Volunteers Achieve Goal of Providing Affordable Housing in North Spokane
News Story by Megan Guido | FāVS News
Recently a group of about 12 volunteers living in north Spokane organized as Village Cohousing Works, a nonprofit with a mission to provide housing and home ownership to low-income families in the northern part of Spokane County.
A key part of the group’s philosophy is that it takes a village and cooperation from neighbors to provide stable housing.
On Dec. 11, after only a year, the group achieved their vision: the first manufactured home was delivered and placed on Takesa Village Homeowners Cooperative in Mead, Washington. The 720 square foot, two-bedroom home will house a family, including a single mom and her two children (one who is disabled).
“I can’t tell you how exciting it was to see our first manufactured house delivered,” said Terri James, co-founder, and acting treasurer of Village Cohousing Works. “It’s so rewarding to be part of the process of building permanent, stable housing in north Spokane County.
James, a retired nurse, who has lived in north Spokane for 46 years, along with a core group of other volunteers passionate about providing housing, spent the last year creating a unique, low-income housing model designed to get families at the 80% or under AMI (Average Median Income) into homeownership in the northern part of Spokane County.
“As far as I know, we are the only housing program supplying new homes in this area expressly for low-income households,” said Sarah Olson, director of Village Cohousing Works.
Their next goal is to place 10 more manufactured homes over the next two years on lots at Takesa Village Homeowners Cooperative in Mead.
Takesa Village Homeowners Cooperative, a manufactured home park, is not run by a corporation. Rather, it is a resident-owned manufactured home community that is owned and managed by the cooperative members who live there. It is geared toward families, with two pools, a community center and playground equipment for members to use.
It’s also a critical partner in the cohousing model, said James.
“Living in a community where there are shared responsibilities and people watch out for each other is key,” said James. “Community is an important building block for (housing) stability.”
Olson said Village Cohousing Works follows the same service area boundaries of north Spokane County as New Hope Resource Center does: Hawthorne Road to Elk, Washington, more than 300 square miles. It does not include Deer Park, Washington. New Hope Resource Center is a faith-based, ecumenical social service organization based in Colbert, Washington.
Like most counties and cities, the number of homeless is typically undercounted but 2022 client numbers from New Hope Resource Center show 279 households in the 0-80 percent AMI level. Mead School District has about 540 homeless families in the current 2023-2024 school year, Olson said.
This effort to get low-income families into home ownership originated from the formation of a housing task force by volunteers working at The New Hope Resource Center in 2022.
The housing task force held meetings with other community leaders and members concerned about the lack of affordable housing in the area, said James.
“We had a donor ready to donate land … to build a cohousing village on,” said James. “But it wasn’t within the urban growth boundary, the owner elected to wait to donate the land.”
“We knew that we would have to find land in the urban growth zone and we knew that would take two to three years,” James added. “Many of us felt really committed to making change and didn’t want to wait two to three years.”
That is when Olson discovered Takesa Village Homeowners Cooperative and through conversations with representatives, found out they had 40 empty lots.
The next piece of the puzzle fell into place. A discovery was made through connections Olson worked with on the housing issue. MOD Homes, LLC, a dealer of manufactured homes in northeast Washington, said he’d sell his homes at a discount to the group.
MOD Owner Dan McGuire said, “I’m a big believer in the private sector doing housing.”
He talked to two of the volunteers, Terri (Sarah Olson’s mother) and Bev Hopoi, former school teacher, VCW Volunteer Secretary and Site Development Committee member.
“I like them,” McGuire said. “They are retired, have spunk and are out there helping people. I said, ‘Heck, yes. I can get behind that.’”
From there, a memorandum of understanding was signed by Village Cohousing Works and Takesa Village Homeowners Cooperative to place up to 10 manufactured homes on the site in the next two years.
Then the work of fundraising began with the volunteers raising money from plant sales to golf tournaments to securing private donations and a gift from Smith Barbieri Charitable Trust based in Spokane.
In August 2023, they had raised enough money to order their first manufactured home. To date, they have raised more than $100,000.
Village Cohousing Works also helps people find financing for homeownership. For more information or to apply for housing, visit www.villagecohousingworksspokane.org.
