Habitat for Humanity SKKC staff, volunteers, and supporters proudly joined the vibrant sea of rainbow shirts and flags as they marched alongside over 250 other groups in Seattle’s Pride Parade on Sunday, June 30. This year’s parade celebrated its 50th anniversary with the theme of NOW!
Habitat SKKC took that theme to heart with this year’s Pride Build aimed at creating inclusive communities where everyone has a safe place to live. Seventy-five volunteers contributed their labor in June’s first weeks to assure that members of the region’s LGBTQ+ community have access to safe and affordable housing.
Habitat’s annual Pride Build is designed to raise awareness of the need for affordable housing for all and its power to transform lives for the better. For Pride Build 2024, Habitat SKKC partnered with area organizations and allies to raise $16,000 in support of homeownership for LGBTQ+ families and individuals.
Habitat SKKC is dedicated to building safe, affordable, and inclusive communities for all our hard-working and marginalized neighbors across Seattle-King & Kittitas Counties. We pay special attention to groups that have historically faced systemic discrimination in accessing homeownership, ensuring their needs are prioritized by Habitat SKKC and our supporters.
Interested in being a part of Pride Build or the Pride Parade next year? Contact Alex Wyatt at alex.wyatt@habitatskc.org for more information.
Residents of Habitat for Humanity SKKC’s Walker Townhomes community were ecstatic to see Habitat volunteers arrive to help them with their repairs work party June 1st. The community, finished in 1997, has been managed by a self-governing Homeowners Association (HOA) since the first Habitat homeowners moved in 28 years ago. The volunteer work party that arrived to help Walker Townhome residents is part of a pilot program Habitat initiated this year as part of its Community Associations group.
Led by Community Associations Program Manager, Karissa Johnson, the pilot program is aimed at helping to ensure that Habitat’s Legacy Communities (those that pre-date Habitat’s land trust/ground lease, are in HOA’s and are more than 10 years old) continue to grow, thrive and become lasting permanently affordable housing for generations to come. As Karissa says, “The lessons learned can be readily applied to Habitat’s new builds allowing those communities to benefit from the wisdom of those who came before to make them even more successful from the start.”
Twelve HOA communities, totaling about 190 homes qualify as Legacy communities. With housing and insurance costs rising dramatically, many HOA’s are short of funding to keep their properties appropriately maintained, a problem that restricts mortgage funding options. Habitat’s pilot program for Legacy communities is designed to support Habitat’s HOA’s in meeting the requirements for lenders to approve standard mortgages when homes are up for resale. In its pilot, Habitat joined forces with the Walker Townhomes HOA to conduct property repairs the HOA didn’t have the resources to cover or complete.
The program’s approach is comprehensive and specific at once. Each community or individual homeowner in the program will receive help tailored to their status. For example, one property received deck repairs under forgivable liens, one has been plugged into the PSE retrofit grants for lighting, another is getting a free exterior inspection, and a community meeting to better educate everyone about their HOA so they may become more involved with their Board.
The Legacy Communities program is aligned with Habitat SKKC’s current emphasis on building communities. At the Walker Townhomes work party, brand-new owner, Logan, who had lived there for fewer than 48 hours, came out to meet his neighbors and help. He joined Mr. Nguyen, an original owner, who brought out his photo album with hundreds of pictures of his neighbors working together to build their units with Habitat back in the late 90s.
Program Manager Karissa has big plans, “I hope, in the long-term, that the program will bring our Legacy properties into Habitat’s permanently affordable housing portfolio, increase our relationship with our owners and the greater community, as well as impact decisions we make in new builds.” Eventually, the Legacy Communities program can enrich the long-standing HOA’s and ensure the HOA’s for new projects are strong, funded, supported and educated to be the best possible community experience for our partner families and every generation to come.
Recent research from Habitat International confirms the benefits of homeownership to families and society as a whole. Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King & Kittitas Counties is celebrating those benefits with National Homeownership Month in June.
Among the findings is that social and civic engagement are essential to representation in the democratic process, and both are heavily influenced by access to — or lack of — affordable housing. Homeownership and the stability it provides to low-income families improves life satisfaction, increases civic participation and affects positive educational and health outcomes for families.
Habitat homeowner Makio Pastolero started by volunteering at Habitat’s Tyler Town North Bend community. He worked there every Saturday for a year and learned a lot in the process.
His fellow volunteers encouraged Makio to apply for a Tyler Town home as his family grew and, in 2023, he acquired a 3-bedroom home with a yard for himself, his wife and baby girl.
“When we moved in,” he says, “it really felt more like our home, because I remember laying the floor, caulking the windows, building the deck, and painting. I would not have done it any other way. Now, I have a passion for maintaining my home and my community.”
Habitat homeowner Iulia Zabadov credits her education to the financial stability that owning her Snoqualmie Habitat home gave her. Iulia earned a BA in Business Administration and is now employed by Bellevue College. She was able to go to school while working full time, because she had plenty of neighborhood support. Iulia says the help she received from her neighbors was a “safe haven” for herself and her children. “It is a wonderful neighborhood for them to grow up in.” Her son Nicolae is studying electrical engineering at Bellevue College, and daughter Vera is in high school.
Habitat research also found that homeownership can mitigate some racial gaps in civic engagement. When levels of education, income and employment are equal, Black populations are equally civically engaged compared with their white counterparts.
Habitat SKKC is an active member of the Black Homeowners Initiative (BHI) with its mission to create more Black homeowners in our region, and a partnership with African Community Housing & Development (ACHD) to build and steward 65 new, permanently affordable homes across three sites on Martin Luther King Way S. in Seattle’s Rainier Valley.
Habitat homeowner Treaous Florence-Moreland (Tea) feels the stability of homeownership has helped her children’s education, as well as her financial situation. With a stable location, Tea’s children were able to live close to their schools, friends, and family; a few of them have attended Seattle Central Community College. Tea herself has attended UW classes, growing her career from medical assistant to administration at the Medical Center. Now, she’s looking ahead to retirement with a sense of security.
Habitat for Humanity affiliates share the same vision: a world where everyone has a safe, decent, and affordable place to live. National Homeownership Month is an opportunity to support that mission and to amplify the message that homeownership is good for everybody.
How to Celebrate Homeownership Month this June
Anyone can contribute to Habitat SKKC’s celebration of National Homeownership Month. Here’s how:
Every evening, thousands of families in Seattle and the metro area wonder where they’ll live next year. Will they be able to renew their lease? Will they be able to afford a mortgage? Will they be able to find a home that meets their needs? The One Seattle Comprehensive Plan is important, because it will affect generations of families like this for decades to come. We must get the One Seattle plan right to create housing solutions, so more of our neighbors don’t have to worry about where they’ll be able to live and, instead, they can start living.
As a permanently affordable housing provider, Habitat for Humanity has worked with community members in Seattle, King, and Kittitas Counties for 38 years. We’ve heard and seen families and individuals buckling under pressure from rising housing prices and very few options.
The path forward is clear: a revised and ambitious Comprehensive Plan that should reform zoning rules and housing policies to allow more homes of all shapes and sizes; and incentivize affordable housing and homeownership. More importantly, we need to build upon our recent historic, nearly $1 billion investment in affordable housing, the Seattle Housing Levy. Systemic problems call for systemic solutions.
