STAHC envisions establishing a new precedent for a viable, creative, build-to-own, environmentally sustainable, healthy, equity-building, middle to low-income BIPOC-led infrastructure alternative to Seattle’s unacceptable neoliberal neighborhood development and housing model. This project will be replicable throughout Seattle, particularly in BIPOC-inaccessible and high-displacement neighborhoods.

 

Advance economic mobility

Artists have long shaped the identity of Seattle, and yet, it is harder and harder for people to be able to afford to live and work in their own hometown. Even highly successful artists achieve just middle-income for Seattle, but with housing costs out of reach, cannot build equity. They are able to pay a consistent mortgage if there is a financial model which allows for it. This design seeks to be that option

 

Prevent residential, commercial, and cultural displacement

 

This project aligns with the need for affordable home ownership for artists of color and amplifies/activates their voices/power and commitment to community by being co-located in residential communities. This project model seeks to introduce the Tiny House Community model with an equity-first mandate to Southeast Seattle, to confront Seattle’s rampant gentrification and displacement of BIPOC communities. By embedding the project with artists, the Community is established by a group with natural pathways for cultural competency, communications and outreach.

 

Build on local cultural assets

With low-materials costs, the project may leverage local cultural knowledge, especially from Immigrant communities. Rainier Valley has one of the densest East African populations in the region, who also offer expertise in architecture, landscape, permaculture, and farming practices. The artists act as designers/owners and design their own houses in tandem with each other.

 

Promote transportation mobility and connectivity

 

 

Walkability, connectivity. Artists can have live-work spaces which can be toured by patrons and/or turned into night markets (kind of like the small Trailer Park Mall in Georgetown), art walks, or community art classes.

 

Develop healthy and safe neighborhoods

Permaculture design ensures artists are able to grow their own, culturally responsive organic food, and share food with neighbors. Water catchment systems, solar power grid tied design assures the land is also being considered at the heart of the design.

 

Enable equitable access to all neighborhoods

 

The model is based on a Land Trust, held in perpetuity, at $50,000/house. This model is scalable and replicable and could be used on other sites with vacant land. This model is NOT designed a ‘downsize’ for the privileged who have already bought a house. The design is inherently at its core an equitable, clean, safe solution for those most affected by gentrification, to build a substantial amount of equity for future generations of BIPOC and can be launched anywhere in Seattle, which means no redlining.