The value of housing
It seems that some neighbors of Magnolia’s Fort Lawton Army Reserve base aren’t very original in their objections to having homeless housing in their neighborhood.
At an Aug. 21 Seattle City Council hearing on a redevelopment proposal that calls for Seattle’s Archdiocesan Housing Authority to build 85 units of homeless housing at the site and private developers to build 108-125 homes and townhouses, some residents raised concerns about their safety.
At Councilmember Tim Burgess’ request, AHA’s Bill Hallerman described a similar but much bigger uproar in the 1980s over converting Queen Anne’s Aloha Inn to 66 units of homeless housing. But a neighborhood group that once kept an eye on the place disbanded years ago because members no longer saw the need, Hallerman said.
“And home values on Queen Anne,” Burgess quipped, “have not gone down, have they?”
By CYDNEY GILLIS, Staff Reporter
Just play-acting
Nickelsville is coming; you can tell by the dead people.
Homeless people and allies are making a statement in support of a permanent solution to the shelter crunch this Fri., Aug. 29 at Westlake Center at 4:30 p.m. They’ll lay prostrate in the public square to honor the 21 homeless people who have died outside this year. The die-in is an awareness-raising event for the permanently rooted tent community dubbed Nickelsville, which local homeless activists have been planning since June. Nickelsville is slated to open by Sept. 21.
Evidence indicates that another alternative to the streets will be popular: The city government’s 35-bed shelter for women and refugees of its sweeps is already filled to capacity, and it’s only 12 days old.
Farm and labor
Labor Day and harvest time come around together in Washington, and they merit a look at the living conditions of those who labor over the state’s multibillion-dollar agricultural sector. How do Washington farmworkers and their families fare?
The state Farmworker Housing Trust interviewed 2,845 workers in the 14 counties that produce 95 percent of the state’s bounty in 2006. Among the findings: 79 percent are permanent Washington residents, 60 percent have children at home, and those homes tend to be too costly (44 percent are paying more than they can afford in rent) and rundown (about one-third deal with rodent infestations). Eighty percent have no health insurance. The average household income was almost $18,000, 12 percent less than the federal poverty level for a family of four, and too low to afford the state’s average rent for a two-bedroom home in a nonmetropolitan area.
Much media attention has been paid to ill-housed workers east of the mountains, but the problem may be more acute on the west side, says the report, where farmworker pay is lower and housing is much more costly.
The Farmworker Housing Trust estimates that Washington’s agricultural regions need an extra 39,000 units for local and migrant farmworkers during the harvest season. The group released its findings this month.
By Adam Hyla, Editor |
