Tribes, Olympia will get big boost from stimulus

HUD funds called 'brick-and-mortar money' for projects

By Brad Shannon | The Olympian • Published March 07, 2009

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The city of Olympia and four South Sound Indian tribes are getting almost $1.3 million in federal economic-stimulus dollars to help with housing and related needs in their communities.

Other stimulus money

The federal economic-stimulus funds could include $60 million to help weatherize homes for low-income residents in Washington.

"We haven't learned and are still waiting" for confirmation of the amount, said Steve Payne, a managing director at the state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development's housing improvement division. "What we are assuming is something around $60 million."

If traditional pass-through formulas held true, Thurston County's Community Action Council might receive about $1.5 million, Payne said. A spokesman with the council could not be reached to say how soon funds could be put to use.

The Olympian

Olympia has preliminary word that it will receive $104,985 in stimulus money from the federal Housing and Urban Development department. The funds could be used for a pilot sprinkler project in the Olympian Apartments, where an elderly woman died in a 2004 fire, city housing program manager Anna Schlecht said.

The Nisqually, Squaxin Island, Skokomish and Chehalis tribes also are earmarked to receive nearly $1.2 million.

The Nisqually tribe could use its share of the money to help pay for a 20-home project the tribe has under way on its reservation west of Yelm, as well as other projects.

The Housing Authority of Thurston County hopes to secure $180,000 a year for three years to help the poor pay rent and avoid homelessness. The agency has not secured the money yet.

All told, HUD is sending more than $10 billion to the states — including $168.9 million to Washington. This state's share includes large block grants to housing authorities for public housing, grants to local governments with lead hazards, tax assistance to housing finance agencies, and grants for Section 8 rental assistance.

"As I understand it, this is really bricks-and-mortar money," spokesman Leland Jones in HUD's Seattle office said Wednesday.

But how the money gets spent in any of the jurisdictions, and how quickly, still are in question. HUD plans to notify agencies formally of their grant awards in the next couple of weeks.

The federal agency's grants traditionally are used for the rehabilitation, purchase or construction of multifamily and single-family homes, and agencies would need to provide a plan to HUD to show how the funds will be spent, Jones said. Tribes, for instance, would need to obligate their grants within a year, 50 percent of the money would have to be "out the door" within two years and all of it within three years, he said.

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