Low Income Housing Institute

Specialty: Low-income housing
Principals: Sharon Lee, Ginger Segel, Josephine Wong
Year founded: 1991
Location: Seattle
Largest project in 2001: Built 59 studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments in the Cascade neighborhood


 Lakeview Apartments
Photo by Duncan Haas
The Lakeview Apartments, completed last year in the South Lake Union neighborhood by the Low Income Housing Institute, contains 59 units of affordable housing.

The Low Income Housing Institute bought property this month for the kind of housing project LIHI Executive Director Sharon Lee says Seattle needs most — the homeless.

Founded in 1991, LIHI builds, acquires, renovates and operates affordable housing developments. It plans to transform a 42-unit South Seattle hotel into a housing and social service complex for homeless individuals, couples and families.

“I think there’s a tremendous need for transitional housing where people can stay up to two years and get their lives together,” Lee said.

Lee
Lee

“Lots of families and couples can’t stay together when they’re homeless. We can help keep families and couples intact.”

The Seattle not-for-profit and Seattle Emergency Housing Services also plan to provide transitional housing at Meadowbrook, LIHI’s largest project scheduled for 2002. Lee said the 50 new North Seattle townhomes and apartments will include 15 units for the homeless.

Expansion of federal low-income housing and historic tax credit programs were a great help to nonprofits that provided affordable housing last year, Lee said.

Some upstart programs lost ground after Sept. 11, Lee said. But she said the terrorist attacks and rule changes with the Washington State Housing Finance Commission eased competition between non-profits competing for limited funds.

Lee said non-profits had panicked when Gov. Gary Locke, facing a large budget deficit, considered freezing $20 million the state had committed to affordable housing.

“We worked with the Legislature and got Locke to release the funds,” she said. To that end, Lee also hopes voters will renew Seattle’s 1995 housing levy, which expires this year.

“Affordable housing is a big economic stimulus,” Lee said. “It generates thousands of jobs. Holding out on it would have made the situation worse.”

In addition to acquiring three properties, LIHI worked on seven projects with 163 units and completed four projects with 167 units in 2001. The agency’s development update indicates LIHI is working on 14 projects with more than 450 units in 2002-04.

But with high costs and complex land-use and zoning codes (she cited the Endangered Species Act and surface water and drainage issues), Lee said agencies like LIHI often have trouble acquiring parcels large enough for new construction.

“The people we serve have an incredible need for housing. Our production won’t stop,” she said. “Seattle has become so unaffordable for families that many people have to leave the city to find affordable rent.”



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