![]() ![]() Once completed, Four Corners Apartments on Evergreen Way will offer more than 400 income-restricted units meant for workers earning about half of the area’s average salary. Downtown, the Nimbus Apartments reserved 33 of 165 units as “affordable studios” for people earning less than $52,000 annually. Neither Waterfront Place Apartments nor The Marquee in north Everett reserve any affordable units. Yet in Everett, for example, some of the biggest recent housing developments offer few or no units below market rate. Snohomish County alone will need more than 143,000 more housing units. More than half of those new units need to be “affordable for residents at the lowest income levels,” the report stated. Washington will need 1.1 million homes over the next 20 years to keep pace with the expected population growth, according to projections from the state Department of Commerce. Strom Peterson, D-Edmonds, chair of the state Housing Committee and a member of Snohomish County Council. “We’re probably short 150,000 units and that number might even be bigger,” said state Rep. However, along with the lack of available housing, the state is facing a true tempest. Those three factors are enough to create a big problem, explained Galina Volchkova, senior director of housing services at Volunteers of America. Soon, they were $300,000 deep in delinquent rent, and “it was terrifying,” he said.Īnd as pandemic restrictions expired, the moratoriums on evictions and rent increases did, too. Before the pandemic, A’Cappella had $0 in unpaid rent from tenants, but during the pandemic, that number rose quickly. About 36% of people who requested financial support via the 211 hotline received it.ĭennis Blum, assistant community director at A’Cappella Apartments, said federal funds helped many of their tenants. While the funding was flowing, the county provided an average of $8,000 to each client, according to the county’s data. According to the county, that cash helped to keep 13,485 people afloat. Since the start of the pandemic, Snohomish County has doled out $123 million in rent and utility assistance, said Kelsey Nyland, a spokesperson in the county executive’s office. The federal government also rolled out unprecedented aid: The Emergency Rental Assistance Plan (ERAP), American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the CARES Act and Treasury Rent Assistance Program (TRAP) pumped millions of dollars into people’s pockets. Those orders remained in place for over a year, aiming to protect people from becoming homeless in the depths of the pandemic. Jay Inslee put a moratorium on evictions and froze rent increases for some tenants due to COVID-19. ![]()
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