Washington needs more than 1 million homes in 20 years, study says

An official state report warns that Washington state needs to build more than 1 million homes in the next 20 years to keep up with population growth.

Ann Fritzel is one of the authors of the Department of Commerce projection, and says that "70% of land in most cities is allocated for single family housing, and that's out of reach for many households."

Fritzel says if the problem is not addressed, Washington will see more of the same issues that it is seeing now, such as homelessness.

She also says the short housing supply is leading to worker shortages, and that hurts local economies.

Under the state's Growth Management Act, counties must work with cities to plan to address the problem. The Commerce Department says 50,000 new units need to be built per year for the next 20 years. And more than half of those new units will need to be affordable to lower-income residents.