The Redmond safe parking transitional housing program is expanding once again, meaning there will be new places people can live out of their cars and vans while following certain rules.
A Point in Time homeless count was presented to the Redmond during Tuesday night’s city council meeting. The snapshot on January 24 counted 262 homeless in Redmond.
“Nineteen children who are under the age of 18,” said Unhoused Services Data Coordinator for NeighborImpact, Caitlin Rodgers. “Of our adult population, 12 community members are veterans. Seventy-five community members are experiencing chronic homelessness.”
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Executive Director Rick Russell for the Mountain View Community Development says the safe parking program sees one-third of participants move on to some sort of stable housing.
“In front of the Redmond City Council for our fifth and sixth Safe parking site,” said Russell. “If they approve it, it would open up 12 new parking spaces, and that would give us a total of 27 spaces for families in Redmond.”
Russell gave a presentation along with Shepherd’s House Ministries on the potential new east and west Highway 97 locations.
“Community development has worked out a plan to lay down a layer of gravel there and where the safe parking vehicles will be parked will be on top of that gravel. And there will be a strip from the highway connecting it,” said Shepherd’s House Redmond Director Andrew Hoeskma.
“On the east side, there is less total feedback from neighbors and really broadly supportive. We did not hear back from Dutch Bros or Abby’s, but the businesses to the south broadly supported the program.”
The council unanimously approved both sites and some additional costs for the project.
“There are a few issues on the property that we need to address,” said Russell. “We need to do some cleanup there and some prep work, and it’s going to take about three weeks. So we think by June 1st, we should be up and running.”
The Redmond Police Department recently awarded Rick Russell and the Mountain View Fellowship Church the Community Partnership award.
SAFEPARKINGLOCATIONS
PR Hwy 97 5823 Post Approval
