The new public housing complexes materializing in King County this year aspire to put a roof over the heads of low-income families while combating homelessness. However, the process has not been without its challenges.
South Seattle's NewHolly Complex is one such development. It provides living-wage, low-income and market rate housing in a modern and orderly cluster of homes. It's a mix that projects an image meant to avert the stigmas associated with the low-income housing projects of the past.
When finished, NewHolly will have 1,390 units of two, three, and four bedroom homes to rent and own, each designed to blend in, and be inoffensive to, the neighborhood. Located near parks and recreational areas, the South End spot was primarily chosen because of its eventual proximity to Sound Transit's Light Rail project currently underway. The general idea is to bunch families together in an area that allows residents easy access to transportation and other resources.
"It used to be seen as an assault on single families," said King County Councilmember Dwight Pelz during a late January on-site public briefing at NewHolly, "but today people realize that if you cluster them, it's an amenity to the single family."
However, aside from these apparent improvements in public housing (NewHolly is one of four complexes of its kind in King County), the need remains glaring.
"There's a very dark face on public housing," Pelz asserted.
In recent decades, the population's flight into the city increased real estate prices and many middle class Seattleites displaced the low-income earners who couldn't afford to house themselves anymore. According to King County Councilmember Larry Phelps, the trend toward moving into the city benefited the area by increasing density and community, but he feels the subsequent gentrification is a downfall.
In the midst of the increased need for housing, there has been a fundamental shift at the federal level, marked by a significant decline in funding and an emphasis away from the federal government and toward the local level. As a result of projected falls in federal funding, 370 of the local families currently being provided for will ultimately be cut off.
The community meets
The first town hall meeting of 2005, held at the NewHolly Gathering Hall on Jan. 31, addressed the issue of housing, and exposed the bare bones of the King County Housing organization.
At present, Washington ranks top-five in the nation for lack of affordable housing, announced Kim Herman, executive director of the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.
NewHolly is a project under an umbrella program called Hope VI Public and Indian Housing, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. High Point in West Seattle, Rainier Vista in Columbia City (both expected to open in 2005), and the senior citizen project Westwood Heights in West Seattle, were also redeveloped by the federal program.
"The project is not without controversy," Pelz noted.
Although NewHolly has a self-enforced quota of low-income earners to house, the phenomenon of designating living-wage and market-rate housing alongside low-income housing is somewhat problematic. Will low-income housing be sacrificed? What kind of environment will this combination produce?
Pelz and council chair Phillips discard the notion that the community might still feel negatively toward these housing units. Over 190 families have already lived in the area, and the council members hope the addition of the light rail will streamline the new housing units while helping the neighborhood adjust to the change. Until light rail is complete, NewHolly residents can walk to the supermarket and catch the Metro.
NewHolly was preceded by the original Holly Park, which was built in the 1940s as housing for World War II defense workers and veterans. In 1995 the Seattle Housing Authority began tearing down these aging and exclusively low-income housing units and replacing them with a wider range of housing as well as community and health services.
Today, the Neighborhood Campus of NewHolly includes a learning center, a Seattle Public Library branch, classrooms for South Seattle Community College, Head Start, child care, youth, family, and teen programs, community building activities and employment programs to help residents get and keep living-wage jobs. All of these programs hope to keep more families housed.
However, homelessness is growing and more solutions are needed, quickly. According to Reverend Robert V. Taylor, chair of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County, there are more than 8,000 homeless people living in King County on any given night, and without the public and political will to resolve the issue, these people will remain on the street.
For many, the struggle means much more than just finding a job.
A minimum wage earner in Washington must work over 80 hours a week to afford average rent, said Kim Herman of the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.
During the open microphone at the Jan. 31 meeting, Ray, a homeless and unemployed man who often stays at the Harbor House Safe Haven in Seattle, approached the mic and talked about the need for change.
Pelz asked Ray what he could find in the way of housing if he was employed.
"Nothing," said Ray. "Nothing here."[[In-content Ad]]
