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Regional Housing Council previews April funding recommendations, adopts living work plan
Summary
Staff outlined the 2026 funding cycle: an affordable housing RFP with roughly $4.8to4.9 million available, a homeless-services RFP focused on cold-weather and lived-experience funding ($350,000), emergency set-aside ($200,000), and renewal of two-year awards. The council adopted an updated living work plan and asked for more scoring transparency and a process-improvement plan.
Tom Webster, RHC staff, gave members an overview of the funding activities they will consider at the April meeting, including recommendations from advisory boards and contract renewals. He told the council the board will review affordable-housing capital proposals, homeless-services proposals (this year focused on cold/hazardous weather and lived-experience housing), an affordable housing RFI pipeline for projects expected in 2029, and renewals of two-year homeless-services awards.
Tom said an approximate $4.8to4.9 million is available under the affordable housing RFP and that scoring criteria prioritize projects outside the City of Olympia and households under 50% of area median income. "In April, we're going to be bringing to you recommendations on four sets of funding activities," Tom said. Members asked staff to provide advisory-board scoring spreadsheets and rubrics in advance to allow review before the April decision.
Communications specialist Alisa Sparkman presented the council's 2025 annual report, which summarizes vision/mission work, advisory-board activities, funding breakdowns and the homeless housing plan; she invited feedback on format and categorization.
The council also reviewed and adopted an updated work plan as a living document to guide tasks through the year, including long-term funding contingency planning, RFP timelines and potential new work items proposed by Tumwater (production barrier assessment, nonprofit developer engagement, and a regional housing outcomes report). Councilmember Leonard suggested agendaizing a full financial overview for members; several members asked staff to make the live work plan easier to access and to consider periodic in-person work sessions for deeper discussion.
Staff agreed to provide more detailed scoring information from advisory boards ahead of April, to document funding sources in a clearer spreadsheet per member requests, and to return with recommendations and follow-up items during the spring and summer work plan timeline.
