Summer 1998 Newsletter

Last Update: August, 1998

An Open Letter from the Executive Director

by Linda Murtfeldt

May 31st was proclaimed Seattle Habitat for Humanity Day by King County Executive Ron Sims for the second year in a row!! It was a wonderful day because in addition to the proclamation, tens of volunteers, Habitat families, supporters, and staff gathered at the South Park South building site to dedicate our first two homes at this site and celebrate the breaking of ground for houses three and four!

I thought all of you would be interested to know about all the support we have been receiving from King County, so I've decided to take this opportunity to tell you about all the partnerships we have been developing. Since 1994, Seattle Habitat has been working with Youthbuild Together, a King County sponsored work training program for at risk young adults. These young people have worked at the Walker Townhomes, the Lexington site, and now the South Park South site. They have helped us to build four homes now! This is a program which gets some of its funding through HUD, and both provides educational as well as job-skills training to its participants. During 1997, we were delighted that one of our homeowner families had a son in the program who just graduated with his GED this spring. This group of young people, with their skilled leaders, will be helping to build the third and fourth homes at South Park during the spring and summer. We are able to obtain a little bit of funding to help with construction staff salaries as a part of this program.

Seattle Habitat for Humanity has been very fortunate to receive funding through the King County Housing Finance Program. In 1997 Seattle Habitat used $117,000 of HOME funds to purchase our Shoreline building site, with a little money left over for site infrastructure. This year we have again applied for HOME funds and have just learned that we have been awarded $72,020 to purchase two lots in White Center. These lots, as well as several in the Central Area of Seattle, have been made available to Seattle Habitat through a King County program where surplus land is being sold to organizations who will develop affordable housing on the property. If our proposals are accepted, King County will make half of our 1999 building lots available to us.

King County has yet another training program that is working with us to build one of the Lexington Place South homes. The Wood Construction Program of Seattle Central Community College, a community college supported by King County, trains young adults, and not so young adults, the "ins" and "outs" of residential construction. These students are learning how to build houses by actually doing everything on one of our homes from foundation through punch list. This home will take about a year to construct to allow for plenty of training time along the way. We are still searching for a sponsor, or sponsors, for this house, so please let us know if you or your group might be interested. They are allowing our volunteers to do the roofing and insulation, and maybe painting, so there would be plenty of work for a sponsoring group.

It is indeed a pleasure to work with King County, and to be able to take advantage of so many county programs which augment our building of homes in partnership with lower income families. King County, through Seattle Habitat for Humanity, is helping to make home ownership more than just a dream!