"Ruth" remembers the day her life changed forever.

"I was at the grocery store with the kids, and suddenly I just had to leave immediately," explains the lifelong Bremerton resident. "Soon I got to the point where I was too afraid to leave my house at all — and I didn't, for three years."

Then Ruth got even sicker, and this mother of two spent most of the 1980s at Western Washington State Hospital. After she was released, she lived with a series of relatives.

But throughout all these tumultuous years, she held on to a dream of becoming independent and living on her own.

In 2001, her dream finally came true. Thanks to a partnership between KCCHA and Kitsap Mental Health Services, the 53-year old grandmother moved into her own home, an apartment in East Bremerton.

"These are our mothers and fathers, our sisters and brothers, and we can't turn our backs on them," County Commissioner Tim Botkin says. Botkin, who also serves as the Chair of the Housing Authority Board, received a Community Partnership award for his unflagging support of the development in the face of opposition in one neighborhood.

A combination of public and private financing ensures that rents are affordable to individuals with incomes as low as $527 per month. Loans and grants from the Washington State Housing Trust Fund and Kitsap County Block Grant program provide just over half of the necessary funding. The rest came from the Enterprise Social Investment Corporation, which purchased housing tax credits that were provided by the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.

  These new apartments provide safe,
  affordable housing for community
  members affected by mental illnes.