$30M affordable housing project to start construction soon in Edmonds

EDMONDS — Within a year, 52 families will have a home at Housing Hope’s Madrona Highlands apartments.

Work on the three-story, 52-unit building for homeless families and those in poverty got a ceremonial start Tuesday. People behind the project — board members, donors, elected officials, staff — dumped small scoops of dirt onto the grassy field next to Edmonds Lutheran Church at 23525 84th Ave. W.

The site is the first in south Snohomish County for Housing Hope, an Everett-based affordable housing developer and homelessness recovery service provider. Madrona Highlands, the name of the site, has a $30 million budget.

“This has been a huge, long, long journey for our community,” Edmonds Lutheran Church pastor Tim Oleson said.

The church’s members, including some champions who have since died, wanted to support their neighbors with affordable housing, Oleson said. An initial proposal for a kind of tiny home village stalled. Then they began working with Housing Hope and formed a plan in 2020.

The value of the church’s surplus land wasn’t lost on Housing Hope chief housing officer Bobby Thompson, who said the church could have sold it for more to a market-rate developer.

“It really takes community to make something cool happen,” Thompson said.

Housing costs, whether through mortgage or rent, are squeezing residents across Snohomish County. Sometimes that has pushed people into homelessness, according to experts in that field and in housing.

Affordable housing represents hope, opportunity and security for people trying to rebound from homelessness, Housing Hope CEO Donna Moulton said. It’s also an investment in a community and an equitable future, she said.

Of the 52 units, half are reserved for homeless families referred through the county’s coordinated entry program. The others are limited to families that earn less than 50% of the area median income of about $57,850.

Designs Northwest did the architecture for the apartment complex planned to have six one-bedroom apartments, 34 two-bedroom apartments and 12 three-bedroom apartments. Madrona Highlands designs also include a community room, offices for social services and employment counselors, and outdoor play spaces for children. Fifty parking spaces are planned for the property. Kirley Cole is the general contractor.

Half of the units are set for funding through vouchers from the Housing Authority of Snohomish County. Those vouchers let tenants pay what they can afford, with the government covering the difference. That effectively lets Housing Hope recover half of its units as market-rate apartments to subsidize the others and fund social service programs.

The apartments will operate as “permanent supportive housing” in which the tenants can stay there as long as they want. People stay about 2½ years at Housing Hope’s other properties, and staff imagine a similar average at Madrona Highlands.

Housing Hope provides family support coaches, education and employment specialists, child and family specialists, as well as life skills such as shopping efficiently, cooking, budgeting, and maintaining a home and a job. The overall goal of those efforts is to empower people to find careers and work that affords them a life in which they can move out of the affordable housing.

“Earned income is the only solution to poverty,” former Housing Hope CEO Fred Safstrom said in a neighborhood meeting about the project last year.

The project is funded through tax credits, loans, grants and donations. The Hazel Miller Foundation, based in Edmonds, gave a $750,000 grant for the project, which Executive Director Maria Montalvo called a “true indication” that people in Edmonds would support their neighbors who are having a hard time.

About $13.1 million for the project also is coming from the Washington State Housing Finance Commission through a low-income housing tax credit, $6.3 million from Beneficial State Bank, $6.1 million from the state, $2.6 million from Housing Hope and $1.9 million from Snohomish County.

“The work doesn’t end here,” Oleson said, asking the dozens gathered Tuesday to commit to “helping our neighbors thrive.”

Ben Watanabe: 425-339-3037; bwatanabe@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @benwatanabe.