Confidence Building

Raven Terrace

SEATTLE - There are lots of reasons why Seattle's America's fastest-growing city. The Great Outdoors, for starters. Tremendous diversity. Innovative companies like Microsoft and Starbucks, Boeing and Amazon. Incredible music, art, theater and food.

And, last but not least, great neighborhoods. Like Yesler Terrace, a 30-acre area between First Hill to the north and Chinatown and the International District to the south, just about a 15-minute walk to the stadiums of the Mariners and Seahawks and, another block or two, the waterfront.

It's not the trendiest or prettiest or richest neighborhood in town. Historically, it's one of the most important, the site where, in the early 1940's ,the Seattle Housing Authority built the very first 561 units of public housing in the State which, in turn, became the first racially-integrated public housing in the country.

Seventy years, though, take a toll on buildings. By 2010, it was clear those 561 units had out-lived their useful lives. The Authority could have just demolished and then, one-for-one replaced them. But it thought it had a bigger, brighter idea. So, it started a conversation with Yesler residents, their neighbors, city officials, partners and the public at large about what the Terrace's future could and should look like.

Yesler Terrace

What emerged was a vision that would transform a neighborhood that long been relatively-isolated and mostly low-income into a "dynamic, mixed-income community that honors the neighborhood's history and cultural richness while creating safe, healthy and sustainable affordable housing, attractive new parks and open spaces, increased transportation options and enhanced economic opportunities."

Thanks in part to a $30 million HUD Choice Neighborhoods grant, realization of that vision is well underway. On February 5th Mayor Ed Murray, the Authority's Andrew Lofton and Yesler Terrace residents celebrated the grand opening (http://seattlehousing.net/2016/01/seattle-housing-authority-marks-two-milestones-at-yesler/) of the newest piece of that vision coming true - the seven-story, 83-unit Raven Terrace, affordable housing for singles and families, at 60 percent or less of area median with priority given to Terrace households temporarily displaced by construction.

Raven Terrace is aptly-named. Many Northwest cultures consider the raven a transformative figure. At Creation, goes one legend, Seagull was given the box containing light. Opening it a crack, Seagull thought it too bright. "We don't need this," he said, shutting it tight. Raven, always a trickster, asked, then begged, then tricked Seagull into dropping the box. Snatching it, Raven lifted its top and gave us light and our very first day.

Just like Yesler Terrace is enjoying a new day. Raven Terrace is the second complex built by the Authority to replace those original 561 public housing units. It won't be the last. The 111-unit Hoa Mai Gardens already is under construction with completion in mid-2017. Indeed, when the Authority's Choice Neighborhoods strategy is completed, there will be three times more subsidized units for families at or below 80 percent of median than when Yesler first opened.
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That's good news in a city facing, says the Mayor, an affordable housing crisis. As Sue Van, one of Raven Terrace's first residents. "First time in my life I have a new hours" she told Ryan Takeo of KING5 TV. "I'm low income. That's why I cannot have a good house, but now I've got it!"

Good news for others, too. "Creating housing for a wide range of incomes is a critical piece," of the project, explains the Authority's Lofton (http://seattlehousing.net/2014/10/housing-authority-land-sale-helps-revitalize-yesler-terrace/). Which is why Yesler will include 3,200 market-rate homes and apartments. That too is a vision already coming true too. Vulcan Real Estate has bought three blocks in Yesler it's building the first 650 units of workforce and market-rate units, a "catalyst for future growth," adds Lofton, a "great vote of confidence from the private market in the overall project."

There's also confidence among residents like Marty Reyes, 83, who's called Yesler home for more than 40 years. Construction, he tells Bob Young of The Seattle Times (http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/some-question-if-yesler-spirit-will-live-on-after-redevelopment/), was "like a bomb went off" and the playing field, parking lots and homes like the one he and his wife lived in are gone. "To survive it you have to accept it." His focus, he adds, is on helping the neighborhood learn respect for their elders and to become better athletes. "The kids of the future of the world. Who knows," he adds, "we might have a President from Yesler Terrace." Oh what a choice neighborhood Yesler then would be!

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