Redmond Health Through Housing project moves closer to welcoming residents

A for­mer Sil­ver Cloud Inn in Red­mond’s Over­lake neigh­bor­hood is only a few weeks away from wel­com­ing peo­ple who are expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness, King Coun­ty staff shared today at a media and com­mu­ni­ty event cel­e­brat­ing the forth­com­ing open­ing of the coun­ty’s Red­mond Health Through Hous­ing building.

The ex-hotel was ini­tial­ly used to pro­vide hous­ing for Afghan refugees after King Coun­ty bought the prop­er­ty. “From May through Decem­ber 2022, near­ly 800 Afghan refugees received tem­po­rary hous­ing, reset­tle­ment sup­port, and con­nec­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty through the county’s Refugee Reset­tle­ment Hotel pro­gram. Of those who par­tic­i­pat­ed, near­ly all secured per­ma­nent hous­ing,” the coun­ty explained in a news release.

Now the build­ing will be used to pro­vide a hun­dred hous­ing units as well as sup­port ser­vices for peo­ple who are try­ing to escape from chron­ic homelessness.

The coun­ty and the City of Red­mond have cho­sen The Sal­va­tion Army to be the prop­er­ty’s oper­a­tor. The facil­i­ty will offer round-the-clock staffing and sup­port ser­vices — that means 24/7/365! — which will include ORCA cards, dai­ly meals, case man­age­ment sup­port, and indi­vid­u­al­ly tai­lored behav­io­r­i­al health­care, accord­ing to King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­ti­ne’s office. Though Con­stan­tine was not present at today’s event (he was rep­re­sent­ed by Deputy Exec­u­tive Shan­non Brad­dock), he expressed opti­mism in a pre­pared state­ment that the facil­i­ty would give a boost to efforts to house the homeless.

“This lat­est Health Through Hous­ing open­ing in Red­mond shows what can hap­pen when cities take on the chal­lenge of home­less­ness and work togeth­er with local orga­ni­za­tions to cre­ate hous­ing options,” said Constantine.

“Health Through Hous­ing Red­mond will be life-chang­ing for its one hun­dred res­i­dents. When peo­ple feel wel­comed, safe, and sup­port­ed they’re bet­ter able to engage in their own health and well-being, which brings long-term stability.”

“In Red­mond, we are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing proac­tive, wrap­around ser­vices to sup­port unshel­tered peo­ple in our region. By sup­port­ing their well-being, we work toward ensur­ing every­one has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reach their poten­tial and ful­ly con­tribute to the com­mu­ni­ty,” said Red­mond May­or Angela Bir­ney, who spoke at the event. “We val­ue our part­ner­ships with The Sal­va­tion Army and King Coun­ty and cel­e­brate our shared com­mit­ment to trans­form­ing lives through the Health Through Hous­ing initiative.”

“The Sal­va­tion Army is hon­ored to part­ner with King Coun­ty, the City of Red­mond, and many oth­er com­mu­ni­ty agen­cies to serve as oper­a­tor of the Health Through Hous­ing Red­mond loca­tion,” said Lieu­tenant Colonel Cindy Foley, The Sal­va­tion Army’s North­west Divi­sion­al Com­man­der, who joined Bir­ney and Brad­dock for the speak­ing pro­gram, which KOMO 4 and KING 5 sent crews to cov­er. “Home­less­ness con­tin­ues to grow at a stag­ger­ing rate in our region. This pro­gram pro­vides oppor­tu­ni­ty for one hun­dred res­i­dents to receive safe­ty, refuge, and wrap­around ser­vices that include shel­ter, case man­age­ment, coun­sel­ing, behav­ioral health sup­port, meals, com­mu­ni­ty, and more. The Sal­va­tion Army is here to save the lives of our King Coun­ty neigh­bors in need.”

“There is an afford­able hous­ing short­age of 240,000 homes in King Coun­ty right now. Our fam­i­ly mem­bers, loved ones, and neigh­bors with dis­abil­i­ties who have been forced to live out­side are vic­tims of this lack of hous­ing. At the end of the day, these are folks whom we know and love, or folks whom those we know and love, know,” said King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Sarah Perry.

“Either way, they need to be in a place that allows them to live mean­ing­ful, pro­duc­tive lives for the bet­ter­ment of them­selves, and for our com­mu­ni­ty as a whole. The inno­v­a­tive approach that Health Through Hous­ing brings is exact­ly that oppor­tu­ni­ty. It is no sur­prise, but I am still tru­ly grate­ful, that we are able to part­ner with one of our most inno­v­a­tive cities, Red­mond, along with The Sal­va­tion Army, to help allow our neigh­bors with dis­abil­i­ties to live in homes instead of outside.”

After the speak­ing pro­gram had con­clud­ed, coun­ty staff led tours of the build­ing for media, elect­ed offi­cials, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. They not­ed that some mod­i­fi­ca­tions still need to be made to the build­ing before it will be ready to wel­come residents.

For exam­ple, some rooms still have mul­ti­ple beds in them, and the plan is to have just one bed per unit. This addi­tion­al work will take at least a few more weeks. Nev­er­the­less, the coun­ty char­ac­ter­ized today’s mile­stone as a grand opening.

Offi­cials hope to be accept­ing peo­ple into the facil­i­ty by the end of May. It will be the first oper­a­tional Health Through Hous­ing site in the coun­ty’s east­ern region.