Fall 1999 Newsletter

Seattle Habitat Home
Last Update: October, 1999
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NEWS FROM THE SITES:
Seattle Habitat Plans Intensive Fall and Winter Build Schedule

Over 100 people celebrated as the three Shoreline site homes were dedicated on Aug. 11. Seattle Habitat purchased this surplus King County property two years ago using County HOME dollars. After six months of site development work, construction began. One of these homes is our first "Women's House" and the other two were sponsored by the Shoreline Coalition of Churches and The USAA Foundation and built by the church coalition. It's been great working for the first time in the new city of Shoreline, and we hope to find additional sites to renovate or on which to build in that area.

We are building in the Central Area and have completed one home with the Ahmed family and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church of Mercer Island. The new model designed for the site (thanks to former VISTA volunteer Laurie Reed) takes advantage of new building techniques which have allowed us to save on lumber, and thus costs and trees. We'll be changing the roof pitch and using this model twice more as we build homes on 23rd Avenue as part of The City of Seattle's first Demonstration Project. This project has allowed us to place two homes on a lot currently zoned for one. Seattle Mortgage Bankers Association and The Gary Payton Foundation are sponsoring these for the Crum and Nguyen families. These homes are across the street from five historical houses, so we have designed them to fit in with the neighborhood through the use of color, more steeply pitched roofs, and other special details. These Central Area building sites were acquired through surplus land programs of both the City of Seattle and King County.

Our next building projects include two lots in the NewHolly Development of Seattle Housing Authority. We purchased the land using funds provided by The Paul G. Allen Charitable Foundation, the Paul and Yvonne Hendricks Family Foundation, and the SHOP program through HUD and Habitat International. We'll build two duplexes (four homes) beginning this month and continue through the rest of the year. One of these duplexes is being sponsored by KVI Radio and BIAW (Building Industry Association of Washington). The second duplex is sponsored by The USAA Foundation (their third house with us) and a large collection of congregations and corporations, including Center for Spiritual Living, Plymouth Congregational Church, National Kitchen and Bath Association, IDX Foundation, VISIO, Microsoft, US Bank and Magnolia UCC. Additional sponsors are needed to complete the funding for this duplex.

Our final site for 1999 is in White Center on another piece of surplus King County property. The County has also provided the funding to purchase the property and for some of the infrastructure work. Nextel Communications is sponsoring one of the homes at this site, with the help of our own "Fund for Humanity" and the second home is sponsored by local attorney, Marcia Mellinger (her fourth house sponsorship!) We expect to begin construction later this month. Youthbuild of King County will use this site as a classroom as they teach at-risk young adults building skills and provide them an opportunity to earn credits toward their high school diplomas.

Funds from the Federal Home Loan Bank will help complete our financing at each of our 1999 sites.