Two Everett builders — Kirtley-Cole Associates and Barclays North — have won Golden Nugget awards from the Master Builders Care Foundation for their construction work with Housing Hope of Snohomish County and Cocoon House of Everett.
Only four Building Industry Community Spirit awards were presented earlier this year at the San Francisco event, including the two in Snohomish County. The foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish County in Bellevue.
“Members of the home-building industry really stepped up to donate labor and materials. We are truly blessed to live and work in a community that embraces philanthropy,” said Scott Cameron, president of the foundation.
The Master Builders Care Foundation shares the award with each builder since it plays a critical role in the process of determining the needs of nonprofit organizations and channeling the resources and expertise of local builders to fulfill those needs, Cameron said. Since 2002, foundation projects have contributed more than $5 million in labor and materials to local nonprofits that serve the homeless.
Kirtley-Cole Associates Inc. was captain of the Winters Creek Village project in Sultan for Everett-based Housing Hope. The $2 million, 13,000-square-foot, 11-unit facility near downtown provides low-income housing for homeless people with children, families transitioning to better housing. Kirtley-Cole and other community businesses donated $300,000 in labor and materials for Winters Creek.
Barclays North won its award for work on a new facility in Arlington for Cocoon House, the only nonprofit in the county to focus exclusively on the needs of homeless teens under 18. The new 3,600-square-foot facility will provide around-the-clock care, safety and supervision. It’s a source of pride for Barclay’s North and the 30 subcontractors and vendors that worked on it and donated 71 percent of the cost of the structure.
Housing Hope is celebrating 20 years of service to low-income and homeless families in Snohomish County communities this year.
“From the beginning, Housing Hope’s vision has been to provide a service-enriched continuum of housing options. We have accomplished that. Our families know that their community loves them and (through Housing Hope), they have received the tools to become self-sufficient,” said Todd Morrow, one of Housing Hope’s founders and board president from 1991 to 1996.
An early October community celebration of those two decades was sponsored by longtime supporters that included Cascade Bank, National Equity Fund and Frontier Bank.
Concerned citizens founded Housing Hope in 1987 to address increasing family homelessness in Snohomish County. Beginning with one property that housed two homeless families, the nonprofit agency has grown rapidly, and currently owns and operates 268 units of affordable housing at 17 scattered locations throughout Snohomish County.
In addition, 193 low-income families have become homeowners through Housing Hope’s “sweat equity” program that involves future occupants in the construction work. Financing has comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Self-Help program. In 2005 alone, the agency served more than 2,700 local residents with transitional and affordable-rent housing and related services.
From the start, Housing Hope recognized that safe, decent and affordable housing is only the first step in creating housing stability for struggling families. The groundbreaking concept to provide a full range of housing with housing-related support services is a hallmark of the Housing Hope mission.
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