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Benton County's affordable housing fund holds $442,000, but a squabble about how to share it among the five cities and the county has kept nearly 15,000 people who need the financial help from getting any of it.
That could change as soon as this month, though, if county commissioners approve an arrangement that would give equal say to the county and five cities on how to use the money for affordable housing projects.
But that agreement would disappoint Kennewick officials, who claim equal representation would not reflect where the majority of people in need actually live.
The fund was created in 2002 by a state law that authorized a $10 surcharge on documents recorded at county auditors' offices. Counties keep 60 percent of the surcharge for an affordable housing fund, and 40 percent is returned to the state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.
The law also requires each county to have a surcharge steering committee that is based on "geographic equity."
In a letter last August to the Benton-Franklin Department of Human Services, Kevin Ferguson, assistant city manager in Kennewick, said the committee should be based on population, not geography.
And Ferguson said Kennewick has 48.6 percent of county residents who live in poverty, as determined by data provided in the 2005-09 Tri-Cities Consolidated Plan.
Ferguson also cited statistics that show people living in poverty in Benton County include:
w 14,895 residents countywide, which is 9 percent of the population.
w 7,245 people in Kennewick, which is 11 percent of the city's population.
w 73 percent of people living in poverty countywide live in Kennewick or Richland.
w And that people living in poverty in Kennewick are equal to 65 percent of West Richland's population.
"The number of people living in poverty in Kennewick is almost equal to the total populations of Benton City and Prosser combined," Ferguson wrote.
Based on those numbers, Kennewick officials want to have more than one vote on the committee that controls the fund.
"Citizens living in Kennewick, and the significant number of the county's poor who live in Kennewick, would be considerably underrepresented (with giving each city one vote)," Ferguson said, arguing for a population-based method of assigning committee votes.
But Carrie Huie-Pascua, director of the Benton-Franklin Department of Human Services, wants commissioners to set up the funding committee based on "geographic equity." That would mean six votes distributed among the county and cities of Kennewick, Richland, West Richland, Prosser and Benton City, without regard to population differences.
"This is really crucial to affordable housing," Pascua said. She said Kennewick is welcome to participate, although Ferguson said in his August letter that city officials were reluctant to sign an agreement that didn't address their concerns.
Jim Beaver, who was Kennewick's mayor for 12 years until being elected county commissioner in November, said he talked recently with Bob Hammond, the Kennewick city manager, and he told him the city's position hasn't changed.
"Kennewick wants additional votes," Beaver said, adding that he hasn't decided yet how he will vote on the issue. "I'm still working on it," he said.
