Dylan Gurl chats with alum Erik Houser
I had the privilege to speak with Erik Houser (‘10), a public policy affairs consultant based in Seattle, Washington, about his career path since graduating from William & Mary. His recent work includes his position as the Managing Director of External Affairs for We Are In, an advocacy organization focused on affordable housing, support services, and unified crisis support in King County and Seattle. Currently, he works independently on affairs strategy for elected officials and advocacy organizations regarding homelessness and housing in the Seattle region, both at the local and state levels.
While at William & Mary, he pursued a Public Policy and Government major while doing extracurricular work supporting political campaigns, including the election of the first student on the Williamsburg City Council as a senior and the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. He noted that academics sharpened his writing skills, and the campaign work honed other important professional skills outside of the process and policy focus of the classroom. A favorite course included “States and Local Politics” with Professor John McGlennon, which included roleplaying as a local policymaker as a course project. During summers, he was able to intern for officials in Washington, D.C. and in Seattle, WA. He then went on to earn his Masters in Public Administration at the University of Washington, which provided deeper insight into strategizing with bureaucratic and political processes within government.
From the masters program, Erik worked on public affairs strategy for then-Congressman Jay Inslee and US Senator Maria Cantwell, as a campaign manager for Congresswoman Suzan DelBene, congressional campaigns, Planned Parenthood political communications, and in federal policy. He first began to concentrate on the issue of homelessness while working for the Campion Foundation, an advocacy organization focused on preservation and housing. His work was directed towards organizational strategy for earning public opinion and passing legislation with elected officials.
He noted that homelessness has traditionally been managed as a “human service”-type issue, where solutions focused on funding individual programs. Today, strategists such as himself aim at a more comprehensive approach, seeking to secure the funding and momentum needed to cause a major change, in the style of movements regarding climate, labor, or reproductive health. This involves a very collaborative approach at the local, state, and federal levels between public officials and advocacy organizations, though partisanship at the federal level has meant that state legislatures and governors have more opportunity to lead the change.
Erik noted that policy addressing homelessness is often centered on well-understood and proven solutions that are more often than not just expensive to implement. He recommended Homelessness is a Housing Problem, by Gregg Colburn and Clayton Aldern, to learn more about the importance of housing stock size and housing prices, which provides context as to why cities with limited housing supply experience higher prices and higher rates of homelessness.
From a public affairs perspective, Erik also noted the dueling public opinion movements known as Not-In-My-Backyard / Yes-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY and YIMBY movements, colloquially). Building public support for constructing more housing often runs into stiff resistance at the neighborhood level. He noted the “Everyone In L.A.” campaign as a success story, which began as a grassroots effort and has since involved over 195,000 members and 200 partner organizations in more than 38,000 community events and direct action efforts. Still, he noted that those organizations still faced the challenge of ongoing “inflow” of newly homeless people, as well as the struggles to protect families with insecure housing conditions facing eviction. He recommended Golden Gates by Conor Dougherty as a good introduction to the history of housing issues in the San Francisco area.
Erik also pointed to how homelessness is as much a public affairs challenge as a policy challenge, noting how public opinion and media presentation are at once essential to building support and also their own source of difficulty. For example, he noted that television as a visual medium can often use “b-roll” footage of homeless people which can be desensitizing, and can spread uninformed opinions rather than focusing on conversations to speak with and learn from the homeless themselves. Individuals may be more affected by the homelessness they see day to day rather than reports on policy effects, which may undermine support for policies that are working or take time to succeed.
In Washington, this is exacerbated by one of the nation’s most unequal tax schemes, due to the absence of an income tax -- consequently, regressive (and unpopular) sales taxes are required to fund policy initiatives. While Washington has recently succeeded in implementing a capital gains tax, cities in other states such as California have more flexibility for funding solutions; for example, he noted the Los Angeles Measure ULA taxing real estate transactions worth over $5 million to raise funds for homelessness programs.
More recently, he noted that COVID-19 was expected to cause a spike in homelessness, though the outcome was not as severe as expected as a result of proactive measures to provide rental assistance and eviction protection. At the same time, inflation and other later effects did produce struggles for many insecurely housed families
His final advice to current students was to take courses outside of economics, government and policy, and to make the most of college’s broadening opportunities. He noted that the “Adventure Games” course, which utilized the challenge course located by the Business School, and public speaking as two non-major experiences he enjoyed. Similarly, he recommended that students pursue internships during the summer, to learn from experiences outside the classroom.
Today, Erik is the volunteer leader of the Seattle Alumni Association chapter, and recommends that alumni make the most of the opportunities available to them, including speakers and staying in touch with your peers—he noted that former classmates and associates he graduated include close aides to sitting senators and prominent journalists, among many other roles.
