


The requirement to offer a payment plan extends through the duration of the public health emergency. Requires a payment plan of three months for every one month behind, and permits eviction where default or failure to engage in a payment plan communication occurs.Use of nonpayment of rent or an eviction related to nonpayment of rent through Decemis prohibited in future housing decisions.Late fees are prohibited through December 31, 2021.WMFHA defeated efforts to extend protections through the public health emergency and to ANY future broadly defined public health emergency.The bill, except for the requirement to offer payment plans upon nonpayment of rent, extends temporary protections through December 31, 2021.The bill provides a continuation of some temporary measures to assist residents struggling to recover, while providing additional opportunities to obtain financial assistance to make housing providers whole for bearing the entirety of the burden for more than a year. We encourage you to sign up for and attend one of our upcoming webinars covering SB 5160 and the just case eviction laws passed in this legislative session. This bill ended up in a much different position than where it started and provides a clear return to normality. This is due to the work of the WMFHA Government Affairs team and our consistent interactions with the legislature to identify concerns and provide opportunities for compromise. Senate Bill 5160 represents the pathway out of the moratorium. These negotiations were not always easy, and we had to make decisions to obtain the best result for the industry as a whole. We’re grateful to those lawmakers who worked collaboratively with WMFHA to reach resolution on many issues during the legislative session and find a path forward to return to normality.

Repeatedly, we asked to work with lawmakers to address issues present before and during the pandemic. We anticipate that more than $750 million of rent is owing in our state as of March 2021. Still, rental delinquency averaged more than 7% in 2021. For most of those that could not, they reached out to seek assistance from the state and from numerous nonprofits. The ongoing payment of rent is the paramount issue affecting both housing providers and residents over the past year. Residents, for the most part, continued to make rental payments. WMFHA worked throughout the past year with the Governor’s office and key lawmakers to express ongoing concerns our members had in making sure they could provide opportunities for quality and safe housing in Washington. From the start of the pandemic it was clear some sort of legislative action would be necessary to address the return to normality.
