City of Tacoma contributes $6M for affordable housing. Here's which projects will benefit
The Tacoma City Council has approved $6.9 million for new affordable-housing projects, totaling a more than $27 million investment over the past five years. According to the city, the collective $27 million investment will help create 724 units of affordable housing.
During its March 18 meeting, the Tacoma City Council approved an amendment to the Affordable Housing Fund agreement with the Tacoma Community Redevelopment Authority. The amendment contributes more than $6.9 million to three additional affordable housing projects.
The projects and investments include:
$1 million to Mercy Housing Northwest's Aviva Crossing near Tacoma Community College. According to the City of Tacoma, the funding will help create 129 units of affordable housing.
$3.7 million to HumanGood Affordable Housing's South Yakima Senior Housing facility. The funding is expected to create 66 units of housing.
$2.2 million to Mercy Housing Northwest for 80 units of affordable housing at a development referred to as 35th and Pacific
Maria Lee, a spokesperson for the City of Tacoma, said the money will go toward the 'construction phase' of the projects.
The projects were selected through an application process in 2024 administered by the Tacoma Community Redevelopment Authority. According to Lee, the city committed an additional $6 million to Aviva Crossing through a similiar funding oppurtunity in 2023.
Lee said the priorities for affordable-housing projects are consistent with priorities previously identified by the Tacoma Community Redevelopment Authority.
According to a city memo, households served by the projects must have incomes below 60% of Area Median Income (AMI), and some projects include lower income limits, such as below 50% AMI or below 30% AMI. Tacoma's AMI is $83,857 per household, according to the most recent U.S Census data from 2023.
According to a memo from the city, a goal is to 'decrease the percentage of individuals who are spending more than 45% of income on housing and transportation costs,' a burden felt disproportionately by Tacoma's Black and Pacific Islander households.
'As of the last reported U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, 51% of people in Tacoma are experiencing renter cost burden, meaning they pay more than 30% of income on monthly housing cost expenses,' the city's memo states.
Money for the projects comes from the city's Affordable Housing Fund, which raises money through sales-tax revenue. One-time general fund contributions can also be allocated to the Affordable Housing Fund periodically by the City Council.
The fund contributes to contracts which can extend to 2031.
Completed projects funded by Tacoma's Affordable Housing Fund include:
The Shiloh New Life Apartments operated by Shiloh Baptist Church which the city committed more than $4.4 million towards to create 60 affordable housing units.
Tahoma Place operated by the Korean Women's Association, which received more than $1.9 million to create 87 affordable housing units.
Other projects that have received committed funding from the Affordable Housing Fund are still under construction or in pre-development.
Some of those projects are:
Patsy Surh Place, for which the Low Income Housing Institute received more than $1.4 million from the city to create 77 units.
Viridian Grove, for which Southport Construction received $2 million from the city to create 98 units.
Lincoln District Family Housing, for which the Low Income Housing Institute received $4 million to create 72 units.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Readers sound off on teaching trades, the Boulder attack and Charles Rangel
Manhattan: If President Trump wants to 'Make America Great Again,' he should do the following: Build a 'big, beautiful' trade school in the Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn. Call it the Trump Vocational High School for the Trades and make it a private school. Any graduate from a middle school can apply to the lottery for admittance. The cost should be $60,000 a year. The beautiful upper-class child will pay that. Beautiful children with little family money will be offered a scholarship based on need. This is not affirmative action, which is now illegal. This beautiful private high school with Trump's blessing would teach all the trades and have all the equipment to do it. It would be state-of-the-art and would cost a lot of money to operate, but it would be worth it. The cost of prosecuting and incarcerating each criminal in New York is more than $500,000 a year. One in four Black children born in the U.S. will face time in jail, and one in six Hispanic children will. I am willing to bet that a student entering this school will not commit any crime. They will thrive, prosper and learn a trade that will keep them out of harm's way for the rest of their lives. I don't have to list all the trades, like electrical, construction, masonry, woodworking, plumbing, car mechanics, cooking etc. The school should also offer classes in the arts, which will probably develop more character in each student. It