Spring definitely blew in like a lion but is now reminding us what we love about the Northwest! The clocks have changed, students are busy with spring quarter, and the CCC is working to put final touches on several successful 2015-2016 initiatives ahead of the brief, but much-anticipated, summer lull.

The successful Tenant Safety Workshop was held in February and we'll be making the speaker videos from that event available shortly. This event was a great collaborative effort with a variety of partners, including the WWU Associated Students, City of Bellingham, Bellingham Fire Department, and the Northwest Clean Air Agency.

The Tenant WasteTaskforce's Education Subgroup is hard at work on the "Education" side of the tenant waste issue. We're putting final touches on a logo, educational materials and an outreach campaign ahead of the end of the academic year/lease changeover dates. We hope you'll see educational yard signs and other highly visible outreach in action soon!

Work on the Online Rental Class is well underway, thanks to the hard-working students of WWU's English 402 class and the CCC's student video production assistant. We still have a few informational videos and info graphics to add to the content, but this free course, which students at all of the campuses will be able to enroll in and complete at their own pace, is almost ready to go live! This is a great project, which will serve to consolidate the information currently found in a variety of places and to institutionalize the information that students need to have about living off campus in Bellingham.

Collaborations with Neighborhood Police Officers - I continue to work closely with BPD's Neighborhood Police Officers, particularly Officer Osterkamp, in addressing specific student-related issues in neighborhoods with targeted outreach and education. In March, Officer Osterkamp and I outreached to young adult households which had received noise violation tickets over the past few months, in an effort to determine what happened at each incident and to find out from students what information would have been helpful for them to have had in order to keep their gathering from becoming a disturbance to the surrounding neighborhood. This continues to be a highly effective collaborative effort that benefits neighborhoods and students alike, as we ascertain what education gaps exist for students and can take steps to include this educational information in the Online Rental Course and other outlets.

Rental Registration and Safety Inspection - We continue to work closely with the City of Bellingham's Rental Registration and Safety Inspection staff in anticipation of the rental inspections starting soon. Expanded outreach efforts to get the word out about the RRSIP continue through a variety of methods. We all understand the importance of getting good information out to student-tenants and to ensure that all students have access to safe housing in the community.

Partnerships - I appreciate working closely with so many of you, especially with the hard working members of the community and Neighborhood Associations, WWU student groups and with the staff of the City of Bellingham. Our numerous shared successes are only possible because we are all working together to make Bellingham better.

 

If you have questions about any of our projects, want to pitch in, or want to meet and talk about the work, feel free to email me! Thanks for reading up on what's new with us and for your support!