Seattle (November 20, 2018) – Mayor Jenny A. Durkan was joined today by Uptown community members, housing advocates, labor leaders, and arts and cultural district representatives as she announced the City of Seattle will invest approximately $6.9 million to build 91 new affordable homes for people experiencing long-term homelessness at a City-owned site adjacent to Seattle Center.
The building will be developed by Plymouth Housing following the permanent supportive housing model and providing 91 affordable apartments for men and women experiencing long-term homelessness. All residents will have a housing case manager to help provide tailored on-site services that may include nursing and medical care, connections to behavioral health treatment, hospice care, veterans counseling, and money management.
In 2018, the City of Seattle has invested approximately $90 million in affordable housing. By 2021, the City expects to have more than 2,500 new affordable homes.
The building will pilot a Community Workforce Agreement, which help provide true economic opportunity into underserved communities by working with labor unions, local governments can establish hiring standards to bring people from low-income areas, people of color, and women – populations that are historically underrepresented in the building trades – into the construction industry, providing access to apprenticeships, high-wage jobs, and benefits.
The building will also include a ground floor arts and cultural space. Path with Art will manage the ground floor area of the building as an arts space available to residents and Path with Art students, as well as a community arts resource for other community-based arts organizations. Path with Art uses creative engagement to bring dignity, awareness, and healing to the complexities of the issues surrounding homelessness and recovery from trauma. The City's Office of Housing and the Office of Arts and Culture worked with the Uptown Arts and Culture Coalition and the Uptown Community Alliance to engage community members and stakeholders on creating a building that would both maximize affordable housing outcomes and create opportunities for arts and cultural uses. This project is the first time the City has made a joint housing and arts investment as part of the same funding award.
The Office of Housing also worked in close partnership with the Labor Equity Team at the Department of Finance and Administrative Services and the Seattle Building Trades to pilot a Community Workforce Agreement at the site.
November 20, 2018, 7 – 9 p.m.
Gary Copeland Lilley is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being The Bushman's Medicine Show, from Lost Horse Press (2017), and a chapbook, The Hog Killing, from Blue Horse Press (2018). He is originally from North Carolina and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. He has received the Washington DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. He is published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Best American Poetry 2014, Willow Springs, Waxwing, the Taos International Journal of Poetry, and the African American Review. He is a Cave Canem Fellow.
Amber Flame is a writer, composer and performer, whose work has garnered artistic merit residencies with Hedgebrook, The Watering Hole, Vermont Studio Center, and Yefe Nof. Flame joins the Hugo House in Seattle as the 2017 poetry Writer-in-Residence, and is a queer Black single mama just one magic trick away from growing her unicorn horn.
Sierra Golden graduated with an MFA in poetry from North Carolina State University. Her manuscript The Slow Art won the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize and was published by Bear Star Press in September 2018. Golden's poems appear in literary journals such as Prairie Schooner, Permafrost, and Ploughshares. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies by Hedgebrook, Hugo House, and The Elizabeth George Foundation. Although she calls Washington State home, Golden spent many summers in Alaska, working as a commercial fisherman. She now works in nonprofit communications in Seattle.
Azura Tyabji is a born-and-raised Seattle poet, facilitator, and organizer. Brought up through Youth Speaks Seattle, she encourages other young people to unapologetically speak their truth through the dynamic art of spoken word. What drives her activism is a deep passion and respect for art as an indispensable tool for social change. As this year's Seattle Youth Poet Laureate, she hopes to continue challenging and expanding her craft for the communities that inspire her. Her debut poetry collection will be released in the upcoming spring.
Tiny Cultural Spaces Request for Proposals!
What is the artistic and cultural potential of 400 square feet? Imagine a small but permanent outdoor stage. Or a puppet theater. Or a space for a tea ceremony, or a coffee ceremony. Perhaps you have been secretly wanting to launch Seattle's tiniest art gallery. Or perhaps its smallest writers' residency?
The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture invites local cultural and community organizations to submit proposals for a new (tiny) cultural structure. Whether you have your own site on which to build or are interested in building on a city-owned surplus property, the structure itself will belong to the community group or cultural organization outright.
The selected project will be designed and built by the award-winning nonprofit design/build studio Sawhorse Revolution, an organization that teaches teens carpentry and architecture through inspiring community projects. The Tiny Cultural Space will be a project of Sawhorse Revolution's all-womxn design / build program, a process that will involve the organization chosen through this Request for Proposals and high school youth. Design mentors from Olson Kundig and LMN Architects will facilitate the process of a youth-designed tiny cultural space with the selected organization, which will be built by youth under the tutelage of professional carpenters.
For more information and to apply, reach out to our Tiny Cultural Space Liaison Matthew Richter and see the full guidelines for the program, Tiny Cultural Spaces RFP. The deadline for proposals is October 14!