should not involve memorizing facts, but focus on exploring the beauty of art, music, theater, dance, science and nature. What better place than NYC to explore this? Leonard Smoke Manhattan: With business slow because of a decline in tourism, dishwashers and busboys not showing up for work due to fear of ICE agent raids, combined with increased prices of supplies due to tariffs, I am not sure how much longer I can keep my restaurant going during Trump's 'Make America Great Again' administration. Mahatma Kane Jeeves Henderson, Nev.: Even after being found at fault, I'm surprised that Rep. Maxine Waters' campaign committee has agreed to pay $68,000 for campaign violations. I'm surprised, mainly because whenever Trump does something she doesn't agree with, she's always among the first to say nasty things about him. Maybe now people will start to realize that Maxine is hardly an angel. David Tulanian Lynchburg, Tenn.: It seems like the pro-Trumpers can never let Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden enjoy their retirements, as witnessed by their endless disparaging of Clinton and Biden to distract Americans from the complete and utter disaster the second Trump administration has become. From Voicer Jim Newton, everyone is reminded about the alleged 'cover-up' of Biden's mental health and 'Hillary Clinton's Benghazi mess,' which resulted in the deaths of four Americans. Mental decline and needless deaths of Americans are politically acceptable as long as they are on full public display from a president whose political ideology aligns with yours — for example, Trump's incoherent, rambling, ludicrous efforts during his first term to hoodwink the American public into believing that COVID would miraculously disappear while refrigerator trucks had to be used in hospital parking lots to store the thousands of corpses funeral homes could not accommodate on a daily basis. Godfrey Daniel Jr. Bronx: Trump is blaming Biden's open borders for the attack on the people in Boulder, Colo., but according to Trump, Biden was executed in 2020. How can a dead man be blamed? Richie Nagan Bedford, N.Y.: Re 'Colo. fiend wanted to 'kill Zionists' ' (June 3): Violence against any peaceful protest should always be condemned. However, the media is ignoring the reason for the rising antisemitism in the U.S. and throughout the world. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to find and rescue all the Oct. 7 hostages, he has managed the slaughter of 70,000 people, including 17,000 babies and children, some burned alive in hospitals, press tents, in vans transporting humanitarian aid or in emergency food distribution areas 'strategically' designated by the Israeli government. Netanyahu and his disproportionate response to the Hamas attack are responsible for making Israel the world's pariah, and has made innocent Jews the target of hatred and violence. This will not end until Netanyahu ceases his war on children and is tried and convicted for war crimes. Céline Secada Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: As antisemitism is growing globally, here at home it is growing daily. Are people aligning themselves with Hitler's antisemitic objectives through the process of elimination, or do they detest the Jewish state of Israel so deeply that they shoot and kill any Jew randomly just to satisfy the hate they carry inside? The Nazi extermination plan was a complete failure! Every innocent Jew was killed in vain because of antisemitic beliefs, just as innocent Jews are being struck down today for those same beliefs. It proved nothing then and it proves nothing now because the Jew was never the enemy in the first place. The real enemy is the hate that lives within one's thoughts. Roberta Chaleff Canton, N.Y.: The Daily News seems mystified as to why anti-Jewish sentiment is on the rise. It's of course obvious to anyone who isn't deeply compromised by AIPAC and Israel's lobbyists. When we wake up daily for months to the news that Israel has killed more Palestinian refugees — people driven from their homeland decades ago by Zionist settlers — with American-made weapons, it should be obvious. Greg Todd Peters Township, Pa.: It is ironic and tragic that as he welcomes white immigrants who claim to have been persecuted in South Africa, our dictator president has slammed the door on those hailing from other countries, including Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. People being readied for deportation include those who've been here legally under humanitarian provisions, those who've been promised resettlement here and those who risked their lives to aid our ill-fated occupation of Afghanistan. Many face persecution, arrest, torture, and/or death if they're forced to return to their home countries. An administration that has turned its back on human rights could not care less. The word of the U.S. is no longer its bond. The new Trump America is a cold and cruel place that seeks to purge our country of immigrants of color, bully the rest of the free world into submission and believes the U.S. can exist and thrive with no alliances. Oren Spiegler Lynbrook, L.I.: I