CRP Spring 2026 Update: A Letter from Commerce’s Interim Director

Dear community partners, legislators and members of the public,

Commerce remains deeply committed to the responsible stewardship of Community Reinvestment Program (CRP) funds. Since 2023, we have worked with hundreds of community partners to serve thousands of people across Washington. Our collective work made a huge impact. However, we have also received questions, concerns, and media inquiries requesting more information about potential conflicts of interest in the distribution of CRP funding.

Thank you to all who shared feedback. Your questions are important. Below is an overview of the steps we are taking to strengthen transparency, reinforce conflict of interest safeguards and support organizations statewide.

Ensuring fair, equitable contracting

Commerce is committed to fair, transparent and equitable competitive processes across all contracts, including those within the CRP.

  • We separate building relationships from contract decision‑making. Internal staff cannot participate in an evaluation committee if they have a real or perceived conflict of interest. For CRP, we have also implemented an intentional separation in our organizational structure where:
    • The CRP managing director never reviews and evaluates proposals.
    • The newly created CRP strategic partnership manager will never evaluate proposals.
    • The newly created CRP operations manager will oversee a fair and equitable contracting process and will not personally review and evaluate CRP proposals.
  • Reviewers include people with relevant experience. We bring in external community members who have both lived and professional experience, so contract decisions are community informed.
  • Every application is scored the same way. Reviewers receive consistent onboarding, which includes anti-bias training and standardized evaluation tools. All proposals are evaluated against the same evaluation rubric.
  • Reviewers must step aside if there’s a conflict. If someone reviewing applications has a connection that could affect their judgment, they must recuse themselves. Commerce has also adopted a new conflict mitigation plan for all CRP programs.
  • Everyone moves through the same timeline and steps. Every applicant follows the same process.

Responding to confusion and concerns about housing assistance programs

We recognize that recent questions and claims about inappropriate use of housing aid — especially combining multiple funding resources (such as “stacking”) — have led to confusion and concerns.

We want to clarify that stacking private, state and federal housing assistance is allowed and encouraged by the real estate and banking industries. Layering financial assistance is, in many cases, necessary for families to buy homes in Washington’s housing market. This is considered a best practice when used within each program’s underwriting standards.

We are currently reviewing all contracts, including contracts that community partners asked us to examine. Commerce is carefully deciding the appropriate next steps to restore public trust. We are focused on ensuring that the organizations administering homeownership dollars are on a stronger administrative footing moving forward.

In addition, we are taking the following steps to prevent future issues:

  • Communicating funding limitations more transparently. There are more qualified applicants (both individuals and organizations) than there is funding. We want to ensure people know what resources may be available to them, while also being careful not to give false expectations.
  • Communicating expectations more clearly. This includes eligibility requirements, conflict of interest rules and program limitations.
  • Conducting pre-contracting compliance training. We want to ensure awardees understand the funding’s required conditions, limitations and expectations.
  • Requiring training for all funding recipients. This includes detailed guidance on conflict of interest rules, funding stacking requirements, disclosure obligations and documentation standards.
  • Strengthening contract compliance. We are integrating additional conflict of interest safeguards, documentation requirements and consumer protection standards across all CRP contracts. This includes those that are housing related.
  • Ensuring consistent standards across the agency. We launched a Shared Standards Initiative to make our contracting process easier to understand and more consistent across the agency. We’re creating clear, predictable standards so community partners know what to expect no matter which Commerce program they work with.

We also know that in some communities, the way funding was rolled out left people believing they would receive help, only to later learn that funds were no longer available. Some people invested their time to move through the process, only to learn later that the funding was exhausted. We want to acknowledge that impact. We will work with grantees to ensure that how we communicate about available funding is clear.

Responding to other conflict of interest concerns

Last summer, Commerce’s CRP team held community listening sessions and a public survey to gather feedback to plan CRP’s 2025-2027 programs. The goal was to learn about what worked well and opportunities to improve. Community concerns about conflict of interest, specifically regarding how local advisory teams are formed and operate, were a key theme.

As a result, we:

  • Made public calls for community members to join the teams and encouraged people with lived experience, grassroots leadership or youth advocacy backgrounds to apply.
  • Gathered recommendations from community‑based partners and organizations when planning the selection process.
  • Invited community members to score Local Advisory Team member applications. Evaluators were recruited, onboarded and trained to ensure a consistent and fair evaluation process.
  • Plan to implement a robust Local Advisory Team Governance Handbook that establishes clear expectations, ethics rules and standardized procedures to ensure consistent, transparent and accountable advisory processes statewide.
  • Are following competitive process to establish the Local Advisory Team Regional Intermediaries.

We have also received broader interest in protecting against funding conflicts. Governor Bob Ferguson recently signed E2SHB 2523 (Chapter 143, Laws of 2026), which codified CRP and further details conflict of interest requirements. These provisions align with our expectations for grantees and help ensure fairness and accountability. We are incorporating these requirements directly into all CRP contracts.

Recognizing the impact on our partners

We value our partners and know that public questions can create concern. We review all inquiries carefully and neutrally, and we do not comment on individual organizations while that work is ongoing. When a review is complete, we share outcomes as required by state guidelines.

We recognize that this process can feel uncertain for both the organizations under review and for those who brought concerns forward.

Amplifying community contributions

The CRP has been shaped by the knowledge, commitment, and lived experience of hundreds of organizations statewide. We recognize and appreciate these contributions. Together, partners delivered extraordinary results for the 2023-2025 biennium:

  • 400+ organizations received funding
  • 190,000+ people were served by CRP programs
  • Participants in our workforce development program saw a rise in their median incomes from less than $10,000 to nearly $50,000
  • 1,090+ criminal records were vacated
  • 550+ driver’s licenses reinstated
  • And much more: see our full 2023-2025 CRP Implementation Report (PDF)

The first part of the 2025-2027 biennium is already showing strong results. In the first six months:

  • 70+ small businesses received grants for startup, recovery and growth
  • 270+ participants enrolled in CRP’s Career Accelerator program received incentive payments to pursue their career goals

Commitment to ongoing transparency

Your trust and partnership are essential to CRP’s success.

Sincerely,

Sarah Clifthorne
Interim Director
Washington State Department of Commerce