Seattle’s biggest tech companies are throwing their weight behind legislation that would reform how landlords in Washington state handle evictions.

The general counsels of Amazon, Microsoft, Expedia, RealNetworks, and other Seattle-area tech companies sent a letter Tuesday to the Washington legislature and Gov. Jay Inslee supporting Senate Bill 5600 and its companion House Bill 1453. The legislation would require landlords to give tenants more time to pay rent or vacate their homes. Currently, tenants can be told to pay or be evicted within three days. The bills would extend that period to 14 days. They would also require landlords to provide 60 days notice before increasing rent, as opposed to 30 days.

“Simply stated, Washington’s eviction laws are a root cause of our homelessness problems, and we can take a significant step toward addressing them now – at minimal cost to taxpayers – by simply updating them in some common sense ways this legislative session,” says the letter, a copy of which was obtained by GeekWire.

The Seattle region is experiencing a homelessness crisis, driven by rapidly increasing housing costs associated with job growth in tech. The tech industry has started to be more vocal about mitigating the crisis. Last month, Microsoft announced a $500 million fund to accelerate the development of affordable housing in the area.

In addition to backing the legislation, the companies also supported an amendment that would prevent courts from automatically requiring tenants to pay attorney’s fees or court costs for rental disputes.

“They exacerbate our current crisis by creating incentives to evict tenants for small amounts of money and by layering even more debt on tenants trying to catch up on their rent,” the letter says.

Last September, the Seattle Women’s Commission and Housing Justice Project of the King County Bar Association published a report that found women and people of color are far more likely to be evicted in the Seattle area, in many cases for failing to pay nominal portions of their rent. Of the more than 1,200 eviction cases studied, most families became homeless. About 37 percent were completely unsheltered, 25 percent moved into a shelter or transitional housing, and 25 percent staid with family or friends. Only 12.5 percent found another permanent home to move into after being evicted.

Continue reading for the full text of the letter.