Washington Governor Bob Ferguson says the Evergreen State can solve its housing issues, but to do so, it needs to build more than a million new homes during the next 20 years. Many of those will be multi-family, but private developers and non-profit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity are focused on single-family houses.
This year, the legislature allocated about $6.5 million to the Spokane chapter of Habitat for Humanity. The organization prioritizes low-income and first-time home buyers. Chief Executive Michelle Girardot says the state money will help with many of the pieces needed to make those projects possible.
This interview is lightly edited for length and clarity.
Michelle Girardot: One is infrastructure, the cost of putting in the pipes and the sewer and the water and all of the really expensive stuff that nobody sees because it's under the ground and then the building supplies. Then the last is making sure that there is some kind of capital that future homeowners or interested homeowners can tap into, which is down payment assistance. So even after we're able to pencil everything from the cost to build, we still need to make sure that it's going to be affordable for the user. All of those funds are kind of wrapped up into that one $6.5 million package and it also serves a number of different sites.
We have some of those funds for infill projects within the city of Spokane. Some of those funds will serve a new development in the city of Spokane Valley. Then the last bit of it will go towards our next phase in a development called Highline Village in Airway Heights.
DN: How has your approach changed over the last, say, 10 years, with land getting more scarce and more difficult to reach. How have you had to approach things?
MG: We really look at a couple different themes and then we heavily tap into the voices of the advocates around us. How can we build more densely and go and work with municipalities and the legislature to ensure that certain housing typologies can be created specifically for homeownership that allows for more density? We see that the average size of a family in the United States is getting smaller and so the need for these McMansion type homes is really not appealing. These new generations are looking more for walkable neighborhoods and access to fresh produce and living in community with their neighbors, which is just so different from when we saw the grand swaths of suburbia, and really trying to be a little bit more intentional in providing that kind of housing type. We also look at how can we be more creative in our financing models.
We deploy something called a land trust so that is a 99-year land lease that can sometimes act like a subsidy. When we build a home we look at that cost of the home and the land. If we can pull out the cost of the land, that makes the home even more affordable to a low to moderate income family. It also is a displacement tool like a mitigation tool to ensure that outside speculation and displacement doesn't happen in neighborhoods.
We've seen that happen before. During COVID, we saw all of our home prices skyrocket and all these homes being bought up by folks that weren't necessarily from the community, but really wanted to live in Spokane and loved it. It increased our property values significantly, but it also priced other families that maybe have lived in those neighborhoods for generations out and so now they don't get to live in the neighborhood that they grew up in or their grandparents grew up in. So, we look at it as if we can kind of create at least maybe 10% in a neighborhood that will remain permanently affordable.
DN: Does a Habitat family that buys one of the houses that you build, do they own the land as well as the house?
MG: Habitat maintains the stewardship of the land. Then, when the family goes to sell their home, they also have an appreciation value. When a family is ready to make that leap into the next step of their homebuying journey, Habitat has a list of families that are already qualified that could then step in and purchase that home. We really want to make sure that that long-term stewardship not only remains as a community asset, but also as we think about all of the levels of subsidy. A Habitat home should not be a lottery ticket. It should be a stewarded tool so families can then step into economic mobility and then further better their lives and then the lives of their children for generations.
DN: So as we talk about affordable housing, how do you define affordable housing?
MG: That is such a tricky…we've seen so many spins on how do we really make this sound like affordable. The HUD definition of affordable is paying no more than 30% of your income towards housing. I understand that the word affordability is totally subjective, right? When I say affordable, I'm really looking at for families and individuals that are earning below 80% of the area median income, that they can tap into something that's not going to be over 30% of their monthly income in housing payments. But that 30% should be across the board. So if you're thinking about buying a home and you're not low income, your home still shouldn't be more than 30% of your income because you still need to save for the rest of that quality of life.
DN: Habitat works in terms of home ownership. There are a lot of organizations that are working in renting. They're working in subsidized housing for people with issues. How well do you all work together in a finite market where there's finite land and everybody wants to do that?
MG: It's kind of funny and I don't want to really pat Spokane on the back too much, but we really live in a really unique space and that is that Spokane residents and housing providers and builders really want to solve problems and I think that is really unique. When I come together with my other colleagues and other housing agencies, we are able to really look at perhaps the funding applications that are coming out? What are the land opportunities? What are our pipelines looking like so we can see how we can either collaborate? My project’s not going to come online yet. So why don't you take a crack at that application? We really work well together and making sure that we're not creating kind of this culture of scarcity around housing.
That’s not to say like we don't have healthy debate, right? But at the end of the day, what a privilege it is to be able to do this work in Spokane with so many brilliant minds that are also at the table trying to solve for the same problems.
DN: Spokane city and county and the other municipalities are all working on updating their comprehensive plans for the next 20 years and that often means land use changes. How closely are you paying attention to that? And what's the most important thing in those conversations to you?
MG: We're paying very close attention. A lot of these policies are kind of chicken and egg. If we don't build to a certain extent, then we won't be planning adequately enough for a population growth in the next two decades. But if we aren't open to different kinds of housing typologies, then we eliminate so much of our green space that makes Spokane Spokane. So these are really complex conversations. And you know in my mind, I think that there is a way to find common ground. But again, because the work that housing providers and builders kind of operate in it's very nuanced, and so ensuring that our government partners are adequately educating the public, I think is a really important opportunity. As we talk, the homeownership folks like, okay, we really love you to scale up. Well, gosh, we'd really love to but the way that our rules are kind of laid out in front of us, we can't build certain kinds of typologies like condominiums or townhomes in certain areas because of, one, specifically, is the carrying cost, the time it takes for us to get a development like that online because of all the hearings, etc. It takes far longer than, let's say, a multifamily rental project.
So I think that the opportunity is there. These are really complex conversations but I really hope that our municipalities and the county are communicating well together and to the public so then we can, as housing providers, also encourage smart growth that will also benefit more housing opportunities.
DN: Speaking of opportunities, do you see new opportunities? Maybe this is not in your bailiwick, but I'm thinking accessory dwelling units. I think about tiny houses and others that are at that real low end. Do you see other opportunities there?
MG: We've seen a lot of housing policy come out in recent years that allow for exactly what you just shared. But I think the other piece of that is like it's just not enough to make enough of a dent in the reality of the numbers and so we really need to be able to not just…We need to be able to build up. We need to be able to build out in a smart thoughtful way, not just you know, recklessness. And we need to be able to probably lean in on what land availability there is.
I think that the land bank legislation that came out is a game changer for communities to partner with municipalities to divest that land that surplus land that nobody's using and put it into the programs that can really revitalize it and turn it into something that serves the immediate need.
There's also been lots of conversations around like DNR land and how do you approach that in a thoughtful and kind way without again being reckless.
We are constantly looking at what kind of land we can access and do it in a way that isn't destructive to the community.
DN: So you hear people say that we need to loosen the growth boundaries so that we can access land that may be just outside the current urban boundary that's probably cheaper in order to be able to get there. Do you see that happening? And do you see Habitat continuing to build in those areas, as well as kind of the infill sorts of projects?
MG: Again I think that kind of goes back to the chicken and egg, right? If we can't loosen up some of the regulations within the current boundaries, then we have to have access to growing that boundary. And there's different schools of thought on that. Can we tighten up our systems so they are easier for a nonprofit developer to access that? I think at the end of the day everybody at the table is going to have to be okay with giving up something and that's how we are able to continue moving this forward.
