What Happened at Council This Week: Three affordable housing projects get funding + longtime Council member heading to Olympia

Some interesting updates from City Council this week:

• Council approved funding for three housing projects through ARCH (regional housing program):
  • LARUS Senior Housing (Kenmore): $3.4M for 175 affordable units for seniors
  • LIHI Aventine (near Bellevue City Hall): $900K for 66 affordable units for workforce housing, veterans, and families. 18 units specifically for very low-income households (30% AMI)
  • Emily House (Issaquah): $500K to help acquire an existing group home for people with developmental disabilities
• Separately, they approved funding for Amani Homes: $1.3M plus $68K/year for support services. It’s a transitional housing program for refugee families, partnering with Bellevue College to help residents with education/career development.
• Council Member Zahn is moving to the State Legislature! She’ll be on housing, local government, and capital budget committees in Olympia. Good news for Bellevue since she’ll be advocating for our interests at the state level. Congrats Councilmember Zahn!
• Sad news: Helena Stephens, a beloved city staff member, passed away last week. She ran the Youth Link program and was a huge advocate for diversity in Bellevue way before it was common. Multiple council members shared stories about her impact on the community, especially her work with young people and food security programs.
• TIL Bellevue has had its own symphony since 2019! They’re looking for board members and apparently have some incredible youth musicians. They do 6 youth competitions a year and let winners perform with the full orchestra. Their next concert is March 2nd.

The full meeting video is on YouTube if anyone wants to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7LWKJAIEOA . Housing discussion starts around 44:00.

Meeting details are available here if you want to dig in further: https://bellevue.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1248781&GUID=4903DA5E-69BA-4AEB-9F97-D0D5667FED69&Options=&Search= lots of info about the different projects

I find it interesting that Bellevue is providing grants for affordable housing outside of the city, but I guess all of the Eastside needs affordable housing, so that’s good. I’m glad to see the city addressing affordable housing at least.

LARUS project details

Slide about the LIHI Aventine Project one block south of city hall. $900k granted for the project.

Details on Emily House

Slide about the Amani project, $1.3M granted to aquire single family home in Bellevue to house refugees