Pierce County needs an affordable housing sales tax. Will it get one next week?

This is going to feel familiar.

On Tuesday, the Pierce County Council, apparently eager for one more challenge before easing into the holiday season, began deliberations on a proposed new tax that would generate millions of dollars each year for affordable housing. If approved, it would be a new sales tax, one-tenth of 1 percent — a fairly standard variety as far as these things go. After being advanced out of the council’s Human Services committee, passing the sales tax hike through the full council — next week — will now require the ever-elusive supermajority of five votes.

Council Democrats see the tax as a chance for Pierce County to finally start pulling its weight and pulling local residents out of despair. It’s the right thing to do, they argue. They just don’t have the votes to do it alone.

Republicans, on the other hand, are Republicans, and see most taxes as, well, taxes. You know the drill. We’ve been down this road before.

Is that cynicism you sense in my tone? It is, dear reader, though perhaps it’s not fair to hoist my baggage onto your shoulders. It’s just that I’ve written columns like this so many times before. It hearkens back to the Great Behavioral Health Sales Tax Debate, which spanned years and several iterations of the council before finally being settled last year. There were meetings — endless meetings. There was arguing and political jockeying. There were votes, and subsequent votes, and subsequent, subsequent votes. If progress is slow, the passage of Pierce County’s behavioral health sales tax was molasses smeared on a slug. And the truly frustrating part was that none of it was necessary. There was no doubt we needed the tax. The only question was when the political will to pass it would materialize.

Unfortunately, levying a sales tax for affordable housing in Pierce County seems likely to follow a similar trajectory, even if the case for passing it now is equally rock-solid. This proposed tax, which would cost the average resident roughly $16 a year while bringing in $20 million annually in revenue, is not a hare-brained progressive scheme straight out of Seattle. It’s not socialism, or communism, or a ban on non-organic leaf blowers and plastic bags. It’s not even partisan or particularly divisive. Instead, it’s one of the lone tools provided by the state Legislature to help local jurisdictions to create sustainable sources of funding for the affordable housing nearly every community needs, urban or rural, liberal or conservative.

There’s a reason counties and cities across the state — from Tacoma to Ellensburg, Wenatchee and Spokane — have already approved the tax. With the cost of housing at all-time high, it gives these places the financial resources to help solve a problem that affects almost everyone, while also bettering their chances of being awarded additional money from the feds. Is it the best system society could devise? Probably not. But it is the system we have.

There’s also no doubt that a source of sustainable funding for affordable housing is needed in Pierce County. Just like the dire situation that inspired the passage of the behavioral health sales — which now funds mental health and addiction services in a county in short supply of them — the affordable housing crisis we face is clear. We know thousands of Pierce County families are struggling with the cost of housing. We know the area is growing. We know homelessness is already an emergency. And we know that if we don’t increase supply — nearly 50,000 units of housing affordable to families at or below 50% of area median income are needed by 2044, according to the county’s housing action strategy — things will only get worse.

There are only two choices: Do something sensible to address the problem, or collectively ignore it.

So what will it be?

All of this brings us back to the question at hand: Will a new affordable housing sales tax be passed next week, or will it happen later — after the hole is just a little bit deeper and the problem is a little bit worse? The math on the County Council is straightforward for the foreseeable future: there are four Democrats and three Republicans, so in order to pass, at least one council conservative will have to be swayed.

Being as diplomatic as possible, the crossover vote is unlikely to come from Amy Cruver, who typically comes down on such issues in the same rigid place as her predecessor, Jim McCune. That leaves South Hill Republican Dave Morell and relative newcomer Paul Herrera. Morell knows the housing market as well as anyone on the council, and Herrera has a background in law enforcement, meaning he’s seen firsthand how a lack of resources and help can exacerbate public safety issues. There’s always a chance.

Still, would I rush to the Emerald Queen Casino to place a bet on either of them voting yes next week?

No way. At least not yet.

Here’s the far more likely scenario: Next Tuesday’s vote, assuming it happens as scheduled, will be a starting point. Democrats and local advocates will make their case, Republicans will state their misgivings, and there will be hand-wringing from all parties involved.

In the months that follow, supporters of the proposed tax and council Democrats will outwardly work to address conservative concerns, jumping through various hoops and checking various boxes, while the political temperature continues to rise. In the short term, the tax could become a bargaining chip as the county wrangles over the micro-home village for the chronically homeless, a project Republicans eagerly want to build. Or, if it drags on long enough — perhaps even years, as was the case with the behavioral health sales tax — the pressure to pass the tax could become undeniable all on its own, as more and more Pierce County residents (and constituents) find themselves unable to afford to live here.

Eventually, though, it’s going to happen. The problem is that severe, the options to address it so few. New taxes are never popular, but with every day that passes, the need becomes more pronounced and undeniable.

In Pierce County, as Tom Petty once sang, “The waiting is the hardest part.”