Whatcom County approves $430K to support affordable homeownership project
The Whatcom County Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve more than $430,000 to help fund the final phase of a permanently affordable homeownership project in Bellingham.
Telegraph Townhomes is a 24-home development in Bellingham’s King Mountain neighborhood, built by Kulshan Community Land Trust in partnership with Habitat for Humanity in Whatcom County.
The project is partially completed. This additional funding supports the development of the last eight homes, which are on track to be completed this fall. The first 16 homes are already fully occupied by income-qualified buyers, according to the grant contract.
Whatcom County will award a total of $436,902.48 to support the project.
$400,000 of that will be awarded from the Economic Development Investment (EDI) Program, which was created to allow a portion of collected sales tax to help fund public facilities. The EDI Program was modernized in 2025 to expand the program funds’ eligible uses, including affordable workforce housing.
The rest of the funding is being awarded from the Housing Affordable for the Work Force (HAFTW) program, which operates as a specific component of the EDI program that helps public facility costs related to the construction of single-family owner-occupied affordable homes and renter-occupied affordable homes.
KulshanCLT uses a community land trust model to ensure long-term affordability of homes by maintaining 99-year ground leases and equity caps, allowing homeowners to earn equity while also preserving affordability for future owners.
Telegraph Townhomes serves households earning between 30% and 80% of the area median income. The median household income in Whatcom County was about $81,784 between 2020 and 2024, according to U.S. Census data.
“Telegraph is helping more local families realize the dream of homeownership while ensuring these homes stay affordable for generations to come,” the project webpage states.
The state established targeted housing goals for every county in Washington over the next 20 years. Between 2024 and 2044, Whatcom County is estimated to need almost 35,000 new housing units.
About 22,000 of those units, more than 60%, need to be affordable, according to the city of Bellingham. Bellingham makes up about 48% of the housing production in Whatcom County. So the city needs to produce almost 17,000 total housing units to help meet the goal. More than 10,000 of those need to be affordable.
