Bothell City Council wants answers following a KING 5 investigation.
The council is withholding $100,000 in payments to A Regional Coalition for Housing (ARCH), one of the region’s largest affordable housing programs until it gets those answers.
“It’s a touchy deal because ARCH has been a really, really good partner to the city,” said Bothell Mayor Andy Rheaume at a recent city council meeting.
Council members supported a motion to delay further funding until ARCH convinces city leaders that the program is a sound investment.
Mayor Rheaume cited a KING 5 Investigators report for his concerns about the program.
The October story raised questions about ownership of three units at a Bellevue condominium complex that are administered by ARCH. It manages low-income housing programs on behalf of 15 east King
County cities including Kirkland, Mercer Island, Issaquah, Redmond, and Bothell.
The investigation showed that the owners of those ARCH units do not actually live in them, as required by ARCH rules. Two of the owners have rented their units out for years.
Sandy Yin has faced years of complaints from the McKee condominium homeowner board that she rented out her ARCH condo instead of living there. ARCH mandates that owners, who purchase their home at below-market rates through the publicly funded program, make the house their “principal residence.”
Yin is a licensed real estate agent. After the story aired, her firm fired her according to the agency’s attorney Sam Meyler.
“If (the story is) true, it would be troubling given that this individual is licensed in the real estate profession,” Meyler said.
Another ARCH condo owner at the McKee has lived in California for five years as she rents her unit out.
And the third is owned by a politically connected couple that owns a home in Olympia, 20 minutes from where they work at the Washington State Capitol.
Nona Snell, a high-level staffer at the state House of Representatives, and her husband John Aultman, senior education advisor to Governor Jay Inslee, have owned their McKee condo since 2009.
They say they bought it because John Aultman held jobs in east King County. But he started working for the governor in January 2016.
ARCH is investigating whether they violated the terms of their ownership agreement that required them to live in the unit.
ARCH’s new Executive Director Lindsay Masters said several policies are under review following KING 5’s stories.
She said a date has not been set yet for an ARCH representative to appear before Bothell City Council to answer questions.
Councilmember Jeanne Zornes said she asked ARCH employees about safeguards in their programs during prior meetings.
“They were confident at the time it was not being abused. Clearly, we need an explanation,” Zornes said while agreeing with the mayor’s plan to withhold funding until ARCH provides answers.
