Every home has a story, and as Habitat SKKC celebrates our 40th anniversary in 2026, we’re excited to share the stories that have shaped the past four decades. Throughout the year, we’ll be highlighting legacy family stories from across our history — stories of partnership, resilience, and hope that remind us why this work matters.
Asha D. is a creative and curious artist and mother of Leisl, Margot, and Francis. She grew up in the Florida panhandle and spent many years traveling the country with her three children to find the region that felt most like home. She found it in Washington state in 2017, and since putting down roots here has become engaged in the local theater and arts community.
When Asha discovered that Margot needed speech-language therapy as a baby and toddler, her daughter’s journey inspired Asha to become a speech-language pathologist. After graduating with a master’s degree in 2017, Asha began working in the public schools in King County. Asha finds a lot of joy in her work, thanks in no small part to the amazing kids she serves. “I love the weird stuff they come up with (plus, of course, it’s rewarding to see them grow and all that). But they really do have the best jokes,” she adds.
When she first moved her kids up to the Seattle area, she found an affordable two-bedroom house in Lynnwood that had not been updated since at least the mid-1980s. Sometimes, the dishwasher malfunctioned spectacularly, spewing water two feet into the air. Once, while hanging Christmas lights on the back deck, her foot softly fell through the boards of the porch. The house had no A/C, terrible ventilation in the summer, and a disappointing heater—but it backed onto a sweet little park.
Everyone who visited told her the house was so nice, and Asha did love it. Trying to keep things in perspective, Asha reminded herself that if she maintained a house like that back in Florida, it would be invaded with bugs and mold within a couple of months. This is one reason she loves the Pacific Northwest. She adored their quirky little house, but it was a rental, and the price kept going up. She feared she would have to leave the community she had just started to connect with, priced out by 2020.
Asha first learned about Habitat for Humanity when she moved to Seattle, as she had volunteered with another Habitat affiliate in Portland. She signed up for the email newsletter, and when the house she now lives in appeared, she applied on a whim. She ended up closing on her home within three months. A few weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down.
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The family moved into their Habitat home in June of 2020, a “pretty quiet but super weird year.” Her home quickly morphed, becoming both the kids’ school and her workplace. Asha tried to help them with schoolwork while also working full time.
Because she didn’t have to commute that year, she tackled many home projects. YouTube taught her how to change out ceiling lights and install wallpaper in the bathroom. That DIY project helped turn the room into her favorite in the house. The bathroom features four different styles of toile wallpaper, including one depicting Greek gods and another a French countryside, and a hand-painted sink from Mexico. It’s a tiny room, but it’s pretty and 100% hers. Asha also painted the house and really rooted down, making it a home.
Not much surprised Asha about homeownership, which she attributes to being a “bit of a research nut.” She watched a ton of videos leading up to buying the home and even has a savings account specifically for appliances. She knows she’ll have to replace things eventually. But coming from a place where hurricanes tore the city apart every year, she considers replacing a water heater a privilege in comparison—and far less expensive than replacing a roof.
Maintaining a comfortable home for her family is a central priority for her. Asha jokes, “I like to pretend that my most prolific hobby is cleaning my house—because if I tell myself it’s a hobby, then the fact that I spend so many hours doing it a week won’t make me feel like I’m wasting the crucial moments of my life that I could be spending with my kids or engaging in creative work on yet another set of dishes.”
She is selling herself short. When not working, parenting, or keeping up her house, Asha is also a writer and journalist. She loves all the amazing people she has had the opportunity to meet and work with over the years. She believes there are so many ways of being in this world, and through her reporting, she can connect and learn about the ways different folks think and live their lives. She also volunteers at her kids’ schools and has recently taken up roller skating. She adds, “I’m an actual disaster on wheels. But it’s loads of fun to meet up with my local friends and zoom around (incredibly slowly) on Pride Night.”
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The dining room is the center of their house. One of her other COVID projects was painting a mural on the dining room table. On holidays, the family squeezes in and eats together, surrounded by the vines and monstera she has managed to keep alive. They’ve lived there for 5.5 years now, which is half of her youngest child’s life.
Asha reflects, “It’s not a perfect house, but it’s the kind of togetherness that can only happen with roots. I love the idea that my kids will associate the place and the moments we’ve made there with home.”
