Apartment City

After a tense deadline last summer at the Highland Village apartments and nearly a year of wading through bureaucratic red tape , Bellevue has committed itself to the preservation of 76 below-market units. The Bellevue City Council voted 4 -0 to contribute $2 million from the city’s housing fund toward the King County Housing Authority to help purchase the property. The 86 families (and 85 children in local schools) of the Highland Village apartment complex were faced with an eviction notice last year, which told the residents to be out by the beginning of October. A developer, Intracorp, had sights on the property for market-rate condominiums. The residents, by-and-large, are near the 60 percent area median income level . Many of the residents speak English as a second language. According to the King County Housing Authority ’s own guidelines, the area median income for a family of four is $90,000. Highland Village was charging residents well below market rent, but many com...

Damonte Ranch area is a sign of the city's need for housing in Reno, Nev. The recent influx of new workers combined with near-zero residential development during the recession gave birth to a classic supply-and-demand scenario that saw the cost of housing skyrocket in the Biggest Little City." title="In this March 24, 2017 photo shows a new apartment complex in the Damonte Ranch area is a sign of the city's need for housing in Reno, Nev. The recent influx of new workers combined with near-zero residential development during the recession gave birth to a classic supply-and-demand scenario that saw the cost of housing skyrocket in the Biggest Little City." src="src" /> In this March 24, 2017 photo shows a new apartment complex in the Damonte Ranch area is a sign of the city's need for housing in Reno, Nev. The recent influx of new workers combined with near-zero residential development during the recession gave birth to a classic supply-a...

RENO, Nev. (AP) — It's a journey that most people eventually take. Fifteen years ago , Anne Carte decided to leave the familiar comforts of home and family to move out on her own. For Carte, who was 20 years old at the time, moving to the Biggest Little City from San Jose, California, represented an exciting and crucial juncture in her life. "I moved to Reno to grow up and be an adult," Carte said. The year 2002 had its fair share of memorable moments. That same year, "Star Wars: Episode II" debuted in theaters, Tiger Woods won the 66th Masters Tournament and "American Idol" premiered on television. One thing Carte specifically remembers was the cost of rent. Back then, the monthly rate for Carte's first studio in Sparks was only $495. For a young person who just moved out of home and landed an entry-level job at Target, an affordable place to stay was not a luxury. It was a b...

GRAND HAVEN, MICH. - There is a severe shortage of affordable housing in Ottawa County, according to the United Way. And the vast majority of those units aren't handicap accessible, leaving those with disabilities very few options. That's why the ribbon cutting for Providence Place in Grand Haven Tuesday , Aug. 15, is such a celebration. Four of the eight units will be handicap accessible and all will be affordable. The finishing touches are nearly complete at Providence Place in Grand Haven, a project members of HOME Ministries and Love In Action have been working on together for months. Sara Walters has rheumatoid arthritis and has needed a wheelchair since age 11. Her efforts to find affordable and accessible housing so she could live independently took years. "For my housing when I was in my 20's I found out there were not a lot of options for people who have physical limitations," she explained. That's why she formed and Gwen Rubio formed HOME Ministr...

The more than three dozen people who live in tents under the Lake Shore Drive bridges at Wilson and Lawrence avenues know better than anyone that the structures need repair. Concrete from the Depression-era bridges is crumbling onto the sidewalks and streets below, posing a deadly hazard to tent-dwellers, as well as motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians. So it may seem strange that a homeless advocacy group might sue the city to stop bridge repairs before they start in mid-September. But attorneys for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless want to stop the city's plans to put bike paths on the wide sidewalks under the bridges, which the coalition said would permanently drive the homeless out. "If they put the bike paths in, we ain't going to have room for our tents," said Thomas Gordon, 58, who lives under the Lawrence bridge. The sidewalks can currently accommodate both tents and pedestrians — bike paths would cut the space. The dilemma highlights two local tren...