 percent of the people receiving care at Harborview being from outside of King County, this hospital is truly a safety net for our region.” This bill passed off the House floor on Feb. 10 with a vote of 56-41 and passed the Senate on Feb. 29 with a vote of 31-18. As the Senate had made amendments, this bill went back the House and the House concurred on the amendments on March 5.
- House Bill 2354: Tax increment financing (TIF) was recently introduced as a tool that can be used by jurisdictions to finance development of infrastructure, which promotes growth, and then use resulting increased tax revenue to pay off the infrastructure. We’re finding some kinks where TIF areas are impacting the tax revenue of fire, hospital, and EMS districts. Ultimately, our first responders are being asked to provide more services to these growing areas with fixed income. This isn’t in the best interest of our citizens and my bill makes sure that TIF areas must negotiate mitigations with impacted taxing districts. It passed almost unanimously—96-1—off the House floor on Feb. 12 and passed the Senate unanimously on March 1. As the Senate had made amendments, this bill went back the House and the House concurred on the amendments on March 5.