Staying Its Course

Nyer Urness House

SEATTLE - Perseverance may be among the least appreciated virtues. Life just offers too many shortcuts, work-arounds, ways out. Seems there's always a white flag in someone's back pocket.

Not so at Compass Housing Alliance, a non-profit in Seattle that provides shelter, supportive services and affordable housing to some 8,000 men, women and children a year across the Puget Sound area who otherwise would have no better place to call home than a park bench, a sidewalk grate or the back-seat of a run-down car.

In 2008, Compass acquired an undeveloped parcel in the city's Ballard neighborhood, just across the Ship Canal from downtown. The ancestral home of the Shilshole Tribe, the area was first settled by Europeans in the 1850's and soon became a center of Scandinavian life in the city.

As the 20th century became the 21st, real estate boomed in Ballard. By 2007, almost 20 new condominium complexes had gone up. Trendy shops, fine restaurants and nightlife soon followed and, almost overnight, a once-quiet residential neighborhood became the place where people wanted to be.

Like most neighborhoods in the city, Ballard has a visible homeless population and, thus, a demand for the kind of housing Compass Housing Alliance provides. Better still, Ballard is a walkable community, with convenient access to services like grocery stores, a library and transit.

Which is why Compass unveiled plans in 2010 to construct the Nyer Urness House on the parcel, a 7-story, 51,664 square foot building with 80 "small furnished studios that contain a full bathroom and galley kitchen" on the parcel to serve "formerly homeless men and women who need on-site case management and related supportive services to help them stabilize their lives." The first two floors would include space for a clinic and the agencies providing case management and social services residents. And Urness House would be staffed 24/7 and have a neighborhood advisory board as a forum to address concerns and ideas about improvements that could be made.

The arrival of condos in Ballard didn't cause much of a fuss. Urness House did. Almost from the get-go Compass faced a fight from a small group in the community. It was accused, for example, of trying "to sneak this project into the Ballard neighborhood," even though at the time of purchase it had advised adjacent property owners of its plans. Accused of adding traffic to already congested streets, even though it the tenants wouldn't be likely to own cars and Compass employees receive passes to use of public transit. Accused of sheltering unsupervised ex-cons and sex offenders, even though criminal background would be checked and high-risk sex offenders screened. Accused of threatening property values, even though it provided of studies suggesting it might actually enhance them.

In the face of opposition, of course, Compass Housing Alliance could have just folded and dropped its plans. Or ignored the criticisms and rolled forward, full steam ahead. It did neither, choosing instead to persevere. Staying its course, but actively reaching out to the community in open letters, in community forums, at meetings with local civic associations, responding to the accusations, answering questions and listening to ideas from the community, again and again demonstrating its commitment "to being good neighbors to Ballard".

Its efforts were effective, so effective, in fact, that opponents apparently reached the conclusion that the only way to stop Urness House was to go to court. Which is what they did. And where they lost.

With funding from the City, King County, the YWCA and HUD, ground was broken for Urness in February, 2012, with completion and move-in anticipated in the spring of 2013. "It feels great!," Compass Housing Executive Director Rick Friedhoff told MyBallard.com after turning the first shovel of dirt. "Today is a good day."

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