Support a Countywide Levy for Affordable Housing

Loading....

TAKE ACTION: Support a Countywide Levy for Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing is the foundation of our regional success, especially as King County continues to grow rapidly. Despite making nation-leading progress, many residents continue to face significant barriers to accessing suitable housing options. The housing need includes affordable rental, homeownership, shelter, and permanent supportive housing. This has led to a growing recognition of the need to align affordable housing strategies while exploring bold, new revenue options.

On March 31st 2026, King County Executive Zahilay announced his "Breaking the Cycle" initiative. As part of this larger body of work, the County is convening a small, 14-person workgroup to form recommendations for "a dedicated revenue source, including a county-wide housing levy, to support the building, siting, preservation, maintenance, and operations of emergency shelter and affordable housing in King County." Recommendations from this "Affordable Housing Revenue and Investments Workgroup" are due by December 31, 2026 and will lead to action from the King County Executive.

County leadership needs to hear from you! County leadership is in the midst of broader engagements to inform the final "Break the Cycle" workgroup recommendations. It is our job as affordable housing advocates and developers to ensure that the Executive hears strong support for a new countywide affordable housing levy by the November 2027 ballot. We cannot assume that any aspect of this time-limited effort is a foregone conclusion.

Please use the form letter to the right to reach out to county leadership and support a King County Affordable Housing Levy in 2027!

We just need few pieces of information to connect you with the King County Council and Executive:

First Name*

Last Name*

Address, line 1

City

Zip Code

State

Email Address*

I'd like to receive updates from this organization

Take Action

Organization Name
Org Address Line 1
Org City, Org State Org Zip

Get in touch! Org Email or Org Phone

Call on the County to Fund Affordable Housing

Remember to personalize this message; individualized emails receive a lot more attention from elected officials than simple form letters.

King County Executive

Subject: Support a Countywide Levy for Affordable Housing

Message:

Dear Executive Zahilay, Thank you for leading the Breaking the Cycle initiative, which recognizes the connection between homelessness, untreated behavioral health needs, criminal legal system involvements, and other public system. Affordable housing is fundamentally related to these other systems and will be critical to include in any effective solution. King County needs bold, new affordable housing investments to keep pace with deepening public needs and an increasingly unpredictable national policy environment. Please transmit a bold countywide affordable housing levy proposal in the executive-sponsored legislation to King County Council early next year. The need for this revenue is urgent: please advance the subsequent ballot measure for voters to decide by November 2027. Since 2019, our region has delivered over 22,000 new income-restricted affordable homes— this is real progress worth celebrating. However, this pace of about 3,500 homes a year is less than half of the roughly 8,000 new homes needed per year through 2044. The shortfall and cost burden are deepest exactly where the need is greatest: homes affordable to households earning below 30% of area median income. Affordable housing is a top voter priority for good reason. It is the foundation everything else in a community is built on. Even so, housing affordability, access, and stability have been increasingly out of reach for more people across our region. By meaningfully investing upstream of the homelessness, mental health, and criminal legal systems, we can keep many people from falling into these systems altogether. The alternative is to continue paying for the fallout afterward. Meeting King County’s housing need means investing across the full continuum of affordable housing. Permanent supportive housing is a proven solution to homelessness, but construction has ground to a halt due to a lack of long-term operating and service dollars. Affordable homeownership will help families stay in place while building intergenerational wealth and financial resiliency. Zero-interest financing can support expanded homeownership production, especially when paired with down-payment assistance for families. Affordable rental and workforce housing requires substantially more local gap funding, especially to support the kinds of deeply affordable, family-sized homes people need most. An affordable housing levy is a proven solution that provides the appropriate scale and long-term predictability we need to make real progress on housing affordability and homelessness in King County. Seattle's Housing Levy, in place since 1986, is why 55% of King County's income-restricted housing sits there today. You have the chance to be the King County Executive who builds on that success across every part of the county and meaningfully scales up these strategic investments.

Characters remaining:

Organization Name
Org Address Line 1
Org City, Org State Org Zip

Get in touch! Org Email or Org Phone

TAKE ACTION: Support a Countywide Levy for Affordable Housing

We just need few pieces of information to connect you with the King County Council and Executive:

Sorry, we're not targeting any elected officials in your district. But, you can still help!

Your messages have been sent!