Housing affordability, public safety, and educational funding dominated discussions at the 33rd Legislative District’s town hall meeting held on Saturday, Mar. 15, 2025 at Highline College, where lawmakers addressed community questions and outlined key priorities for the year ahead.
State Sen. Tina Orwall, Rep. Mia Gregerson, and newly-appointed Rep. Edwin Obras spoke and fielded questions from around 200 community members, emphasizing challenges posed by the state’s projected $12 billion budget shortfall.
House Bill 1380 & Homelessness
Rep. Gregerson addressed the hot-button “elephant in the room” that possibly helped fill the nearly packed, full house – House Bill 1380, which critics said would increase the risk for cities and make hazardous encampments harder to address – failed to make it to a floor vote by the majority leadership and expired in committee on Mar. 12, 2025.
“I know that House Bill 1380 has been a little bit of a fire starter in both the left and the right of the issue, or however you want to talk about it,” Gregerson said. “And I’m really proud of us of actually wanting to lean in and talk about it. Because for so many people, it doesn’t go far enough. And for some people, it goes too far. And if anything, it’s getting us to the place where the counties, and many of the cities, and the cops, and the prosecutors, we’re all in the same room talking about … ‘what is it?‘ … because we can’t keep moving people from one jurisdiction to the other.”
“Housing and homelessness continue to be top issues,” Rep. Gregerson added. “No matter … how much we’re doing, people are still suffering. People are dying earlier because they are forced to survive in the elements. And a tent is not a place where people should be able to live with dignity.”
Protecting Vulnerable Workers & Mental Health
Lawmakers also highlighted recent legislative efforts to protect vulnerable workers. Rep. Obras discussed his bill expanding protections for isolated workers, such as janitors and security guards.
“As you may know, a few years ago, the legislature passed an isolated workers bill to help our janitors, our housekeepers, and our security guards, many in the district obviously because of the airport, to have those protections around safety,” Obras said. “But there wasn’t any mechanism to really enforce it. And so my good little freshman bill is being heard in the Senate on Monday.”
Sen. Orwall, who has worked extensively on public health and housing, noted her ongoing push for behavioral health initiatives, including the expansion of the state’s 988 mental health crisis hotline.
“At the end of the day, we want to save lives,” Orwall said, describing efforts to develop crisis response teams as alternatives to traditional police responses.
Airport Issues, Captions, Education
Orwall also addressed the importance of keeping the Port of Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport in check.
“The airport has a huge impact, and it’s going to take our community really standing together with our cities to really push back because of the harm and health care conditions that we face,” she said.
Orwall also spoke about a bill that would require movie theaters to include open captions.
“A constituent came to me around open captions in the theater, and we’ve been working on it several years, and we hope that this year it passes the Senate, but it allows for more screenings of open captions,” she said. Again, we want it to be inclusive where all families can go to the theater and enjoy that.”
Orwall also spoke passionately about educational priorities, including her support for continuing incentives to attract highly qualified teachers to underserved Title I schools.
“We must support our Title I schools,” Orwall said. “My daughter is a teacher, and the demands of the profession are immense.”
Budget Constraints
The legislators all acknowledged the difficulty of balancing priorities with 2025 state budget constraints.
Rep. Gregerson, one of the House budget writers, emphasized, “We are committed to careful budget cuts, prioritizing essential services while seeking progressive revenue streams.”
Lawmakers concluded by calling for continued community involvement and collaboration.
“What keeps us in politics today is service to the community,” Obras said. “It’s about the people in this room, and those who couldn’t be here.”
Video
Below is edited video of the event (with fixed/sweetened audio), as filmed by Scott Schaefer:
It’s excellent news that HB 1380 has failed as it’s nothing more than overreach into Incorporated Cities legal right and responsibility to create safe and accessible public spaces. To be offered services, and then continue to refuse them and feel you can squat anywhere is not doing anybody any good. You don’t like rules, then your certainly free to find your self serving utopian nightmare in another town that doesn’t care about it’s citizens like Burien and all the other Cities that opposed that Mia sponsored mess.
Oppose all libertarians ideology 100%
What is wrong with you people. The homeless and low income people have been suffering through this situation for far too long and you can’t come up with a plan to help these people. Get off your stinking butt and pass HB1380 or something that works to help these people. These are real people, a creation of GOD!!!! you also need to have rules to follow at the DESC Appartment. I believe we need to pass a law for mandintory drug and alcohol treatment, they are sick and can’t do it themselves. The Salvation Army and Union Gospel Mission have free one year treatment programs with the possibility of a job when done with treatment!!!!
The issue of homelessness in the U.S. varies greatly depending on location, and it’s important to understand why certain areas are more affected than others. Is the crisis mainly driven by housing affordability, or are mental health and addiction problems playing a bigger role? Or perhaps the growing number of people who choose homelessness as a lifestyle due to the lack of effective governance, accountability, and constant enabling?
When we examine homeless statistics across the country, it’s clear that certain regions, particularly Democratic states and sanctuary cities like New York and California, are seeing more significant increases in homelessness. While Republican states also face homelessness, the numbers in Democratic-run areas are notably higher, and this trend is well-documented. This issue is complex, and while it would not be solved or helped by measures like HB-1380, it’s crucial to analyze the factors that contribute to homelessness in specific regions and understand why some individuals may prefer staying homeless in these areas as well.
One factor that contributes to the issue in many Democratic and sanctuary cities is their more lenient approach to managing homelessness. These cities often provide continuous support, such as food and shelter, which is helpful to a point. However, this approach has unintentionally enabled the homelessness lifestyle by offering comfort without challenging individuals to improve their circumstances or seek long-term solutions. Also It’s very important to consider the local laws surrounding drug use and drug availability in these cities, as they play a significant role in this dynamic. (Clearly, a different approach is needed, as simply enabling these behaviors does not solve the problem.)
Research shows that about 1/3 of homeless individuals are affected by alcohol and/or drug addiction, and around 2/3 have a history of substance use disorders. To truly address homelessness, we need effective strategies to combat addiction and mental health issues, as these are often the most challenging to overcome and are disproportionately represented within the homeless population.
In summary, HB-1380 is not a solution. It’s simply an empty measure that does little to address the root causes of homelessness or offer meaningful assistance to those who need it most.
In talking with my friends in other parts of the country who live in “red” counties they have a completely different approach to the homeless issue. They offer the drug addicts a one way ticket to either Seattle, Portland or any major California city. Problem solved.
I agree with many of John M’s points but the majority of homeless either have a drug or alcohol or both problem.