Tag Archives: affordable housing

Seattle details $155M in 2025 affordable housing support including construction, preservation, and new ‘stabilization’ spending on existing buildings

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12th Ave’s Jefferson building (Image: Community Roots Housing)

Seattle City Hall has released its roster of 2025 affordable rental housing investments including funding for the development of three new buildings, plus $33 million to support preservation of existing affordable apartments. The 2025 roster includes support for 2,116 affordable homes across 20 buildings with $155 million in total funding.

The millions, part of the 2025 Notice of Funding Availability, represents Seattle’s strategy to expand the city’s housing supply while trying safeguard existing residents from displacement.

The 2025 investments are distributed across 20 different buildings and focused on new construction, the preservation of existing units, and a first-of-its-kind “stabilization” fund. Continue reading →

Seattle Social Housing Developer moving forward with new leader — UPDATE

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House our Neighbors campaign leader Tiffani McCoy is now leading the Seattle Social Housing Developer

The Seattle Social Housing Developer is moving forward under a new leader as the Seattle City Council takes up legislation this week that will set the terms for taxpayer funding to power the new development authority to borrow enough to build or acquire 2,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years.

Tuesday morning’s meeting of the council’s Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee chaired by Dan Strauss will take up the ordinance allowing the city to enter into an interlocal agreement with the Seattle Social Housing Developer “to establish the terms and procedures for the implementation, administration, transfer, reporting, and oversight” of the voter-approved social housing tax.

Seattle voters approved formation of the public developer and later a 5% tax on employers who pay any employee more than $1 million in compensation to finance the program. The tax is expected to raise more than $50 million annually. Continue reading →

King County Health through Housing program renamed to honor Frank Chopp

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Chopp (Image: King County)

The program to create new supportive housing buildings throughout King County will be named to honor a state legislator who fought for “home, health, and hope” for three decades in Olympia.

Tuesday, the King County Council approved renaming its Health through Housing initiative to honor Frank Chopp. Continue reading →

The Phillis Wheatley YWCA — How city’s effort to protect ‘a central hub’ in Seattle’s Black history could block affordable housing project

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The building as it looks today

By Ayla Nye/UW News Lab

With an affordable housing project set to demolish the building, a December landmarks board hearing could determine the future of a 21st Ave property the city calls “a pivotal location in Seattle’s African American heritage.”

The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections has taken the unusual step of delaying the development of a 49-unit apartment building just off E Madison to determine if the 108-year-old building should be protected on the grounds that the property holds historical and cultural significance, according to the SDCI.

The Madison Inn Work Release, formerly known as the Phillis Wheatley YWCA building, is up for a landmark nomination, a designation that could protect the building from demolition and many types of construction.

Stephanie Johnson-Toliver, president of the Black Heritage Society of Washington State, voiced her concern about the planned building demolition.

Johnson-Toliver is a fourth generation Seattleite. Her family moved to Seattle in 1913 and she has owned her house in the Central District for nearly 30 years. In 1945, her mother was a member of the Phillis Wheatley YWCA Girls Reserve.

“The Phillis Wheatley was created to meet the needs of Black women and children,” Johnson-Toliver said. “They helped shape young women’s opinions and attitudes and we’re socially uplifting them with education and recreation,” she said.

“Established from the ‘Culture Club’ in 1919, this site has been a central hub for black intellectual life, community gathering, black social justice and legal defense groups,” the nomination prepared for the city reads. “It initially functioned as a meeting point and community center, significantly contributing to the social fabric of Seattle’s African American community.”

Ben Maritz is the current owner of the Madison Inn property and the founder of Great Expectations, an affordable housing developer. Maritz has been developing the property since he bought it in July of 2020.

“We went through a whole process, including design review, and received the master use permit, I think, over a year ago,” Maritz said. Continue reading →

Affordable developer Community Roots Housing begins ‘disposition’ process for six more Capitol Hill and Central District properties

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(Image: Community Roots Housing)

Affordable developer Community Roots Housing has not yet put the properties up for sale but an ongoing “disposition” process will include six area apartment complexes including three in a cluster around Capitol Hill’s Miller Park neighborhood.

The early steps in the effort come as the developer says it is facing ongoing challenges from the pandemic including financing issues around its development projects including the new affordable mass-timber development Heartwood at 14th and Union. It also comes in a string of sales the developer has said are strategic transactions and not an effort to sell off its main portfolio. CORRECTION: CHS incorrectly described the Heartwood as a “publicly supported” project but a Community Roots Housing spokesperson says the development was not financed with any public subsidy. We have updated the post.

Previous sales have included some of the more expensive to maintain stock held by Community Roots Housing, created in 1976 as Capitol Hill Housing. The new roster of properties being moved forward under the publicly supported developer’s “Policy Framework for Use of Physical Assets” is different than those recent sales — each of the six properties is subject to federal U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Housing Assistance Payments contracts.

The six properties are the Elizabeth James, Four Twelve, Hazel Plaza, Mary Ruth Manor, Silvian, and Union James apartment complexes, according to a July Community Roots Housing board update. Continue reading →

Seattle Social Housing Developer names first CEO

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The Seattle Social Housing Developer has its first leader. The authority announced that Roberto Jimenez has been appointed as its inaugural Chief Executive Officer.

