On February 21, 2025, Bremerton Housing Authority (BHA) acquired Wheaton Landing, a new 24-unit apartment complex aimed at providing stable housing for families with children in the Bremerton School District who are facing homelessness or housing instability. Enterprise, a national organization dedicated to community development, has accepted the project into its program and will co-lead efforts with Kitsap Strong to bring together key partners and design a tailored program to best serve future residents. With this important purchase, BHA continues to address the unique needs of Bremerton by ensuring that affordable housing is paired with the support necessary for residents to thrive.

“I believe this is an incredible opportunity for our city and county,” said BHA Executive Director Jill Stanton. “We take seriously our mandate to address local needs with our federal resources and believe this local solution to ending homelessness for children is our most viable path forward. We know housing is only a portion of what is needed for success and are grateful for the dedicated stakeholders involved in making this new project possible.”

Wheaton Landing is another significant public-private partnership in which BHA has responded to a recognized need by community partners to reach Bremerton’s most vulnerable residents through housing. In addition to Kitsap Mental Health Services’ Pendleton Place, Kitsap’s first permanent supportive housing complex for 72 chronically homeless individuals, and BHA’s Evergreen Bright Start, Kitsap’s first dedicated housing complex for young adults ages 18-24 exiting foster care or facing homelessness, this new property will also offer access to supportive services tailored specifically to its residents. This project is designed to be a model that can be replicated to help achieve functional zero homelessness for the student body in the Bremerton School District.

In support of its national community development initiatives, Enterprise will lead efforts to bring together key organizations to identify best practices in tenant selection, operations, and services. Wheaton Landing participating stakeholders include:

• Bremerton Housing Authority
• Enterprise
• Kitsap Strong
• Bremerton School District
• Kitsap County Affordable Housing Consortium
• Kitsap County
• City of Bremerton

The goal is to implement a holistic program that addresses the diverse needs of resident families, ensuring the best possible outcomes. Enterprise will also establish key data metrics for tracking and measuring success. Kitsap Strong is co-leading the development of the partnership structure with BHA and serves as the backbone entity.

Successful projects like this require not only good intent, seamless collaboration, specific expertise, and an understanding developer, but also the necessary funding. BHA received crucial support to acquire the newly constructed 24-unit complex located at 3256 Wheaton Way in East Bremerton, which includes:

• An assumable loan from Global Credit Union, marking the first time Global has worked with any public housing authority across the nation.
• Community Investments in Affordable Housing and HOME funds in addition to local funding support from Kitsap County and the City of Bremerton.
• Restricted funds available from the redevelopment of West Park, BHA’s successful effort to improve affordable housing across Bremerton completed in 2015.
• Ongoing rental assistance through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs including Housing Choice Vouchers.

Wheaton Landing represents a major step forward in tackling homelessness and housing instability for families in Bremerton and Kitsap County. By bringing together resources from both the public and private sectors, BHA, Enterprise, Kitsap Strong, the Bremerton School District, and our community partners are reinforcing a continued commitment to building a stronger, more resilient community by focusing on long-term housing solutions.

Bremerton Housing Authority is aware of the memo issued on January 27, 2025 by the Federal Office of Management and Budget. In this memo, federal agencies are instructed to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.” We are working to figure out what this means for the programs we administer since many rely on federal funding. According to our largest funder, the U.S. Department of Urban Development (HUD), Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) payments will not be impacted by this pause and will continue as normal. However, we do not have access to our other funding grants for now. BHA will proceed with operations as normal for the time being with hopes of gaining access to our other grant funding very soon. We will update our website as we know more.

We want to remind you that there is a lot of unverified information on social media right now. In addition to being in close contact with HUD, we are also members of trade organizations like the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) and the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) who work on behalf of housing authorities across the country to help ensure access to funding for our programs. Therefore, we are confident that we have the most accurate information available as of now and urge you to check your sources before sharing online. We can all do our part to reduce the spread of misinformation and disinformation while we wait for more answers for how this memo will impact our communities throughout the nation.

Click here to view the full text of the original memo.