Affordable Housing Grant

The City of Chelan Affordable Housing Grant supports affordable housing activities within the City of Chelan through Housing Fund 105. The fund may receive money from document-recording surcharge distributions, affordable-housing sales and use tax proceeds, grants, donations, City Council appropriations, general facilities charge allocations, and developer contributions. Depositing money into Fund 105 does not remove restrictions attached to the original funding source. The Affordable Housing Fund Policy establishes a common process for considering proposals involving real property as well as housing programs, services, and assistance. It does not expand the lawful uses of any funding source or create an entitlement to an award. Eligible proposals must advance an identified affordable-housing objective in the City's Comprehensive Plan and provide, preserve, support, or facilitate housing or housing-related assistance for income-eligible households. Applicants may propose to serve households at or below 120 percent of area median income, although individual funding sources may impose lower income limits or narrower eligible uses. Applicants may be nonprofit organizations, public agencies, housing authorities, or for-profit organizations. The City may approve, reject, reduce, condition, defer, or request modification of a proposal and may prioritize lower-income households, urgent local needs, proposals leveraging other resources, and proposals providing the greatest documented public benefit per City dollar. Funding is available through Capital Awards and Program Services Awards. Capital Awards may support acquisition, construction, conversion, rehabilitation, preservation, accessibility improvements, eligible infrastructure, construction financing costs, and general facilities charges associated with identified real property when permitted by the selected funding source. Capital Awards generally require recorded City-approved security before disbursement and normally operate through reimbursement after approved costs are incurred. Program Services Awards may support defined housing assistance, rental assistance, eviction prevention, housing navigation, homeownership education, counseling, housing stabilization, case management, eligible operations, maintenance, and other qualifying services that do not finance an interest in identified real property. Program Services Awards require a written agreement establishing deliverables, eligible populations, payment methods, documentation, reporting, monitoring, and recapture remedies. Unless a funding source establishes a lower limit, general administrative overhead should not exceed 25 percent of the requested award, although Council may approve a higher percentage with the required findings. No cost-share or matching requirement is stated. The application requires organizational information, governing leadership information, the applicant's mission and experience, the requested award track and amount, a project or program summary, requested performance period, and proposed payment schedule. Applicants must describe housing need, public benefit, geographic connection to Chelan, household income tiers, expected households or units served, eligibility verification, measurable outputs and outcomes, Comprehensive Plan consistency, and the consequences of a reduced or denied award. Applicants must also submit budget and funding information, including a detailed budget narrative, other funding sources and restrictions, and procurement or cost-comparison methods. Capital proposals require additional property, site-control, unit, development schedule, financing, cost, debt, lien, affordability covenant, affordability term, and compliance-monitoring information. Program Services proposals require descriptions of services, households served, milestones, eligibility and payment controls, expenditure and staff-time documentation, reporting systems, records retention, and safeguards for payments made to or for individuals. Required attachments include entity formation and good-standing information, governing-body authorization, a detailed budget and committed or pending funding documentation, recent financial statements and the current operating budget, and applicable policies concerning income verification, confidentiality, payments, and internal controls. Capital applicants must additionally provide applicable site-control documents, legal descriptions, plans, schedules, sources and uses, pro forma information, existing covenants, title information, and appraisals. Program Services applicants must provide an implementation plan, milestones, sample eligibility documentation, and a reporting format. Staff evaluates proposals for legal eligibility, consistency with the Comprehensive Plan, need, feasibility, organizational capacity, leverage, public benefit, cost reasonableness, readiness, monitoring capacity, and risk. Final approval rests with City Council unless the decision has been lawfully delegated. For the special 2026 Affordable Housing Grant application period, applications are accepted from September 1, 2026 through October 15, 2026, with total funds to be awarded not to exceed $50,000. Completed applications may be mailed to Chelan City Hall, P.O. Box 1669, Chelan, WA 98816, or hand-delivered to the Finance Receptionist at 135 E. Johnson Avenue in Chelan. The policy also establishes a regular annual application period from January 1 through March 1 unless the Council or City Administrator establishes an additional application period, making the next regular application cycle expected to begin in January 2027. No separate letter of intent, concept paper, or other pre-application gating requirement is stated, and no award notification date or fixed performance period is provided. The listed City contact is Heidi Evans, Finance Director, at heidie@cityofchelan.gov and 509-682-4037, extension 310. Recipients must comply with the reporting, records, audit, nondiscrimination, fair housing, civil rights, accessibility, permitting, and other legal requirements applicable to their particular award. Records generally must be retained for at least six years after final payment or the end of the affordability term, whichever is later, unless a longer period applies. The City may withhold or suspend payments, require corrective action, terminate an award, recover overpayments, recapture ineligible or unearned amounts, enforce recorded restrictions, and pursue contractual or legal remedies when award requirements are not met.

Demonstrate Comprehensive Plan consistency, documented need, feasibility, organizational capacity, leverage, public benefit, cost reasonableness, readiness, monitoring capacity, and manageable risk. Priority may be given to lower-income households, leveraged proposals, urgent local needs, and the greatest documented public benefit per City dollar. Submit a complete application because staff may reject incomplete applications.