This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

After I posted my blog this morning, a story from Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) announced this:

“Washington Governor Jay Inslee proposed Wednesday that state spending during the next two years place a top priority on housing, including an effort to quickly build thousands of units that would require the okay from Washington voters.

“The governor’s proposed budget would spend $70 billion over two years starting in July 2023.

“That figure represents a roughly 12 per cent proposed increase in spending from the current budget.  

“The additional money would pay for about 5,300 housing units between 2023 and 2025 and 19,000 in the following six years, according to the proposal.  Nearly 13,000 people are living unsheltered throughout Washington — up from more than 10,500 in 2020, according to the state’s 2022 Point in Time Count.”

What Inslee proposes or does in Washington doesn’t directly affect Oregon, of course.  But his emphasis on housing could be reflected in what Governor-Elect Kotek proposes once she takes office after the first of the year.

OPB’s story did not use the word “homeless” as a justification for more housing in Washington, but there is little doubt that the governor to the north has that issue in the back of his mind, as would be case with all governors across the country.