The whole model, in plain language
There is no complicated version of this. We buy one house, we keep it in good repair, and we rent rooms in it to 6 adults who are rebuilding after prison — under written rules, with someone living on site who is responsible for the place. Everything below is the entire programme.
A single-family home, at the scale of the street
4 bedrooms. Three of them hold 6 adults who pay rent, no more than 2 to a room. The fourth holds the house manager, who lives on site at reduced rent. That is 7 people in a house built for a family, which is the ordinary occupancy of the block it sits on.
We deliberately do not scale the building. The research on siting housing like this is consistent that small and well-managed is what keeps a home indistinguishable from its neighbors — and the same restraint is what makes the operation repeatable one house at a time instead of one campus at a time.
Adults coming home, with more scrutiny than any other tenant on the block
Residents are people leaving Washington state custody who are ready for independent living and who want the structure this house provides. Three separate filters have to agree before anyone moves in.
A corrections referral
Candidates reach us through Department of Corrections community corrections officers and case managers who know them, their record, and their release plan.
A state-investigated address
Washington will not release anyone to an address it has not investigated and approved. The state inspects the house and vets the placement before it happens.
Our own written criteria
We set our own eligibility standards on top of the state’s and we are under no obligation to accept a referral. Anyone who is not right for a shared residential home is not admitted.
A signed resident agreement
Nobody gets a key without signing the house rules and understanding what breaks the arrangement. The expectations are not a surprise to anyone living here.
$6,298
Washington requires an investigated and approved release address before someone can leave prison. People who cannot produce one stay incarcerated past their earned release date, at a cost to the state of roughly $6,298 per month, for want of a bedroom.
The rules, published rather than described
These are conditions of living here, in writing, with consequences that go up to leaving the programme. Neighbors ask what the rules are; this is the answer.
- Sobriety
- The house is alcohol- and drug-free. This is not aspirational language: it is a condition of tenancy and it is enforced.
- Work, or looking for it
- Residents are employed or actively searching, and they pay rent from their own earnings. The house is a place people work from, not a place they wait in.
- A curfew
- Overnight hours are accounted for. The house manager lives on site and knows who is home.
- Guests and quiet hours
- Visitors are limited and never overnight. The obligations any good tenant has to the street apply here in writing.
- Shared upkeep
- Residents keep the house and yard to a standard. Chores are assigned and the condition of the place is somebody’s named responsibility every week.
- Continued supervision
- Residents remain under active community supervision with a corrections officer who has authority to act, for as long as their term runs.
Three layers of accountability, and a name attached to each
A house manager lives on site and handles the day to day — rules, maintenance, conflict, and being the first person anyone calls. Above that, Project Homeward owns the building and answers for its condition. Alongside both, the state supervises the residents.
One deliberate separation is worth naming: the house manager does not administer housing assistance funds. State rules keep voucher administration away from anyone in a reporting relationship with residents, and we keep that line clean. The person enforcing the rules has no financial hold over the people living under them.
6 to 12 months, and then a lease of their own
This is transitional housing and it is meant to be temporary. The whole point is that somebody leaves in better shape than they arrived, with the savings and the rental history to hold a place on their own.
Arrival
A bed, a locking door, a key, and an address that satisfies the state. The immediate crisis of having nowhere to go is over on day one.
The first weeks
Identity documents, a bank account, benefits enrollment, a phone, transport, and connection to the treatment or employment services a resident needs.
Working and saving
Steady employment, rent paid on time, and money set aside. A record of paying rent is often the missing piece in qualifying for an ordinary apartment.
Moving on
A planned exit to permanent housing, with the room turning over to the next person. Nobody is asked to leave without somewhere to go.
We are landlords who take the job seriously
We provide housing, structure, and stewardship of a building. We are not a treatment provider, a clinic, or a social services agency, and we do not pretend otherwise. Claiming clinical capability we do not have would be the fastest way to do harm here.
Treatment, employment services, benefits enrollment, and case management come from established Whatcom County organisations that already do that work well. Our job is to make sure a resident has a stable enough address to actually keep those appointments.
See how partnerships workAn ordinary rental, held to more than the ordinary standard
We are not asking for an exception to how housing works in Bellingham. The house operates as a shared residential rental under Washington landlord-tenant law, and the obligations below are ones we take on rather than ones we seek relief from.
- Washington landlord-tenant law
- Residents are tenants with the protections and obligations the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act gives every renter in the state.
- Fair housing
- We comply with federal and Washington fair housing law and we are an equal housing opportunity provider.
- Local licensing and code
- City and county business licensing, and building, fire, and life-safety systems inspected and brought to code before anyone moves in.
- Statutory notice to the city
- Placing state-referred residents requires formal notice to the local jurisdiction, which opens a window for the community to respond on the record before the house is listed. We treat that as the floor for engagement, not the ceiling.
Nothing on this page is legal advice, and specific occupancy and land-use questions are settled parcel by parcel with local counsel.
Still have questions?
The neighbor page answers the ones we hear most, cites the research behind our claims, and gives you a person to call rather than a form to fill in.
Read the neighbor FAQ