SPOKANE, Wash. – Data reveals Washington State is on track to have more eviction filings in 2024 than any other year on record.
Lawmakers learning of the issue at Friday’s Senate Housing hearing, where data showed evictions around the state are soaring to new highs.
In the last 12 months, King, Spokane and Clark counties saw the highest eviction filing counts in recorded state history.
In Spokane County, there were 2228 eviction filings, an eviction filing rate of 2.9%.
In the last year, one in 50, or 2%, of Washington renters faced an eviction filing.
Ben Stuckart, the Executive Director of the Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium told NonStop Local that a lot of the problems stem from the pandemic-era, and that there has been an increase of back-rent due in low income housing.
“During COVID, there were a lot of eviction prevention measures put in place. So, evictions were banned,” Stuckart said.
He said that in many cases, renters would not pay rent. But at that time, they also were not applying for rental assistance.
In the post-pandemic era, for non-profit apartments who have to break-even, it’s an unfortunate situation where they have to evict tenants who are not caught up on their rent.
“You see the same thing happening though in for-market apartments, where, during COVID, they couldn’t evict people. And now… that’s starting to catch up since those restrictions have been lifted,” Stuckart said.
Some solutions discussed by state leaders, such as current Washington State Representative and Senator-elect, Marcus Riccelli (D), includes expanding the Right to Counsel program, which was established in 2021.
“So, more folks, as they’re going through the process, are getting a right to counseling to see if they can… avoid eviction…. We need more housing supply. We need to build, we need to look at things like condo-liability and reform. We need to bolster our housing trust fund and build the capital to make sure more people have access to housing,” Riccelli said.
A big concern for housing experts is that with an increase in evictions, there will be an even larger increase in the county’s homeless population.
