About that $4 billion for housing...

Plus some recommended reading, and you should give someone the Observer

Editor’s Note: This is the first official Monday edition of the Observer. We polled all y’all on the Monday vs. Sunday thing, and Monday finished with a commanding 12-point lead.

Gov. Jay Inslee got a lot of ink last week when he rolled out his budget proposal for the upcoming biennium. If you’re looking for a conventional wrap-up, we commend the one Joe O’Sullivan wrote over at Crosscut. As always, we’re more interested in the inside-baseball aspects.

The biggest single item the governor rolled out was a $4 billion bond package to tackle the lower-income end of the housing crisis. There’s a big deal brewing for the upcoming legislative session to tackle this issue, but most of the policy-related ideas flying around are aimed at easing the various constrictions on market-rate housing. Think allowing more housing density close to transit lines and streamlining the permitting process for new housing developments.

That kind of change doesn’t do much — especially in the short and medium term — for people who couldn’t afford market-rate housing even if it were cheaper and more plentiful. And the folks who advocate for low-income housing are at a hard no on a deal without that kind of help. Hence the $4 billion.