The Housing Consortium of Everett and Snohomish County (HCESC) emerged from the Housing Stakeholders group, which was formed in the late 1990s by the Healthy Communities Initiative. Incorporated in 2002, HCESC is a collaborative partnership between nonprofit housing developers and service providers with local business, government, and for-profit organizations focusing on issues and needs for affordable housing in Snohomish County and throughout the State of Washington.

Our major accomplishments in 2009 include:

• Significant progress on several of the action items in Housing Within Reach, including new funding from the local option sales tax for mental health and chemical dependency, and preservation of mobile home parks through a permanent zone ordinance.
• Careful review of all the recommendations in Housing Within Reach by the Housing and Homelessness Policy Oversight Committee, chaired by County Executive Aaron Reardon.
• A major role in the Investing in Families initiative, a community-wide planning effort to strengthen and realign Snohomish County’s efforts to end family homelessness.  The Housing Consortium hired a full-time Housing Planner to support the initiative.
• Participation in efforts to develop an interjurisdictional housing program in Snohomish County that will encourage cities to work together to address affordable housing challenges.
• Launch of an Advocacy Project, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that will train and support community members to speak out about affordable housing and homelessness at public forums and with elected officials.  A full-time Advocacy Project Coordinator was hired to implement the project.
• Three successful Affordable Housing Breakfast Forums that addressed traditional funding streams for affordable housing, housing for people with mental illness and a candidates’ forum.
• An annual affordable housing conference that provided practitioners and advocates in Snohomish County with the latest information about affordable housing. This year’s keynote speaker was Glen Hiemstra, a nationally known futurist.
• Education with federal elected officials about the need for additional project-based housing vouchers to support the very successful Sound Families initiative in Snohomish County.
• A move into dedicated office space in downtown Everett, to provide adequate space for our growing programs.
• The first issue of a quarterly e-newsletter to keep our community up-to-date on affordable housing issues.