Rep. Adam Smith submitted the following Community Project Funding requests to the House Committee on Appropriations for consideration in the FY 2024 appropriations bill.
The below requests are listed in alphabetical order by project name.
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Abu Bakr Islamic Center – Wadajir Residences & Souq
Requested Amount: $4 million
Location: Tukwila
Signed financial disclosure letter.
The Wadajir Residences & Souq is a mixed-use attainable housing and commercial development project in Tukwila. The ground floor will be the ‘Souq’ – space for community use and a market for micro and small businesses, especially East African and local immigrant small businesses that struggle in South King County. Above the Souq will be an estimated 100 new affordable homes for families. In Tukwila, the East-African immigrant community has suffered not only the impacts of the unaffordable housing market, but the recent pandemic has created additional economic devastation. Many work as small business owners, ride-share and service drivers, airport employees, and in traditional brick and mortar retail stores. All of these industries were hard-hit during the pandemic.
The Wadajir Residences & Souq will directly counter this problem by creating 100 new affordable homes for families and 45+ micro retail units for small businesses, directly combating the housing crisis and challenges facing small businesses in the region.
Africatown Community Land Trust – Walker Street Homes
Requested Amount: $1 million
Location: Central District
Signed financial disclosure letter.
The Walker Street Homes project (Walker St) will create multifamily homeownership opportunities in an area facing rising housing prices, gentrification, and income inequality in the Central District. Walker St. will have as many as 48 condominiums available for purchase with 30 studio units, 8 1-bedroom units, and 10 2-bedroom units. Africatown Community Land Trust (ACLT) anticipates that 24 of these units will be made affordable for purchase by families with household incomes up to 80% AMI and the remaining units will be sold at market rate prices to support deeper affordability if necessary.
This project will not only enable low- to moderate-income families to purchase homes that allow them to maintain permanent residence in the neighborhood they've long called home, but these affordable homeownership opportunities also create pathways to long-term generational wealth building. Currently, there is a dearth of affordable homeownership opportunities within the Seattle metro area and the Central District in particular. The lack of affordable homeownership opportunities for low and moderate-income individuals and families has driven displacement and limited wealth building opportunities.
Arc of King County – Arc Legacy Center: Access to Affordable Housing and Services for Individuals with Disabilities
Requested Amount: $2 million
Location: SeaTac
Signed financial disclosure letter.
The Arc Legacy Center will help promote housing stability and enhanced services for the intellectual and development disability (IDD) community. The Legacy Center will be 11,000 square feet of space to provide services such as long-term supported living services, financial management for people with IDD, and helping people with IDD navigate public resources and benefit systems. The Legacy Center will be co-located on the ground floor of the transit-oriented Mercy Angle Lake Housing Development (the Development) led by Mercy Housing Northwest.
Cham Refugees Community – Cham Community Center
Requested Amount: $2.25 million
Location: Rainier Valley
Signed financial disclosure letter.
The Cham Community Center will be a multipurpose 12,000 + sq ft facility for the Cham Refugees Community (CRC) to expand and enhance its culturally relevant and vital services in the Rainier Valley. The CRC has been, and continues to be, an important cultural anchor in the Valley for over 40 years.
The Cham Community Center will serve as a base from which the CRC can expand its critical services including youth services and programs; senior services; social services; assistance to newly arrived refugees; and workforce training such as ESL, computer literacy. The Cham Community Center will also serve as a community-based delivery hub where it will connect newly arrived immigrants and low-income families of color to services like housing, job placement, and family and youth support. It will house a commercial kitchen and multipurpose hall that will be used to offer additional culturally and linguistically appropriate services to the underserved communities.
City of Bellevue – Digital Equity for Affordable Housing
Requested Amount: $1.5 million
Location: Bellevue
Signed financial disclosure letter.
This project would help launch Bellevue’s Digital Equity for Affordable Housing Initiative by providing free direct internet access to 600 subsidized affordable housing units (all low- and moderate-income households), including a men’s homeless shelter and permanent supportive housing. The City’s goal is to ensure that all affordable housing units in Bellevue come with free high-speed internet as part of the hardscape of affordable housing properties.
One-time funding for this project will increase the number of low- and moderate-income households that have access to free high-speed internet access. It will also leverage the use of new technology to expand broadband infrastructure deployment at affordable housing sites. The initiative plans to serve two high-need neighborhoods that include the Eastgate housing campus – a 100-bed men’s homeless shelter and day center, 95 permanent supportive housing units, and 360 affordable housing units – and a 200-unit affordable housing complex in one of the most culturally and economically diverse neighborhoods in the area. Access to high-speed internet connectivity at home is an essential part of bridging long-standing gaps in equity.
