Pierce County lags on its affordable housing goals. What are the challenges?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Pierce County needs ~2,300 affordable units yearly but built only 901 since 2023.
- Projects depend on layered public subsidies, tax exemptions and complex funding.
- County reports 2,700 units in pipeline but preservation and rent gaps persist.
Pierce County’s 2022 Housing Action strategy estimated the region would need to produce, on average, more than 2,300 units of affordable housing per year through the year 2044 to meet its growing housing needs.
Three years later, we are not close to staying on pace. Since 2023, 901 units of deed-restricted affordable housing have been created, according to the county.
Advocates and developers say affordable housing faces a host of challenges that slow down or prevent development.
Without tax breaks and subsidies, many projects would not financially pencil out for developers.
Even with the programs and resources offered by local, state and federal governments, developing and preserving truly affordable housing can be an uphill battle.
According to the county’s Housing Action Strategy, the estimated more than 50,000 units needed through 2044 need to be at or below 50% of area median income (AMI). Over half of those units are needed for households at 30% of AMI or below.
Pierce County’s AMI is roughly $98,000 per household, according to an estimate from the most recent U.S. Census Bureau survey data.
What incentives exist?
Amanda DeShazo is the executive director of the Tacoma Pierce County Affordable Housing Consortium, a coalition of nonprofits, advocacy groups, local governments and developers that works together to encourage and develop affordable housing.
In an interview with The News Tribune, DeShazo said developing affordable housing is complicated and can take years to come to fruition.
She said affordable-housing projects often have five or more funding sources, often because the projects are spearheaded by mission-driven nonprofits that rely on funding partnerships.
For example, Patsy Surh Place, in the heart of Tacoma’s Lincoln District opened this year, offering 77 units of housing all designated for seniors earning up to 30% and 50% of the AMI. The $36 million project managed by the Low-Income Housing Institute was made possible by multiple public funding contributions, including $18.5 million from the National Equity Fund through Low Income Housing Tax Credits, $5.4 million from the Washington State Department of Commerce and $7 million from Pierce County.
Funding from the county was made available through the Maureen Howard Affordable Housing Sales Tax, named after a prominent Tacoma advocate for the homeless who died in January 2023, which has made available millions in funding for affordable-housing projects across the region.
DeShazo said the tax made roughly $20 million available annually for the preservation and development of affordable housing, nearly tripling the amount previously available from the county.
Halfway through 2025, the county reported the affordable housing fund has contributed to the creation of roughly 750 units that are either built or in the pipeline since its implementation. In August, the county reported it nearly doubled its goal of creating 330 units at 60% AMI and created 79 units at 30% AMI when its goal was to add 200 at 30% of AMI.
DeShazo said the City of Tacoma has a similar affordabl- housing fund worth about $8.5 million annually, which she said is a drop in the bucket when compared to the demand for affordable-housing funding assistance.
Jason Gauthier is manager of the South Sound Housing Affordability Partners (SSHA3P), an intergovernmental collaboration between the Cities and Towns of Auburn, DuPont, Edgewood, Fife, Fircrest, Gig Harbor, Lakewood, Milton, Puyallup, Sumner, Steilacoom, Tacoma, and University Place, Pierce County and the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. The group works together to create and preserve affordable housing.
Gauthier told The News Tribune funding assistance from governments can go a long way to push affordable-housing projects to the finish line. He said funding sources such as the Maureen Howard Affordable Housing Fund can help developers purchase land or close funding gaps.
State law allows local governments to offer property-tax exemptions for projects that offer housing below the market rate, known as a Multi-Family Property Tax Exemption (MFTE).
Tacoma has an MFTE program which offers an up to 20 year property-tax exemption for projects that offer housing for folks earning less than 70% of the AMI.
Gauthier said property-tax exemptions can be pivotal to make an affordable housing project financially feasible for developers to offer below market rent.
Affordable housing can be risky for investors
Ken Takahashi is the director of social-impact investing at the Seattle Foundation, a nonprofit which invests in affordable housing in the greater Seattle area.
In an interview with The News Tribune, Takahashi said affordable housing is not particularly lucrative for investors because restricted rent rates limit the returns they can get. He said projects often are entirely dependent on what kind of government subsidy they can get.
“We don’t have the resources to do it solo,” he said. “But we are trying to fill a critical gap.”
Bryan Schmid supervises the Affordable Housing Unit within Pierce County’s Human Services Department. In an interview with The News Tribune, Schmid said affordable housing can be risky for developers and investors, and most organizations who try to create it are mission-driven nonprofits.
“Even nonprofits need money to keep their doors open,” he said.
Sean Flynn, is the director and executive president of the Rental Housing Association of Washington, an organization representing over 6,000 landlords and property-management companies statewide.
Flynn previously told The News Tribune that low-income rentals carry greater risk of people falling behind on rental payments. He noted a recent trend of property-management companies selling low-income apartments due to the risk of tenants who fall behind on rent.
“These properties serve the poorest people who have the largest risk and need the most support from society,” he said.
DeShazo noted one property owned by the Tacoma Housing Authority in which tenants collectively are behind roughly $400,000 in rent.
She said meeting the region’s affordable-housing goals is not just about creating new units but preserving existing ones.
“The revenue we get off of the rent is so low that we are desperate to get that in order to stay afloat,” DeShazo said.
How do we get on pace?
When asked what it would take for the county to be on pace to meet its affordable housing goals, Schmid said the county will need a much larger and more consistent stream of development.
“The pipeline is about as robust as it’s ever been,” he said. “As far as development goes we are still not getting to the 2,300 units county-wide per year, but we’re definitely advancing a lot more than we were prior to COVID.”
Near the end of October, Schmid said the region has about 2,700 units in various stages of development and planning.
DeShazo said non-profits looking to create affordable housing often have a hard time navigating the complicated development process, which can take years. She said often successful developments require a third-party consultant to efficiently facilitate the process.
She suggested that could be an obstacle to meeting development goals.
“There are so many different avenues, it’s not easy to streamline,” she said. “So many systems are not really aligned.”
Gauthier said the many moving parts that need to come together to make affordable housing feasible make it difficult to identify how to more efficiently incentivize development.
“There is no simple . . . like . . . pull this lever and this works,” he said.
