A new report from the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) revealed rents and home values have risen sharply and that home ownership is increasingly less likely for people of color across western Washington. The monitoring report, which was released this month, is a part of Puget Sound Regional Council’s Regional Housing Strategy. The Regional Housing Strategy is described as a “playbook” to improve housing stock in the region. "Coming out of the Great Recession, it took a long time for the housing industry to get back in the business of building housing," PSRC Executive Director Josh Brown said. "But our economy, especially driven by the tech sector in King County, rebounded a significant amount of jobs very quickly, and this decade, we're very much behind in terms of building enough housing to be able to keep pace for job growth." Brown says, fortunately, the rate of housing construction has risen- but it is, in a way, a game of catch-up. He says policy work happening in cities, counties and at the statewide level could potentially empower faster replenishment of supply.  "Particularly for home ownership we're seeing a desperate need for what we often refer to as missing middle housing," Brown said. "Townhouses, that fit really well within established single-family neighborhoods, but we're not building nearly enough missing middle townhouses to keep up with the demand that's off the chart." The report looked at a number of key housing measurements in King, Pierce, Snohomish and Kitsap counties. READ THE FULL STORY: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/homeownership-rents-home-values-rise-western-washington/281-52e7e37f-0563-4986-a201-ab11a803231c