Housing

Chronic homelessness in Seattle: A four-part series

It’s been nearly four years since Seattle declared a state of emergency over our city’s homelessness crisis. In that time, we’ve learned there’s not one profile of a person who’s struggling with housing security in our city. They could be a former Olympian. Or the person washing your dishes. Or a veteran who’s been endlessly shuffled through the system. Some of the most difficult folks to reach are those […]

/ December 4, 2019

How to help our homeless neighbors in Seattle

The Nickelsville tiny house village is visible in this view of Seattle’s skyline. (📷: David Lee/Flickr) Every night in Seattle, roughly 5,000 people sleep on the streets, in tents, or in their vehicles. That means most of us see signs of homelessness every day. But figuring out how to process what we see — and […]

/ November 27, 2019

What other cities are getting right when it comes to fixing homelessness

The Salt Lake City skyline (📷: Flickr) Chronic homelessness is an issue affecting major cities from coast to coast. So it’s understandable that one of the first questions that comes to mind when many Seattleites think about homelessness is, “What have other states done successfully that we aren’t doing to fix this problem?” Kelly Gardner […]

/ November 14, 2019

The complicated costs of fixing homelessness in Seattle

Seattle has been in a construction boom for several years, but service providers say we still have a long way to go in closing our region’s affordability gap. (📷: Peter Daniel/Flickr) For the next installment in our ongoing series about chronic homelessness, we’re digging into the numbers to tackle a question we’ve heard from several […]

/ November 7, 2019

What causes chronic homelessness in Seattle?

(📷: A McLin/Flickr) Chronic homelessness is one of the most complicated issues facing Seattle and King County. And the difficulty begins with scoping the problem itself.  The first question in our four-part series on chronic homelessness comes from Courtney Stange-Tregear, who asks, “What are the primary causes of *chronic* homelessness as opposed to emergency or […]

/ October 23, 2019

From prison to paycheck

Building a life after prison is no easy task. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, formerly incarcerated people are almost ten times more likely to end up homeless, and they face an unemployment rate five times higher than the national average. FareStart is a Seattle organization looking to put a dent in those numbers locally. […]

/ August 9, 2019

Going back to work, and school, at 61

We sat down with Diane Nardi to to talk about the difficulty of going back to work (and school) at age 61. While she has stable housing now, Diane experienced homelessness in the past. That’s part of the reason she’d like to find a position helping other folks navigate housing and health resources. She’s planning […]

/ August 5, 2019

Working full-time while homeless

What does it take to hold down a job while struggling with unstable housing? And, is a job enough to find stability? Joey Pollitt is a longtime Seattleite. He had a place in Belltown for a decade, but lost it in 2005 after he was laid off from his recycling job. After that, Joey picked […]

/ August 5, 2019

One fix to Seattle’s housing crisis: Modular housing

MEET THESE CHANGEMAKERS: Aaron Holm and Nelson Del Rio are co-CEOs of Blokable, Inc. WHAT THEY’RE DOING: It’s no secret that housing in Seattle (and across the U.S.) is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many.  And there have been more than a few possible solutions proposed locally – backyard cottages! Big affordable housing investments! Upzoning! This week’s […]

/ March 21, 2019

Money in Seattle: How much do you need to live comfortably here?

There’s been lots of news coverage about income inequality in our city, but sometimes personal wealth still feels like it’s the elephant in the room. It can be uncomfortable to talk about how much we make and how much we spend — even when it’s in the bigger context of a discussion about how difficult […]

/ January 31, 2019