Volunteer board gets relief

$4.7 million grant will renovate Metaline Falls apartments

METALINE FALLS — A group of volunteers has kept the Kaniksu Village low-income apartments going in Metaline Falls, collecting rent, plowing snow and even buying appliances after the management company didn’t renew its contract.

Kathy Mondich is on the five-member board of directors. She was happy to hear that Rural Resources Community Action has been awarded $4.7 million to renovate the 22-unit apartments.

“We’re really relieved,” Mondich said. The apartments need a lot of work, substantial plumbing and electrical work and the board couldn’t do it, especially without financing from grants.

She and other volunteers have kept the apartments going for the people who lived there. She once bought a washer and dryer to replace the one that broke.

“I went on craigslist and bought them,” she said. She has even used her four-wheeler to plow snow there.

She has been a volunteer for Rural Resources for 30 years and brought Kaniksu Village up with a Rural Resources official. She’s not sure if that started the ball rolling towards the grant, but it brought it to their attention.

Nicki Dickinson is the president of the non-profit Kaniksu Village board. The retired Mountain west banker said she does the bookkeeping, and she and Mondich collect the rents.

“For the most part, the people are real good about paying,” she said. But the rent payments she and Mondich collected from the 22 one-bedroom apartments, about a third of a tenant’s income, really wasn’t enough for upkeep.

The volunteer board managed the apartments with the rent money, paying for electricity, which could cost as much as $6,500 a month in the winter, Mondich said.

The property has required significant upgrades for several years, and the new funding will be used to fully renovate all unit interiors, as well as replace roofs, plumbing and electrical components, according to a news release from Rural Resources.

Funding was awarded through Washington’s Housing Trust Fund Program, which provides capital investments to support affordable housing throughout the state. The funding award was the result of a joint effort between Rural Resources, Pend Oreille County, the Spokane Housing Authority, and the Office of Rural & Farmworkers Housing.

Kaniksu Village will be sold to Rural Resources for $1, said Alaina Kowitz, communications and outreach director for Rural Resources. The transaction hasn’t been finalized yet.

“I believe we wanted to get the renovation funding before we took on management of the property,” Kowitz said.

In the news release, Bryan Raines, Rural Resources CEO, said the partnerships were what allowed the funding to be awarded.

“Strong local support and partnerships are critical for projects of this scale to gain traction,” he said.

In addition to political support, Rural Resources received funding from Pend Oreille County to do emergency repairs and to administer a study of the apartment complex, the results of which were used to apply for the grant.

Pend Oreille County commissioner Robert Rosencrantz is interim finance chair for Rural Resources. He said because county commissioners trusted Rural Resources, they awarded some funding, a step towards the larger grant.

“This grant means that critical affordable housing in Metaline Falls will be preserved,” Rosencrantz said. “It also represents a significant step in the right direction for the economic revitalization of North Pend Oreille County.”

Three vacant units will be renovated first, into which current residents will move while their units undergo renovations. Units will be updated three at a time until the remodel is complete. Construction is scheduled to begin in September 2026 and is expected to be completed by June 2027.

The apartments were built in the 1970s, Mondich said. She said the Kobota family had a lot to do with their coming about.

“Kaniksu Village is more than housing – it’s a home for 22 families,” said Pam Parr, Executive Director of the Spokane Housing Authority in the news release.

Dickinson is aware of that. She has worked to keep it going since 2017.

“It’s refreshing to be able to look back on it and say, ‘We did it,’” she said.