THE PLETHORA OF bills filed since the Legislature convened Jan. 10 ranges from promising to downright insane.
In the promising category are House and Senate companion bills, HB 1362 and SB 5275, to reduce the number of home foreclosures.
Rep. Steve Tharinger, D-Sequim, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, two of the 24th District’s three legislators are among the cosponsors.
The 24th represents Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.
The identical bills are modeled after a 2009 Nevada foreclosure mediation program under which nearly half the participants were able to keep their homes and almost 90 percent avoided foreclosure, the Las Vegas Sun reported.
Roughly 77,000 Washington state families lost their homes due to foreclosures in 2010, and more than 115,000 families are past due on their mortgages, according to bill sponsors.
Keeping buyers in their homes is good for borrowers and lenders alike, and helps prevent homelessness and the attendant rise in need for expensive social services.
Preventing homelessness should be a budgetary imperative, especially in light of a projected $12 million deficit in the Home Security Fund in the coming biennium and a $19 million deficit for the biennium thereafter, according to the Department of Commerce.
The Home Security Fund is fed solely by local real estate document recording fees — originally $18, but temporarily bumped to $38 in 2009.
Despite sharply dropping revenue due to declining real estate sales, the legislators used the Home Security Fund in 2010 to rescue multiple other homelessness services.
Legislation is forthcoming to repeal the sunset provision that will otherwise roll back the $20 fee, as of June 30, 2013.
Maintaining the fee at $38 per document would generate $41 million in state and local homeless funding in the 2013-15 biennium, serving approximately 23,100 homeless people, according to Commerce.
Another coming bill proposes extending the recording fee to secondary mortgage sales — purchases of a mortgage by one bank from another bank.
That would generate about $12 million per year, filling roughly half the Home Security Fund deficit and also beefing up the Housing Trust Fund’s facilities operation and maintenance account.
Preserving this revenue stream won’t be easy, but may be defensible.
The same can’t be said for HB 1366, euphemistically named the Limited Service Pregnancy Center Accountability Act.
A reprise of a bill introduced last year by Rep. Lynn Kessler, who has since retired, it is now co-sponsored by Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, the 24th District’s other legislator.
In a pro-HB 1366 news release, Planned Parenthood, Legal Voice, NARAL Pro-Choice America and National Organization for Women state they are afraid that women who are looking for an abortion will accidentally go to one of the pregnancy resource centers, such as CareNet in Port Angeles.
HB 1366 “creates significant liability for nonprofit, faith-based pregnancy centers that receive no tax dollars and provide over $18 million in free services to pregnant women in Washington, simply because they do not offer abortion services,” said Lisa-Ann Oliver of Human Life of Washington, at a Monday hearing attended by 500 bill opponents, including a van-load from Sequim.
Interestingly, at the Jan. 28, 2010, Homeless Connect exposition in Port Angeles, a Family Planning of Clallam County nurse privately told me the two types of agencies complement one another locally.
Family Planning offers mammograms, women’s health screenings and contraceptives that she said prevent abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies, while CareNet provides free services, including ultrasound for expectant mothers.
In a legislative session where the state’s Basic Health Plan, which subsidizes health insurance for working poor families, is on the chopping block, it seems incomprehensible to me that Van De Wege and his colleagues on the Healthcare and Wellness Committee are considering placing burdensome regulations on private-sector nonprofits that cost taxpayers nothing.
Contacted Thursday, Van De Wege said he’s waiting to comment because “we are in the process of amending the bill based on testimony from the public hearing.”
As Oliver asked: “Where [are] the 62,000 women served by PRCs, at no cost to either the government or themselves, supposed to go? . . .
“Where [is] the over $18 million for these services supposed to come from, given the current economic circumstances?”
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Martha M. Ireland was a Clallam County commissioner from 1996 through 1999.
She is on the administrative staff of Serenity of House of Clallam County, co-owns a Carlsborg-area farm with her husband, Dale, and is active in the local Republican Party, among other community endeavors.
Her column appears every Friday. E-mail: irelands@olypen.com.
