Double Duty

GRANGER - Cosecha Court II likely will catch your eye and probably more than once. No wonder it was one of just two 2019 PCBC Gold Nugget Judges Awards for Excellence (www.pcbc.com/pcbc/public/
Content.aspx?ID=457&sortMenu=105001) for "innovations in design, planning and development".

What's going on inside Cosecha Court is even more impressive.

Cosecha Court II and its predecessor Cosecha Court I are in Granger, Washington in the heart of the Yakima River Valley, one of the nation's most productive agricultural areas. Granger says the Census has about 3,200 year-round residents. But from planting in the spring to the last harvest in the late fall, the Valley's population swells with H2A migrant farmworkers - and often their families - getting the Valley's abundance from field to table.

The Yakima Housing Authority opened Cosecha Court I - 10 buildings with 76 beds - in 2013 thanks, to funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Labor Housing loan and grant program as well as the Washington State Housing Trust Fund and HUD Community Development Block Grant funds from the Washington Department of Commerce.

Strings were attached. Both USDA and the State required that it house only H2A migrant laborers and their families. So, reports HUDUser, (www.huduser.gov/portal/casestudies/study-052819.html) "the Yakima Housing Authority would "shutter Cosecha Court when the agricultural season ended."

Whether for migrants or the homeless, there's a shortage of affordable housing in the Valley. Last fall, the University of Washington's Runstad Center reported that the statewide vacancy rate was 4.3 percent while the County's was just 1.36 percent. "You effectively don't have any vacancies," the Center's research director told Mai Hoang of The Yakima Herald. (www.yakimaherald.com/news/business/local/there-s-a-lot-of-demand-for-apartments-but-not/article_b9ef41c4-2847-11e9-99ea-738b4ee3e990.html)

Where there's a housing shortage there's almost certain to be homelessness. Low vacancies drive-up rents. Higher rents drive-up homelessness. On a cold night in January 2019, Yakima County's annual point-in-time census (www.commerce.wa.gov/serving-communities/homelessness/annual-point-time-count) of the homeless counted 39 households with 140 adults and minors who were homeless. Given the numbers, Lowel Krueger, executive director of the Yakima Housing Authority, thought shuttering Cosecha Court was a "missed opportunity."

So, partnering with Yakima Neighborhood Health Services and the Northwest Community Action Center the Authority asked USDA and the state's Department of Commerce waive the migrant-only rule. In December 2016, the "first of its kind" waivers were granted. A "win-win" Kreuger told Molly Rosbach of The Herald.

The results were immediate, the benefits impressive. The Authority's two partners pay $15 per night per family to house a family at Cosecha Court, considerably less than the $50-a-night hotel vouchers it previously gave families. Cutting that cost means the Authority can seek "smaller subsidies from the federal government for farm worker housing in the summer." And fewer burdens are imposed on local churches who have long opened their doors to the homeless.

In its first year, 81 homeless individuals - including 49 children - spent a total of 1,914 bed nights at Cosecha Court. That's 378 more bed-nights for homeless moms, dads and kids than could have provided with hotel vouchers. "We're helping families that would be living in their cars right now, giving them a roof over their heads while they look for a place to live."

It's worked so well, in fact, that when the Authority and the Washington State Office of Rural Farmworker opened Cosecha Court II in December, 2018 its 96 additional beds also became available for "double duty," housing H2A migrants from spring to fall and the homeless and the homeless for the three coldest months of the year. And what's working in the Yakima Valley might work elsewhere says Krueger. "There's a lot of places that could actually do the exact same thing we're doing here.".

It's sometimes said that government agencies are inflexible, insensitive, afraid of innovations that could enable them to serve more people better and more efficiently. Not at Cosecha Court I & II that offer a case study, says HUDUser (www.huduser.gov/portal/casestudies/study-052819.html) of in what happens "when difficult problems are approached" government and its partners "cooperatively and creatively."

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