Washington’s housing discrimination bill heads to governor
SEATTLE — Mindy Woods fought her way out of homelessness.
It’s a success story state lawmakers and advocacy groups are trying to replicate by targeting perhaps the biggest challenge faced by the homeless: rejection.
Woods, 52, slept on friends’ couches for eight months and had eight property owners turn her down before she found a landlord willing to accept her Section 8 voucher, a federal subsidy that helps low-income people pay their rent.
“I have no criminal record, no evictions,” Woods, a Navy veteran, said in an interview from the one-bedroom apartment she finally landed in 2016 in Edmonds, north of Seattle. “There’s no reason not to rent to me.”