A safe parking lot in Bellevue took a year to set up, which may be longer than it lasts

After a year of searching for the right service provider, the Bellevue City Council agreed to a deal this week with a local nonprofit to run the city’s first parking lot for homeless people living in their vehicles.

This spring, homeless families living in cars could soon have a safe place to park in Bellevue. On Monday the City Council approved Redmond-based nonprofit, 4 Tomorrow, to set up and run the site near I-405.

“We are extremely excited to have the operator on site that we have,” said Nico Quijano, Bellevue’s homelessness outreach manager, “4 Tomorrow is a local organization, they have experience working with families, families experiencing homelessness, and families living in their vehicles.”

RELATED: King County Homelessness Authority gets new leader, for now

The parking lot will offer onsite case management services, security, and bathrooms with showers. There will be room for 20 families, though officials know that there's at least that many people living in their vehicles in the city of Bellevue.

“The program will start by preferring or prioritizing people who are living in passenger vehicles as opposed to RVs or other larger vehicles,” Quijano said.

The Council’s decision on Monday comes a year after they approved the safe parking lot pilot program. It’s taken months to find the right service provider capable of running the site.

Most nonprofits with the right experience were too busy to take on the Bellevue project, Quijano said.

Bellevue will pay 4 Tomorrow $450,000 to run the lot only through the end of 2024, since it is a pilot program.

“There's options to renew through parts of 2025,” Quijano said, “after which we'll look at the program to see how it's gone and consider further extensions in the program.”

It’s still unclear when people can start moving in, but Quijano said the city is hoping for “early spring.”

That means the program may run for less time than Bellevue took to get it started.

RELATED: Rocky times leave homelessness philanthropy a question mark

This article has been updated to clarify that the lot will not be dedicated to RVs along, rather, it will host people living in their vehicles. People living in automobiles other than RVs will be given priority.