Successes in the 2022 Legislative Session

Your advocacy and support during the short, mostly virtual, 2022 legislative session made a tangible difference for our neighbors across Washington. We celebrate the bills below that were part of our FAN legislative agenda and those we supported as the session evolved. Thank you for promoting social justice and racial equity across our state!

Celebrate, download, and share our 2022 Legislative Successes

Read Policy Engagement Director Kristin Ang’s Recap of the 2022 Legislative Session

Download a copy of FAN’s 2022 Legislative Agenda. (updated 2/16/2022)

You advocated for economic security and a stronger safety net for people living in poverty.

  • Expanded free lunches to all students [HB 1878 – Rep. Riccelli] through the community eligibility process (CEP) to ensure that all schools eligible to use CEP are adequately funded to serve healthy, free school meals to all their students. This will expand meals for 92,000 students.
  • Created a statewide multilingual online tool [HB 1833 – Rep. Berg] for school meal applications and programs for low- income students
  • Sustained and expanded safety net supports:
    • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) [SB 5838 – Sen. Nobles] Families with a child under three years old will receive a $100/month diaper subsidy.
    • Aged, Blind, or Disabled (ABD) monthly cash grant maximum increased in budget from $197 to $417 for one person and to $528 for two people. ABD eligibility is extended to human trafficking victims [HB 1748 Rep. Entenman].
    • DSHS call-center wait times reduced and in-person services provided [HB 2075 – Rep. Peterson].
    • Paid Family and Medical Leave [SB 5649 – Sen. Robinson] was modified to be more equitable.
    • We Feed Washington emergency food program funded at $58 million to connect farmers, food programs, and hungry households.
  • Working Families Tax Credit implementation fixes [HB 1888 and HB 2096 Rep. Thai] will ensure that all eligible families have access to the tax credit as intended. An additional $10 million was budgeted for WFTC outreach and language access, meaning more eligible Washingtonians will be aware of the credit and able to benefit from it. Starting in 2023, the WFTC program will provide payments ranging from $300 to $1200 to low-to-moderate income households and help nearly 420,000 households.
  • Digital Equity Act [HB 1723 – Rep. Gregerson] will close the digital equity divide by increasing the accessibility and affordability of telecommunications services, devices, and training.
  • Community and Technical Colleges racial equity reforms [HB 1835 – Rep. Hansen] will create outreach and completion initiatives to increase postsecondary enrollment

We will continue calls for reform of our policing & criminal justice systems.

We regret that none of the bills in this section of our agenda passed this session. We will continue to work with our coalition partners and impacted families toward essential and life-saving reforms.

You helped create housing opportunities to prevent homelessness.

  • Funding for the Housing Trust Fund was increased by $114 million.

The legislature invested a total of $829 million in homelessness and housing services. In addition to the Housing Trust Fund, funds allocated include $240 million for rapid housing acquisition, $68.5 for rental assistance, and $45 million to transition unsheltered people into affordable housing.

We will continue to promote environmental justice.

We regret that none of the bills in this section of our agenda passed. Environmental justice and climate change were largely addressed in the budget and the transportation package. We will continue to work with our coalition partners to address climate change and work toward environmental justice.

You protected immigrant rights and created safer communities.

  • Health Equity for Immigrants Campaign was included in the supplemental budget to provide equal access to health care for all low-income Washingtonians, regardless of immigration status.
  • Safer communities will be created through the momentous victories of several bills, especially highcapacity magazine restrictions [SB 5078 – Sen. Liias], restricting weapons in certain locations such as school board meetings and election-related facilities [HB 1630 – Rep. Senn], and closing the ghost guns loophole [HB 1705 – Rep. Berry].
  • Justice for indigenous communities [HB 1725 – Rep. Lekanoff] will increase by establishing the nation’s first alert system for missing and endangered Indigenous persons.
  • Support for refugees [Rep. Thai] will be provided via $28.4 million in one-time refugee resettlement funding for the DSHS Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance, to strengthen community organizations’ capacity to serve all refugees, including those from Afghanistan and Ukraine.

You expanded health care access for our neighbors.

  • Expanded Charity Care [HB 1616 – Rep. Simmons] will provide more equitable health care access to millions of low-income Washingtonians by increasing eligibility for free or reduced health care at hospitals and affiliated clinics, and extending eligibility for discounts to those earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level. This will help approximately half of all Washingtonians.

Your advocacy helped pass a strong supplemental budget.

The $64.1 billion supplemental budget passed on the final day of the session. It includes investments in K-12 education, housing, behavioral health, COVID-19 pandemic recovery, and safety net supports. The budget includes no new taxes. The Legislature also passed a 16-year, $17 billion transportation package called Move Ahead Washington. Gov. Inslee described the package as a “transformational, once in a generation feat” that would reduce emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. Unique features of this transportation package are the absence of a gas tax hike and a one-time $2-billion transfer from the general fund.