The saying goes, “There’s strength in numbers,” and two housing agencies serving low income, disabled and senior clients in the Tri-Cities area are counting on that to be true by creating a new consortium.

The Benton Franklin Housing Consortium officially formed on Oct. 17, when the chairmen of the boards of the Kennewick Housing Authority and the Housing Authority of the City of Pasco and Franklin County signed off on a consortium agreement. The two agencies will remain separate, but they’ll work more closely together, align their practices, and be able to join forces to obtain grants.

“We’re excited about where this may lead,” said Matt Truman, executive director of the Pasco and Franklin County housing authority, who’ll hold the same position for the new consortium.

He used an analogy to explain the idea behind the arrangement: One Clydesdale horse can pull 8,000 pounds on its own, he said, but two can pull 24,000 pounds when working together.

“I’m hoping that’s the same thing with our agencies,” Truman said. “We each pull a tremendous amount of weight, and we each do a lot of good in the community. But I’m hoping that with this consortium, we can pull a lot more weight and serve many more throughout the community.”

Both agencies have about 20 staff members, who’ll remain employees of their respective agencies.

Truman also will remain an employee of the Housing Authority of the City of Pasco and Franklin County, while being contracted to work with the Kennewick Housing Authority. The Kennewick agency’s current executive director, Lona Hammer, is set to retire in February.

Hammer said the consortium has been in the works for some time, drawing support from the two agencies’ governing boards and city and county governments. She expects it to be a money saver, noting that, “Matt and I go to a number of the same meetings, do a number of the same tasks. One director can do that with no increase in time. He can represent our (region) and be the face of it.”

And standing together as a consortium representing the entire Tri-Cities area, rather than the two smaller Kennewick and Pasco/Franklin County areas, will mean greater leverage when seeking funding, she said.

“It paints a bigger picture and a broader picture. I do think we may be more competitive in state and federal (funding) rounds because we’re representing not just the city of Kennewick or the city of Pasco, but the needs of the whole area,” Hammer told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.

The two agencies are currently providing housing help to about 2,200 people through their various programs. They already work together to some degree, but through the consortium they’ll use the same forms, procedures, practices and so on, Truman said. They’ll keep their own governing boards.

Truman said the move to a consortium model isn’t unusual.

“You see a lot of this going on around the country,” especially as workers retire, Truman said. “We’re being asked to do more with less. This is a way we can do more with less.”

Kennewick Housing Authority: kennewickha.org.

Housing Authority of the City of Pasco and Franklin County: hacpfc.org.