With inspiration from a local school district, a legislator in Washington state passed legislation aimed at using public housing dollars to encourage parents to get involved in their kids’ education. The community spirit that it invokes, he suggests, is something that other governments should look to as a model.
“The answer to poverty is not just throwing money at programs,” said State Rep. Hans Zeiger, a Republican from Puyallup. “The role of government, which has limited dollars, is not to take the place of relationships, but to leverage relationships using limited resources.”
Zeiger said he proposed his legislation, H.B. 1633, after seeing it work at a smaller scale in a partnership between McCarver Elementary School and the local housing authority in Tacoma. “What they did there was they basically say, here’s the school, it has a lot of challenges, and 179 percent turnover among students … you’ve got low income families moving from place to place, so how do you stabilize that situation and create a situation where kids can learn and not be moving around so much,” he said.
Given that turnover rate, a classroom with 20 seats would see 56 children come and go over the course of a year. To discourage such “hypermobility,” the district began a program in 2011 that offered affordable housing dollars to parents who took measures to encourage their children’s education. They included, most prominently, a commitment to keep their children in the district for five years; improve their own education and career; and become more involved in the school.
Five years later, turnover in the district has declined to 82 percent, a figure that stands at less than half its peak. “It’s still high, but it’s lower than anyone can remember it,” said Michael Mirra, the executive director of the Tacoma Housing Authority.
When Zeiger proposed implementing the program statewide, it received broad support in little time. The legislation passed almost unanimously, with just seven dissenting votes in all, before receiving the governor’s signature in July 2015. While that statewide initiative is too recent for metrics that measure success to have been collected, Zeiger believes that when the outcomes are substantiated by more figures, the program will serve as an example for other governments to follow in working to empower citizens locally.
“You’ve got a lot of support from different organizations in the community. I think that’s a good model where the community comes together and says we’re going to change something,” he said. This was a local housing authority, a local school district, local people saying we’re going to turn this thing around, and it results in people being engaged in their community.”
Philanthropic organizations have also shown interest, Zeiger noted. The project in Tacoma attracted the attention of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which pledged $450,000 in support over a three-year period. The intrigue, along with the initial indications of the program’s success, will likely mean that more jurisdictions seek to follow Washington’s model in the years ahead.
For legislators seeking to enact that model at the federal level, Zeiger said that keeping the focus local was important. “Often there are unintended consequences when you’re trying something at the federal level,” he said. “As people look at policy at the federal level, the goal should be to leverage relationships at the ground level.”
“Poverty is a personal issue that requires relationships to really get at the heart of underlying causes and to get people the help they need,” he added.
For those looking at the program from outside the state, Mirra said, “I would advise them to understand an expanded mission for housing authorities that would lead them to explore ways to spend their housing dollars, not just to house a family, but to promote school outcomes. I think that’s the first step for a housing authority to take. And on the school district side, to realize the benefits of [working] with the housing authority. A successful partnership starts with the mutual acknowledgement that they serve the same children.”
