In brief: HUD grants aim to help homeless
Homeless people in North Idaho should have access to additional resources thanks to a series of grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Idaho Housing Finance Association received $2.56 million in Continuum of Care grants from HUD to help provide permanent and transitional housing to homeless people in Idaho, the association said in a news release. The money was part of $1.5 billion that HUD committed nationwide.
In North Idaho, the Bonner County Homeless Task Force received 191,635 for Trestle Creek and Blue Haven transitional housing in Hope and Sandpoint, respectively. The Clearwater Housing program received $63,965 for 12 units of permanent housing in Lewiston.
Also, St. Vincent de Paul received $187,929 for 12 units of transitional housing in Coeur d’Alene and $41,576 for Kamps Apartments transitional housing in Post Falls. Sojourner’s Alliance received $81,735 for Truth House transitional housing in Moscow. YWCA of Lewiston received $74,014 for Lewiston Transitional Housing.
Spokane County
Two sex offenders move into area
Two level 3 sex offenders have moved into Spokane-area neighborhoods, local law enforcement said Friday.
Justin Jay Stevens, 31, is living in the 6000 block of North Rambo Road on the West Plains, Spokane County sex crime investigators said. Stevens was convicted in 1995 of raping a 78-year-old woman at knifepoint. He was released from prison in 2003 and is no longer under state supervision.
Stevens is white, 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes. He has tattoos on his left finger, lower left arm, upper right arm, chest and right shoulder.
Sylvester H. Mahone, 36, is living on the 2000 block of West First Avenue in downtown Spokane.
Mahone was convicted in 1993 of the third-degree rape of a 14-year-old girl and in 1998 of communicating with a 12-year-old girl for immoral purposes. Both offenses were committed in Benton County. He is no longer under state supervision.
Mahone is black, 5-foot-9 and 210 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.
Level 3 sex offenders are considered by law enforcement as most likely to offend again.
Three-car crash injures two
Two people were injured in a three-car crash Saturday evening at the intersection of State Route 195 and Cheney-Spangle Road near Spangle.
Richard Smith, 46, and his passenger, Peggy Johnson, 58, both of Lewiston, were still in the emergency room at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane four hours after the crash.
According to the Washington State Patrol, Smith was northbound on SR 195 in a 1995 Ford Windstar shortly before 5 p.m. when Pamela Kerstetter, 50, of Edwall, entered the intersection. Smith’s van struck Kerstetter’s 2007 Saturn Aura, which had been westbound on Cheney-Spangle Road, police said.
The impact knocked both vehicles into the southbound lane of SR 195, where Mary Pilch, 21, of Sequim, Wash., plowed into Smith’s vehicle with her 2000 Audi A4, police said.
Kerstetter was cited for failure to yield the right of way.
Everyone was wearing a seat belt.
HAMMOND, Ore.
At least two dead after boat capsizes
Two men died and a third was missing Saturday as a boat crabbing off the northern Oregon coast capsized, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
It appeared that a crab-pot line got tangled on an outboard motor, destabilizing the 16-foot vessel, said Bob Coster, search-and-rescue coordinator at the Coast Guard’s Astoria station.
The agency said one victim washed up on shore at Clatsop Spit near Hammond.
Coster said a Coast Guard crew found a second body tangled in an anchor line.
The victims’ names were not immediately released. The agency said the men whose bodies were recovered were from the Salem-Newberg area.
Neither had a life jacket, Coster said.
The weather was mild, the Coast Guard said, with winds of 4 knots to 6 knots and 10 miles of visibility.
LYNNWOOD, Wash.
4,000 pot plants seized in raids
Investigators say they seized more than 4,000 marijuana plants from homes in King and Snohomish counties during raids last week.
More than 1,100 plants were found in houses in Lynnwood and Everett, and in a related case, about 3,200 plants were seized in two houses in King County.
Detectives believe the indoor pot farms were set up and tended by drug traffickers connected to Vietnamese criminal groups.
“These were professional jobs. We’re not talking 10 plants in a closest,” Lynnwood police Sgt. Jim Nelson, a supervisor with the South Snohomish County Narcotics Task Force, told the Herald newspaper of Everett.
The grow operations included advanced ventilation systems, and at one home electricity was being stolen to avoid a suspiciously large power bill, authorities said.
Detectives arrested three people in the raids Thursday, all in Lynnwood. Son Bui, 40, and his girlfriend, Tran Luong, 46, set up the operations in Lynnwood and Everett, police say.
The third suspect, Cang Nguyen, 32, told police he was paid about $15,000 every three months to tend marijuana plants at a Lynnwood house, court records said. The group also is believed to be connected to two growing operations in King County, Nelson said.