NATIONAL STORY DONATE YOUR CAR! Need to get rid of your car, truck, or motorcycle? Consider donating it to Denver VOICE. Call (855) 500-7433, or go to: careasy.org/nonprofi t/denver-voice. Your donation helps Denver VOICE succeed in its mission to provide individuals experiencing homelessness or poverty the chance towards a more stable life. CREDIT: TREVOR DYKSTRA/FLICKR. Henrikson and Russell approached people — housed and unhoused — with a simple but profound question: What do you need to thrive? Hundreds of conversations later, they landed on the village concept and decided to make it a reality. “How hard could that be?” Henrikson said, recalling their early naiveté. Financing and building affordable housing differ from market-rate construction in critical ways that add complexity to a process that must already adapt to factors beyond any organization’s control, such as market conditions, supply chains, unit costs, and more. Land is one of the biggest costs associated with any development, especially in land-scarce areas like the Sound region. Affordable housing developers can sometimes get land transferred or sold below market rate by local governments or other organizations, but they may have to buy the property outright, which is what EcoTHRIVE is doing. Raising money for such a venture is challenging, especially when it comes to affordable homeownership models, which don’t necessarily qualify for the same sources of funding as more typical affordable rental housing. Even that isn’t simple. The Low Income Housing Institute once told Real Change that it can take as many as nine separate streams of funding to complete a typical project. Willowcrest, an affordable homeownership project in Renton that opened in 2021, required 11 sources of funding to create 12 townhomes, according to Homestead Community Land Trust. Affordable housing also comes with different and sometimes more onerous construction standards than typical market-rate housing. The realities of piecing together a project changed EcoTHRIVE’s target audience. The team wanted to create a community for people in the lowest income bracket — those making less than 30% AMI — but it ultimately didn’t seem doable. “The best we can do, and, what we’re shooting for now, is to cap it at 50%. Even that — with all of the increases in cost for labor and materials and land and debt — we’re going to do everything we can to cap it at 50% of area median income, but that’s $55,000 a year!” Henrickson said. The organization aims to raise $1.5 million to $2 million in order to close on the land sale in Burien before the end of 2022 and pay for early site improvements. It’s already sunk more than $150,000 into design and other “soft” costs, so there is a sense of urgency to get it done. But Henrikson remains positive not only for this project but also for the possibility of replicating the model elsewhere. “I think people are going to love living here. The thing that we heard the most is that people want community and that makes a big difference in people’s lives,” Henrikson said. ■ Courtesy of Real Change / International Network of Street Papers AT THE ECOTHRIVE EXHIBIT, VISITORS MANEUVERED WOOD BLOCKS AND HANDMADE TREES UPON A CARDBOARD HILL TO IMAGINE THE SUSTAINABLE VILLAGE THE ORGANIZATION HOPES TO BUILD IN BURIEN. CREDIT: TREVOR DYKSTRA/FLICKR. October 2022 DENVER VOICE 9 The Denver VOICE empowers homeless, impoverished, and transient individuals by creating job opportunities through our vendor program. We facilitate a dialogue addressing the roots of homelessness by telling stories of people whose lives are impacted by poverty and homelessness and to offer economic, educational, and empowerment opportunities for the impoverished community. VOLUNTEER WITH US! We are looking for volunteers to support our program coordination by helping with paper distribution and basic offi ce administration at the Denver VOICE offi ce (989 Santa Fe Dr.) from 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. If you are interested and would like to know more, contact us at: program@denvervoice.org
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