EDMONDS – Rick and Anne Steves have a passion for helping the homeless.
It all started in his “Europe-through-the-gutter days,” when as a youthful traveler his main challenge every day was finding a safe and affordable place to sleep.
Chris Goodenow photo
The couple behind the Edmonds-based “Europe Through the Back Door” travel empire are transforming a 24-unit Lynnwood apartment complex into transitional housing for homeless mothers and their children.
Called Trinity Place after Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynnwood, where the Steves attend, the complex is at 19321 46th Ave. W.
Pathways for Women-YWCA will manage it, and Rotary Club of Edmonds will provide upkeep, furnishings, architectural consultation and act as a liaison between the project and the city.
Come fall, the first residents will arrive. They will be selected from those who have sought help at Pathways’ emergency shelter in Lynnwood and applied for more permanent housing, said Mary Anne Dillon, Pathways regional director. The average length of stay at Trinity Place is expected to be about a year, she said.
Occupancy hovered around 25 percent when the couple bought it last spring for $1.3 million, Rick Steves said. He said another $200,000 will be spent renovating the complex, which will have a child-care center, on-site counselor and other services.
Close proximity to the library, recreation facilities, bus line, grocery stores and services make the location ideal for single mothers struggling to keep body, soul and family together, Steves added.
“Anne and I promise the free use of our buildings for 15 years” and require they be run at “absolute maximum capacity,” Steves said.
Under the agreement, in 2020, when they turn 65, the couple have the right to take back the buildings for their own use.
Steves called the deal “smart investing.”
“Think of our rewards,” he urged. “Put $1.4 million in a certificate of deposit and you earn maybe $80,000 in taxable interest (about $50,000 after taxes).
“With this investment, our taxable income is zero. But we know that we are providing 24 moms and probably 46 children a home … on less than $3 a day.”
A similar scenario works on a smaller scale for someone with $200,000 to spend on a duplex, he said.
Helping to shelter people with money that could otherwise be spent on a “car, condo at Whistler, yacht …” yields joy and is his “selfish little pleasure,” he said.
The longtime local resident said he hopes to take his investment model international to address homelessness in other countries.
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