City of Federal Way – Downtown Civic & Community Space
Requested Amount: $2.5 million
Location: Federal Way
Signed financial disclosure letter.
Federal Way is in the early stages of creating a true downtown community space to house organizations and small businesses and create community and public space that does not exist in downtown Federal Way today. Community Project Funding will help with the construction/renovation of an existing building and open civic/public space that will be a central gathering space curated to serve as a center for civic and social engagement. Currently, this type of gathering space does not exist in Federal Way’s downtown core. South King County continues to face extreme challenges with economic inequality, high housing costs, and a history of underinvestment in the region. A new downtown civic and community space, which will be near the future light rail transit station, will help promote economic growth and community development.
City of Renton – Monroe Avenue Northeast (NE) Stormwater Quality Treatment and Infiltration Facility
Requested Amount: $2.5 million
Location: Renton
Signed financial disclosure letter.
The City of Renton’s Monroe Avenue NE Stormwater Quality Treatment and Infiltration Facility will provide vital public safety and water quality improvements for a diverse community and essential local government facilities; ecological benefits to support salmon recovery in the Puget Sound watershed; and flood-risk reduction to protect critical community assets. It would also construct one of the largest infiltration facilities in Washington state. This project is designed to significantly enhance water quality while substantially reducing flood risks for a 245-acre sub-basin in the Renton Highlands. Currently, this area lacks any adequate drainage outlet and discharges untreated stormwater.
City of SeaTac – Airport Station Area Pedestrian Improvement Project
Requested Amount: $4.5 million
Location: SeaTac
Signed financial disclosure letter.
The Airport Station Area Pedestrian Improvement Project will encourage safe, multi-modal access to the region’s primary means of public transportation, including light rail, bus transit services, and the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Additionally, the project will incorporate publicly accessible electric vehicle charging stations in the right-of-way, providing green infrastructure to nearby mixed-use and affordable housing developments. The project will support the increase in population density in and around these transportation hubs which is anticipated to act as a catalyst for economic development and increased housing supply.
The enhanced pedestrian and multi-modal access will increase safety and access for the thousands of individuals who live, work, and go to school in the area. This includes workers at the SeaTac City Center and Sea-Tac International Airport and students at the nearby Bow Lake Elementary School, Chinook Middle School, and Tyee Highschool.
City of Seattle – Civilian Assisted Response & Engagement (CARE) Department
Requested Amount: $3.5 million
Location: Seattle
Signed financial disclosure letter.
Community Project Funding will help launch the City of Seattle’s third public safety department, the Civilian Assisted Response & Engagement (CARE) Department, that will support the Seattle Police Department and Seattle Fire Department by diverting mental health, substance use disorder, and wellness-related calls to this new civilian-run department. The CARE Department specialists will provide trauma-informed care and mental health support to those in need and will decrease the number of police officers and firefighters dispatched to these calls, as well as the time they spend processing these types of calls. Many 911 calls involve nonviolent, non-criminal incidents like mental health crises and requests for wellness checks. These calls are routed to the police, placing them in situations they are neither equipped nor trained to handle and putting further strain on already overworked law enforcement officers.
Filipino Community of Seattle – Filipino Community Village 2
Requested Amount: $4 million
Location: Rainier Valley
Signed financial disclosure letter.
Filipino Community Village 2 (FCV2) will be a six-story new construction project that will build up to 60 affordable one-, two-, and three-bedroom units to accommodate families at or under 30%, 50% or 60% AMI. Located adjacent to the existing FCS Community Center, FCV2 will provide residential space and ground-floor community space for training, education, and other services.
More than 7,500 community members turn to FCS each month for food, educational support and mentorship, social interaction, counseling, and other support. FCS also plays an important role as a cultural home for the Filipino Community as well as immigrants, refugees, and others throughout Southeast Seattle. The co-location of affordable housing with the vital services provided by FCS will improve housing stability, economic opportunity, and quality of life.
Indian American Community Services – IACS Community Center
Requested Amount: $4 million
Location: Kent
Signed financial disclosure letter.
