Legislative
Priorities 2026
Grounded in Community Voice and Lived Experience
Through our annual community needs survey and statewide listening sessions, communities across Washington state consistently shared a clear message: access matters, timing matters, and relationships matter. When services are local, welcoming, peer-informed, and available at the moment someone is ready, recovery becomes possible. When systems are fragmented, under-resourced, or difficult to navigate, people are left without the support they need.
The priorities below reflect what we heard from rural, urban, Eastern, and Western Washington communities and are grounded in the experiences and insights shared through these engagements.
What we heard:
1. Generate Dedicated Revenue to Sustain Community- Based Behavioral Health and Recovery Supports
Given Washington’s current budget deficit, this priority advances a dedicated revenue stream to be used exclusively to sustain and expand community-based behavioral health and recovery supports. HB 2072 would establish an opioid impact fee on manufacturers who sell opioids in Washington, with medications for opioid use disorder exempted. Dedicated revenue generated by this new fee would protect and stabilize essential services people rely on at the moment they are ready to engage, including the Recovery Navigator Program, peer support, transportation, and recovery housing.
Why this is important to the recovery community:
Participants repeatedly emphasized that supports disappear when funding lapses, disrupting trust and continuity. This priority centers on sustainability, readiness, and protection of services people actually reach for when they are ready to engage.
2. Protect Frontline, Low-Barrier Crisis Response and Recovery Navigation Services
Preserve person-first interventions that help individuals navigate complex systems and access long-term recovery supports, stable housing, and essential services. Strengthen community-based crisis response, stabilization, diversion, and public safety programs, such as Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) and the Recovery Navigator Program (RNP). On-the-ground coordination creates timely, relational, and low-barrier entry points into care. LEAD, RNP, and similar initiatives have demonstrated success in reducing both adverse engagement and costs to the healthcare and criminal justice systems.
Why this is important to the recovery community:
Across regions, listening session participants described how warm hand-offs, trusted relationships with community-based organizations and law enforcement, and immediate response determine whether engagement continues or falls apart. This priority elevates navigation, timing, and relational access over restrictive or siloed responses.
3. Preserve and Expand Inclusive, Recovery-Supportive Housing Options
Protect and sustain competitive grant funding for Level 2 (Type M | Monitored) and Level 3 (Type S | Supervised) recovery housing, including models that are culturally appropriate and support family reunification, couples, transgender persons, and people with serious mental illness or reentry histories. Stable, affirming recovery housing is a critical bridge that supports continuity of care, reduces homelessness and re-incarceration, and enables people to maintain recovery while addressing employment, health, and community reintegration.
Why this is important to the recovery community:
Housing instability surfaced repeatedly as a structural barrier that undermines recovery, even when services are available. This priority positions recovery housing as part of an integrated ecosystem rather than a standalone intervention.
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