Jimenez’s career in providing affordable housing includes his work with Mutual Housing California where officials say he doubled the organization’s housing portfolio and maintained a housing development pipeline with $500 million in active real estate development while “successfully engaging residents in board governance.” As Chair of the Board of Housing California, he helped lead statewide housing policy and advocacy efforts,” SSHD says. Continue reading →

43rd District Town Hall: affordable housing, strengthening public healthcare, and pushback on the liquor board

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Chopp

The group of legislators representing Capitol Hill in Olympia say their work in 2024 is focused on increasing the supply of affordable housing, strengthening public healthcare, and taking on an issue of civil rights that has caused outcry in the city’s queer-friendly queer communities.

Sen. Jamie Pedersen, Rep. Nicole Macri, and Rep. Frank Chopp gathered Saturday for the 2024 43rd District Town Hall at First Baptist Church to answer community questions and discuss the most important legislative issues they’re pursuing.

The current legislative session has reached the halfway point as the state’s lawmakers meet for only a 60-day period in even years under Washington’s two-year budget system.

Chopp has long-held a focus on addressing housing concerns and cited the Home and Hope Program, which acquired 30 major sites in King County that created 7,000 homes as an example of progress.

The Housing Trust Fund supports the financing of thousands of low-income housing units across the state. The Apple Health and Homes Program allows individuals who are experiencing chronic homelessness who also live with a medical condition to have housing as part of their medical treatment.

“70% percent of the chronically homeless have a serious medical condition, a mental illness, substance use disorder, a major physical disability,” Chopp said. Continue reading →

‘Largest-ever investment into affordable housing’ — Seattle City Council finalizes 2024 budget but faces big gap in 2025

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The view from Capitol Hill’s Pride Place. Affordable housing spending will reach an all-time high in the city in 2024.

Teresa Mosqueda will step up to represent Seattle constituents the King County Council.

Kshama Sawant is off to start a new national party.

The two veteran Seattle City Council members marked the passage of the final city budget under their watch in familiar fashion with budget chair Mosqueda celebrating wins for human services and housing and Sawant standing alone in opposition to the final compromise package.

The final 2024 Seattle budget plan was approved 8 to 1 by the council acting as committee Monday. Tuesday will bring a final vote, a formality in the multi-month process.

“Thanks to affordable housing and homelessness advocates, our labor partners and human service workers, community members, and our Select Budget Committee colleagues, this budget includes the City’s largest-ever investment into affordable housing—yielding nearly $600 million for affordable across the biennium,” Mosqueda said in a statement. Continue reading →

Affordable, LGBTQIA+ focused, and neighboring Neighbours, Pride Place creates a new home for Capitol Hill seniors

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After decades of community hope, Pride Place is filling with residents.

On Broadway between Pike and Pine, the affordable housing for LGBTQIA+ seniors is the first of its kind in Washington. There are 118 new homes in the project. The conveniences of modern construction and quality windows will help keep dance club Neighbours a good neighbor.

The ribbon was cut on a cold fall night in late October but energy from the new senior residents cut the chill. Taking the stage was Laney, a resident of Pride Place who had been waiting a long time for queer elders to be placed at the forefront of the community’s needs.

“Pride Place is the kind of place my friends and I talked about in our 40s, something we could only dream about,” Laney said.

Pride Place is special. Applicants must financially qualify for the building that is utilizing “affirmative marketing” to reach out to underrepresented communities and help make the new building a home for the LGBTQIA+ senior community. The building cannot restrict leasing to queer-identifying seniors because of federal housing law. Instead, Pride Place is reaching out to LGBTQIA+ seniors who meet income requirements.

Laney was a longtime resident of Capitol Hill until COVID hit and she took to the road in her minivan, leaving behind her close-knit queer community. It wasn’t a decision she took lightly, while her travels over the next couple years were full of adventure she couldn’t forget those she had left behind.

“I missed my queer community,” Laney said. “I returned to Seattle but there was no way that I could afford my apartment on Capitol Hill any longer — I couldn’t return to my beloved neighborhood.” Continue reading →

The Fredonia: Sale means new life for 115-year-old Capitol Hill apartment building with proceeds helping to create ‘hundreds of affordable units’ in Seattle

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(Image: Community Roots Housing)

Affordable housing provider and developer Community Roots Housing has sold the 115-year-old, three-story, 12-unit Fredonia building bringing more change to the built environment along Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E and illustrating there remains a strong market for even the Hill’s oldest and smallest apartment buildings.

It is a free market — the buyer won’t be an affordable property manager or a Public Development Authority. It won’t be the city’s newly formed but not yet operational Seattle Social Housing developer. According to King County property records, the buyer is real estate investor Bryan Syrdal and Tributary Investments, a company that purchases and develops mixed-use properties with market-rate rents. The price for the Fredonia? $5 million.

Tributary has not responded to CHS inquiries but a spokesperson for Community Roots said the sale makes sense for the organization to move on from a historic building with only a handful of units and “a lot of capital needs.” The proceeds from the sale will help Community Roots provide “hundreds of affordable units” elsewhere in the city, the spokesperson said.

UPDATE: Syrdal tells CHS he is looking forward to renovating the building.

“I own and have renovated a number of older properties and used to sit on the Ballard Landmark’s board,” Syrdal writes. “My partners at Meriwether Partners have renovated and own projects of a similar profile.”

Continue reading →