OLYMPIA — Activists across Washington have a dream: to end discrimination and alleviate the root causes of systemic poverty across the state.
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, nonprofit leaders, community activists and young lobbyists — including two dozen from Clark County — traveled to Olympia to lobby for that dream.
The Seattle-based nonprofit Statewide Poverty Action Network organized the event.
Vancouver nonprofit Odyssey World International Education Services was among the nine groups that attended Monday’s event at The Olympia Center.
“Dr. King was someone who urged us to speak even when we were feeling fear,” Rep. Shaun Scott, D-Seattle, told the gathering. “My fear in some ways is that we kind of relegate Dr. King to that grainy black and white face that we see. But fighting injustice in the way Dr. King did means challenging all facets of inequality.”
Monday marked the second week of the 2025 legislative session, which officially began Jan. 13. The event also coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the presidential inauguration — a trifecta that several activists said felt symbolic.
Vancouver resident Caiden Mizrahi-Boyarsky, 17, said he traveled to Olympia because he wanted to make sure his voice was heard by the lawmakers who represent him in the 17th Legislative District.
“I think a lot of time with lawmakers, a lot of them forget that poverty is a systemic issue. It’s not due to anyone’s laziness. It’s not due to anyone’s culture. It’s due to a systemic issue that puts people in that situation,” Mizrahi-Boyarsky said. “We’re just trying to make sure our people are safe, and they have the same resources that everyone else has.”
In the afternoon, community advocates met with the senators and representatives from their respective districts across the state.
Advocates from the 49th Legislative District spoke to their delegation: Rep. Sharon Wylie, Rep. Monica Stonier and Sen. Annette Cleveland, all Vancouver Democrats. The advocates shared their experiences of homelessness, enduring poverty and the change they hope to ignite through lobbying and advocacy.
Escaping poverty
During a meeting with Cleveland in her office, about 20 advocates from Clark County urged her to push for legislation that would increase the amount families receive in cash assistance and eliminate the 60-month lifetime cap on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF.
Two Vancouver residents relayed their personal stories of living in poverty and how they rely on TANF — in addition to working — to make ends meet.
“I am advocating for you to look at increases and get those into play,” Vancouver resident Cheyonna Lewis said. “That is my only income. Without it, I would be homeless, and I don’t want to experience that again.”
According to data from the United States Census, 7.5 percent of Clark County’s population live in poverty.
Vancouver resident Brandi Williams became homeless in 2011 after she lost her TANF benefits. She had reached the five-year time limit on cash assistance.
Although she was working part time, she had three children and was also attending school. Her paycheck alone wasn’t enough to cover the cost of rent, so she was evicted.
For the next six years, she was homeless, but she told no one.
“I couldn’t get another place because I had an eviction and I didn’t make three times the income,” Williams said. “The whole time I was in school, even while doing this work, I was homeless, and I had just lost everything.”
Williams now works full time for the Southwest Washington Accountable Community of Health as a community-based workforce senior specialist.
She now pays her own rent, in addition to her daughter’s rent.
Williams made it out, but escaping poverty isn’t always linear. Some people need longer to get to a place of financial stability, she said.
“I think they should extend the time because you never know what a family is going through,” Williams said. “I was just a single mom of three kids trying to go to school to better my life. Had I kept my TANF, my son wouldn’t have had his first bedroom at 17.”
Cleveland said she’s done a lot of work to try to adjust the time limits on cash assistance because she recognizes it as a barrier.
Despite Washington facing a projected budget shortfall of more than $12 billion over the next four years, Cleveland said she would prioritize amending and improving programs that many families rely on for cash assistance, food and housing, such as TANF and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“I used to sit on the Human Services Committee, and we did a lot of work around TANF,” Cleveland said. “Believe me, I have a huge amount to learn, but my priority is to ensure that we protect those safety-net programs that we put so much effort into to help better support children and families.”
Proposed changes
The Statewide Poverty Action Network wants to give the Legislature a map for how to clear the pathway out of poverty.
According to a study from the University of Washington, more than 1 in 4 families in Washington can’t afford to cover their basic needs without government assistance.
The network’s list of proposed changes includes reinstating TANF hardship time-limit exemptions, expanding the state’s Working Families Tax Credit to all adults and aligning its eligibility and application process with other benefits programs.
State and federal law limits the time a person can receive TANF benefits to a total of 60 months, or five years, in a lifetime. Washington stopped offering hardship extensions for TANF cases past 60 months on July 1, 2023.
“Our state has many pathways out of poverty, but many of them have fallen into disrepair due to lack of investment in their maintenance,” Poverty Action’s Communications Coordinator Molly Gallagher said. “The amount that families receive in TANF does not increase or change without an action from the Legislature.”
Gallagher said every year the state does not take action, the cash grant loses value.
The pathway out of poverty should be clear, but instead it is overgrown, confusing and does not meet people’s needs along the way, Gallagher said.
“Our hope for this session is to invest in maintaining that pathway out of poverty by tying that cash grants to a number that increases with inflation and the cost of living,” Gallagher said. “When families aren’t slowed down by insufficient cash grant amounts and obstacles to access, they can navigate a pathway to financial stability.”