Annual HUD Action Plan

I don't know if this could be figured in with housing however, I would like to see the City, community and businesses combine with funds to purchase St.Joe's on Ellis to be refurbished if needed and opened for those on our streets and in our community ( especially low income) with mental health issues and possible drug dependency issues. It would already have rooms and bathroom facilities etc...... just an idea,. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, WANative58. Your experiences indeed reflect what we are seeing: down-payment assistance programs are getting increasingly hard to utilize in the City due to the high cost of housing. As you point out, it is difficult to find the right balance between homeownership assistance for moderate-income residents and also provide funding for homelessness programs for the lowest income residents. We appreciate you sharing your story and perspective.

I could not agree more with Fix Bellingham's comments. Nailed it. We rent in Bellingham. Our last rental belonged to an out-of-state landlord we never met who ended up selling due to "the hot market". We could not find housing and ended up in HUD housing through the Bellingham Whatcom Housing Authority. We are grateful for our income-based rent, but find ourselves caught in the conundrum of not having enough money to buy a home in Bellingham and having our rent increased as we try to save money for a larger down payment. We qualify for a mortgage and were approved, but we have not been able to purchase a home in the four-plus years we've been actively trying. We are over-income for Habitat for Humanity and we are a disabled household, so self-build options are difficult / not very feasible for our situation. We've been patiently waiting for something with KCLT; the townhomes were too costly (even with assistance) and we will require a single level home. We made an offer on a property in Point Roberts and backed out, as transportation and COVID made that purchase impossible for us. KCLT encouraged us to make an offer on a home they wanted to bring into the trust, so we rushed to make our offer with KCLT providing approximately 90k in downpayment assistance... The home sold for something like 75k over the asking price. At this point, we would rather just try to buy a home with DPA from the WA State Housing Finance Commission (thank you!) and not be indebted to the COB or KCLT for assistance. There is absolutely NOTHING in Bellingham or Whatcom County for that matter that lower-income, mortgage-qualified, disabled buyers like ourselves can qualify for. Homes in our price range are selling to flippers (developers) and cash buyers. Homes that we can afford are being touted by realtors as cash cows for investors (it actually really hurts to keep reading those realtor posts about the rental income potential on homes we'd like to buy). Our realtor keeps steering us towards condos in Bellingham to utilize the homeownership assistance offered. Buying a condo (or mfg'd home) with an HOA or park lot fee that will increase - is not our idea of a stable investment that we will benefit from. We did not renew to remain on the wait list with KCLT either as they recently sent out a notice that indicates we won't likely be able to qualify for a home now because of the rising home prices, even with the DPA offered. We should not be in HUD housing - our unit should be for a family experiencing homelessness. Several of the tenants in our complex are "over-housed" with one individual living in a two-bedroom unit. Why isn't this being addressed when there are so many people who need housing? As we continue to save to try and buy (likely leaving Bellingham when we can), we continue to face our rent being increased because we're saving. We can't win and we can't escape this situation. I never thought we'd be in this position. I'd rather see a much more radical approach that addresses accountability of HUD property management, more options for lower-income, qualified buyers and rent control. The private development in this city is nothing to be proud of. Every development looks the same. More boxes to cram people in to and the rents are still high. As Fix Bellingham said "private developers build wealth for themselves and that is pretty much it". Completely agree. Who is really receiving the DPA assistance and who really benefits from this in the long run? If we accept 40-50k in DPA, then we have to make sure we can re-pay that assistance back when we sell the home. That does not help us to create wealth through our investment. This does not help keep housing costs affordable for the future. We've been eligible for the WSHFC funding for several years now. It would be great to access it and use it to buy a home. We just can't find anything in the COB to buy that we can afford or compete for. When there is nothing in an area for the populations eligible for this assistance to buy, then what good are the programs?

I don't have expertise about housing, but this plan appears to try to address the housing problems we have, which we need to do. Along with that, I hope a previously expressed desire/need for community activity centers can be worked in. I think that came up in a previous community survey. If not through HUD funding, perhaps by partnering with other organizations.

Thanks for your thoughts, @FixBellingham. The City supports a continuum of housing options, from homeownership assistance to rental housing, interim housing options and shelter for people experiencing homelessness. The draft Action Plan includes funding for the homeownership downpayment assistance program that is managed through a partnership with the WA State Housing Finance Commission and provides funding through local banks and mortgage lenders to first-time homeowners who earn less than 80% of the area median income. It also includes funding for new homeownership development by Kulshan Community Land Trust through the next phase of the Telegraph Road project.

The draft action plan budget is unbalanced, meaning some things will not be able to get funded to the extent listed in the draft. What are the most important programs and projects? Which should be only partially funded or not funded at all?

As a residential appraiser most people create real wealth through home ownership, but the City of Bellingham fails to understand this. You can't create wealth as a renter, but sadly all this City permits is more rentals and more poor people to rent them. In the end you have a City with a few rich people (the landlords) and a massive population of people who are rental slaves. The City believes that private developers can fix everything, but they fix nothing. Private developers build wealth for themselves and that is pretty much it.