The Indian American Community Services (IACS) is planning a comprehensive renovation of their newly acquired community center in Kent. The IACS Community Center renovation will significantly enhance the ability for IACS to provide community development and economic related services. The new IACS Community Center will promote education and job training with a new a makerspace/digital literacy lab to offer skills workshops (graphic arts, 3D printing, entrepreneurship and vocational training) for youth, women, and small businesses. This space will also be a small business hub offering technical assistance, e-commerce training, and marketing to businesses that are smaller (less than 10 employees) or struggling.
The IACS Community Center will include an early learning area to offer childcare, enrichment sessions, classes for parents and young children, and older youth meetings, tutoring and academic support, and workshops. The renovations will also create a large event hall with a seating capacity of over 400 for community gatherings, health fairs, youth meetings and other community needs. It will support small businesses and combat food insecurity with a commercial teaching kitchen for community meals and for local small businesses to use at no or low cost.
King County Sexual Assault Resource Center – Technology and Data Project to Benefit Survivors of Sexual Assault
Requested Amount: $790,000
Location: King County
Signed financial disclosure letter.
King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC) is the largest community sexual assault program in Washington and is known for its unwavering commitment to all survivors. KCSARC supports more than 4,500 victims, and their family members each year through comprehensive victim services, including trauma-focused therapy, family services, legal, medical, and general advocacy, case management, prevention education, and the operation of a 24-hour resource line.
Community Project Funding for the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC) will enable them to overhaul, upgrade, and modernize their existing technology and information systems to better serve victims and clients. Updating KCSARC’s technology will allow staff to serve more victims, reduce barriers to victim access, increase efficiency in the agency’s hybrid work environment, and decrease operational costs. Modernizing KCSARC’s technological infrastructure will also increase cybersecurity for the agency’s database, helping to reduce the risk of slowed or disrupted service provision.
Sound Transit – South Renton Transit Center
Requested Amount: $3 million
Location: Renton
Signed financial disclosure letter.
Community Project Funding will be used for construction of the new South Renton Transit Center (SRTC). The SRTC is part of Sound Transit’s I-405 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), called “Stride,” that will serve King and Snohomish Counties. The South Renton Transit Center is a stop on the Stride South line (S1) connecting the cities of Burien, Tukwila, Renton, and Bellevue.
The South Renton Transit Center project includes a new transit center for local and regional transit services; new BRT station; bicycle and pedestrian amenities; and an area for future transit-oriented development (TOD). The South Renton Transit Center (SRTC) is expected to be used by 2,700 riders daily while the Stride S1 south line is forecast to have up to 12,800 boardings by 2042. The SRTC will bring transit services to a densely populated low- and moderate-income community, with an estimated 30% of households in poverty and with “low” access to opportunities. Fast, frequent I-405 BRT service will connect minority, low-income, elderly, and disabled residents to jobs and other services and can reduce the burden of vehicle ownership.
Weld Seattle – 1426 Jackson Reintegration Resource Center
Requested Amount: $4 million
Location: Seattle
Signed financial disclosure letter.
Weld Seattle’s 1426 Collaborative Reintegration Resource Center (CRRC) will be Washington’s first ever collaborative reentry resource center. The building will serve as a one-stop-shop for people reentering their communities with a history of criminal justice involvement. 1426 CRRC will offer the holistic services needed for successful and sustained reintegration into their home communities here in Washington State.
Community Project Funding will go towards renovations of the 1426 building such as ADA upgrades and other site improvements that are needed before the full 1426 Collaborate Reintegration Resource Center can be opened for services. Formerly incarcerated individuals are at higher risk for homelessness and more likely to be unemployed, contributing to a cycle of recidivism. This project will help expand and enhance Weld’s reach to connect these individuals with resources, promote housing stability, and expand job opportunities. At 426 CRRC, Weld will partner with over a dozen local providers to give clients access to housing, employment, social work and mental health care services, adult education classes, family reunification services, and recovery meetings under one roof.
YMCA of Greater Seattle – Severson House Renovations
Requested Amount: $750,000
Location: Auburn
Signed financial disclosure letter.
The Severson Supported Housing Program (Severson House) is a 10-unit transitional housing program in Auburn that blends housing, case management, and life skills, to help homeless young adults and families, ages 18-24, transition from homelessness to independence. Residents develop critical life skills and learn how to protect the next generation of their children from abuse and neglect. Funding will help complete renovations to the Severson House, which will preserve the homes for existing residents, improve safety for current and future residents, and increase energy efficiency of building operations. Homelessness is one of the most difficult challenges facing King County. Successful transitional housing programs, such as Severson House, are crucial to combatting this problem and getting people and families into more stable environments.