read the article by Leonard Greene highlighting the accomplishments of Charles Rangel ('Young lion to political giant,' column, June 1), however, two important pieces were missing. Rangel was able to get apartments that he was well-qualified for that were probably intended for those who had limited resources who needed a decent place to live with their family. How did the former congressman qualify? He didn't need affordable housing (my opinion). In 1972, Patrolman Phil Cardillo was shot (later died). Rangel was able to go to the crime scene and told the NYPD that he would bring those responsible to the 28th Precinct the next day. That never happened. Why? We'll never know, but we can think he should have never been able to use his status to interfere with an active police investigation. Rangel should have been arrested and charged with interfering with the arrest of those involved. Larry Lombardo Brooklyn: June 3 marked the 100th birthday of the beloved actor Tony Curtis. He worked in films as real-life people: David O. Selznick, the Great Imposter, Sam Giancana, Lepke, the Boston Strangler, Houdini and Ira Hayes, the Marine who planted the flag on Iwo Jima. Curtis worked in films with Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Dean Martin, Kirk Douglas, Sidney Poitier, Ernest Borgnine, Yul Brynner, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Jack Lemmon, Laurence Olivier and Jerry Lewis. His leading ladies were Janet Leigh, Marilyn Monroe, Debbie Reynolds and Natalie Wood. Curtis never shot a boring scene. Mike Getz
San Francisco Chronicle
44 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
South Korea's liberal-led legislature passes bills calling for special probes into Yoon and wife
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's liberal-led legislature on Thursday passed bills to launch special investigations into former President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived imposition of martial law in December and criminal allegations against his wife, targeting the ousted conservative a day after his liberal successor took office. The bills previously were vetoed by Yoon and South Korea's caretaker government after his Dec. 14 impeachment over the martial law debacle. They are expected to be signed by new President Lee Jae-myung, a Democrat who won Tuesday's snap election triggered by Yoon's formal removal from office in April. Many members of the conservative People Power Party refused to participate in the votes, which took place after one of the party's lawmakers accused the liberals in a speech of being driven by vendetta. Lee, who as an opposition leader drove the legislative efforts to impeach and oust Yoon, pinned his presidential campaign on unity, promising not to target conservatives and calling for an end to political polarization. Yet Lee has vowed a full investigation into Yoon's martial law stunt and the allegations surrounding his wife, moves that could overshadow the new government and inflame tensions as Yoon faces a high-stakes rebellion trial carrying a possible death sentence. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office indicted Yoon in January over his Dec. 3 martial law decree, charging him with masterminding a rebellion and describing his power grab as an illegal bid to seize the legislature and election offices and arrest political opponents. Liberals have insisted independent investigations into Yoon are essential, saying probes by prosecutors, police and an anti-corruption agency were inadequate and hampered by Yoon's refusal to cooperate. If Lee approves the launch of independent investigations, special prosecutors could request the transfer of relevant cases for expanded probes, or direct public or military prosecutors to continue handling them under their supervision. The bills calling for independent investigations into Yoon's martial law decree and criminal allegations involving his wife both passed by a vote of 194 to 3. Dozens of retired marines, dressed in red shirts, saluted and cheered from an observation box after lawmakers passed the bill for a special prosecutor investigation into the marine's death, which also passed 194 to 3. Yoon's martial law decree lasted only a few hours after a quorum of lawmakers pushed past a blockade of hundreds of heavily armed soldiers and voted to revoke the measure. Yoon defended the move as a necessary act of governance, accusing the Democrats, whom he labeled 'anti-state forces,' of abusing their majority to obstruct his agenda and paralyze state affairs. That same majority now gives Lee a far more favorable path to advance his agenda, though conservatives claim it could grant him virtually unchecked power and allow him to pass laws that shield him from legal trouble. Yoon's wife, Kim Keon Hee, also faces multiple corruption allegations, including claims that she received luxury items from a Unification Church official seeking business favors, as well as possible involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme. She also is suspected of interfering with PPP's candidate nominations ahead of legislative elections in April last year.
