Member Highlight: Kate’s House
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 Kate’s House Thank you for all the work that you do!
1. What excites your team about the work you are doing? We are the first sober living and recovery homes in the state of Washington to be certified as Level II, Medically approved Treatment homes. We invested our personal 401K money on the first house we rehabbed in a great neighborhood with a plan of creating a model for others to copy. By using density and housing unrelated people in groups of 8, we can afford to purchase real estate in great neighborhoods. We are changing the trajectory of our residents by placing our homes in residential neighborhoods.
2. What is a favorite office anecdote? Because we serve the Department of Corrections, probation officers often show up at our homes to check on our residents. They typically have on vests and carry guns. All of the probation officers know we do not allow men on the property. One morning, Frank was leaving one of our houses after a minor repair, only to have two officers giving him the stink eye and getting ready to question him hard for being in the house. We believe that we are also reducing the crime rate in our zip code!
3. What upcoming projects, partnerships, and news are you looking forward to? We recently signed a contract with King County drug court to house people in their program. We have been asked to speak around the state of Washington about our model of housing and to replicate our housing in other cities, from Spokane to Yakima. We teach a class on how to become nationally certified recovery homes throughout the country.
4. What have you been most proud of during your time as an HDC member? We are thrilled to be apart of HDC!We feel supported in growing our model of affordable housing. We are proud to be a member alongside many of the larger corporations that are long time HDC members. We are one family who believed that the private sector can impact homelessness. After three years, we have served 140 men and women and are growing exponentially.
We would ask that you take a look at our newly updated website. On the opening page are two short Youtube videos that you may want to include.
