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Founded in 1923, the Kitsap Forest Theater begins its second century of presenting shows among the evergreens in a natural amphitheater in the Rhododendron Preserve near Bremerton.

Jordan Lewis, a 38-year-old landscape architect, left Seattle in 2019 after realizing he could get a home in Bremerton with a mortgage payment of “only around $400 more than I would have paid to continue to rent in Seattle with a roommate.”

Both safety and price were factors when Luca Neighbor, 32, a former renter from Northgate in Seattle bought a three-bedroom home in Bremerton with his fiancée in 2022.

In Bremerton, the typical first-time buyer now earns just 48% of the income necessary to afford a starter home, down from 76% just three years ago, according to UW’s affordability index.

One of them is Simmons, who is from Bremerton and is Washington’s first formerly incarcerated lawmaker.