an hour ago
WWII veterans speak of sacrifice and freedom on France's D-Day battlefields, 81 years later
OMAHA BEACH, France -- The D-Day generation, smaller in number than ever, is back on the beaches of France where so much blood was spilled 81 years ago. World War II veterans, now mostly centenarians, have returned with the same message they fought for then: Freedom is worth defending. In what they acknowledge may be one of their last hurrahs, a group of nearly two dozen veterans who served in Europe and the Pacific is commemorating the fallen and getting rock-star treatment this week in Normandy — the first patch of mainland France that Allied forces liberated with the June 6, 1944, invasion and the greatest assembly of ships and planes the world had known. On what became known as ' Bloody Omaha ' and other gun-swept beaches where soldiers waded ashore and were cut down, their sacrifices forged bonds among Europe, the United States and Canada that endure, outlasting geopolitical shifts and the rise and fall of political leaders who blow hot and cold about the ties between nations. In Normandy, families hand down D-Day stories like heirlooms from one generation to the next. They clamor for handshakes, selfies, kisses and autographs from WWII veterans, and reward them with cries of 'Merci!' — thank you. Both the young and the very old thrive off the interactions. French schoolchildren oohed and aahed when 101-year-old Arlester Brown told them his age. The U.S. military was still segregated by race when the 18-year-old was drafted in 1942. Like most Black soldiers, Brown wasn't assigned a combat role and served in a laundry unit that accompanied the Allied advances through France and the Low Countries and into Nazi Germany. Jack Stowe, who lied about being 15 to join the Navy after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, said he gets 'the sweetest letters' from kids he met on previous trips. 'The French people here, they're so good to us,' the 98-year-old said, on a walk to the water's edge on Omaha. 'They want to talk to us, they want to sit down and they want their kids around us.' 'People are not going to let it be forgotten, you know, Omaha, these beaches,' he said. 'These stories will go on and on and on.' At the Normandy American Cemetery that overlooks Omaha, the resting place for nearly 9,400 American war dead, workers and visitors rub sand from the beach onto the white gravestones so the engraved names stand out. Wally King, a sprightly 101-year-old, wiped off excess sand with a weathered hand, resting the other atop the white cross, before saying a few words at the grave of Henry Shurlds Jr. Shurlds flew P-47 Thunderbolt fighters like King and was shot down and killed on Aug. 19, 1944. In the woods where they found his body, the townspeople of Verneuil-sur-Seine, northwest of Paris, erected a stele of Mississippi tulip tree wood in his memory. Although Shurlds flew in the same 513th Fighter Squadron, King said he never met him. King himself was shot down over Germany and badly burned on his 75th and last mission in mid-April 1945, weeks before the Nazi surrender. He said pilots tended not to become fast friends, to avoid the pain of loss when they were killed, which was often. When 'most veterans from World War II came home, they didn't want to talk about the war. So they didn't pass those experiences on to their children and grandchildren,' King said. 'In a way, that's good because there's enough unpleasantness, bloodshed, agony in war, and perhaps we don't need to emphasize it," he added. "But the sacrifice needs to be emphasized and celebrated.' With the march of time, the veterans' groups are only getting smaller. The Best Defense Foundation, a non-profit that has been running veteran trips to Normandy since 2004, last year brought 50 people for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. This year, the number is 23. Betty Huffman-Rosevear, who served as an army nurse, is the only woman. She turned 104 this week. The group also includes a renowned romantic: 101-year-old Harold Terens and his sweetheart, Jeanne Swerlin, were feted by France's president after they tied the knot in a symbolic wedding inland of the D-Day beaches last year. D-Day veteran Jake Larson, now 102, has made multiple return trips and has become a star as "Papa Jake" on TikTok, with 1.2 million followers. He survived machine-gun fire when he landed on Omaha, making it unhurt to the bluffs that overlook the beach and which in 1944 were studded with German gun emplacements that mowed down American soldiers. 'We are the lucky ones,' Larson said amid the cemetery's immaculate rows of graves. 'They had no family. We are their family. We have the responsibility to honor these guys who gave us a chance to be alive." As WWII's survivors disappear, the responsibility is falling on the next generations that owe them the debt of freedom. 'This will probably be the last Normandy return, when you see the condition of some of us old guys,' King said. 'I hope I'm wrong.'
