Member Highlight: Byrd Barr Place
HDC appreciates all the passion, hard work, and dedication our members devote to the affordable housing movement. No single organization could make this impact and secure this progress alone. The collaboration and connection among members is the human energy that works to ensure all people have a safe, healthy, and affordable home. We want to show our appreciation and learn more about our affordable housing community through these member highlights as each member is crucial to achieving the larger vision of this movement. This week our featured member is Byrd Barr Place. Thank you for all the work that you do!
- What excites your team about the work you are doing?
Byrd Barr Place (BBP) is a Community Action Agency supporting the diverse neighborhoods of Seattle’s Central District with a variety of services for those in poverty. BBP nurtures a more equitable Seattle through programs and advocacy that enable people to live healthier, prosperous lives. What excites us is that each year, our programs help 20,000 Seattle residents with basic human services—a warm home, food on the table, and immediate financial relief—so they can break the cycle of poverty and build self-sufficiency. This work is fulfilling, we go home at the end of each day feeling that we’ve made a positive impact on the world around us.
- What is a favorite office anecdote?
One of our senior clients stated a few weeks ago that she just loved coming to our building, because all of the staff members smiled at her. She doesn’t go anywhere else where so many people she didn’t know smile at her.
- What upcoming projects, partnerships, and news are you looking forward to?
We will be partnering with the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle on a research project on health and well-being in the Black community; the first phase of a multiyear initiative to foster a groundswell of positive change to address the inequities in health in Seattle and King County. The study of our findings will be released in the summer of 2019.
4. What have you been most proud of during your time as an HDC member?
We have been asked to present as a panelist at the upcoming Prosperity Now summit in D.C. next month.
We will be presenting on a project we plan to rollout in the fall: To develop and distribute communications that will inspire, educate and enable communities of color to form land trusts or similar entity that acquires and preserves long-term land ownership; as a means of preserving cultural diversity, fighting displacement and increasing long-term wealth creation.
