Housing Hope is more than halfway to its $9.4 million goal in a multiyear capital campaign aimed at providing more affordable housing and jobs programs, and enhancing services for children. A recent grant from BECU, totaling $200,000 over three years, helped push the campaign past its 50 percent mark.
Money from the Generations of Hope Capital Campaign has helped build two new housing projects in Monroe, one finished and another under construction. It will help build another housing complex in the Smokey Point area. Eventually, it will support expansion of the HopeWorks Station project on Broadway in Everett. And it will add services for children served by Housing Hope.
Along with housing and children’s services, the money will support HopeWorks employment programs.
“We started two years ago raising money toward this goal,” said Ed Petersen, chief executive officer of Housing Hope. Petersen is also executive director of its affiliate, HopeWorks Social Enterprises, which is collaborating on the capital campaign. “We are at $5.3 million toward the $9.4 million goal,” Petersen said last week. “We want to recognize getting that special BECU gift, a phenomenal investment. It took us over the $5 million mark.”
Nate Greenland, Housing Hope’s campaign director, said BECU community giving manager Debbie Wege and other BECU executives and staff visited HopeWorks Station in January.
Todd Pietzsch, BECU’s manager of public relations, said the credit union has supported Housing Hope for years, and that the $200,000 grant is the largest gift it has awarded to the housing agency.
“What’s unique for us about Housing Hope, it covers a continuum. It takes a resident from homelessness to treatment, if need be, to education and job training, and to being a great citizen of the community,” Pietzsch said. “You’re giving the grant and seeing the difference.”
Since 1987, Housing Hope has completed 53 housing developments. The Everett-based agency now manages 347 low-income housing units. It has also helped more than 250 families build their own homes through a sweat-equity program.
The campaign’s three major themes are housing development, economic development and child development, Petersen said. The $9.4 million raised is expected to be split among those three areas, with economic empowerment and jobs receiving the largest share, $5.48 million. Children’s services are budgeted to get $2.16 million, and housing and regional service centers will receive $1.45 million. Greenland said about $300,000 is budgeted for campaign costs.
Of the three housing developments being supported by the campaign, the 14-unit Woods Creek Village in Monroe opened in April 2013. The 47-unit Monroe Family Village on Main Street is set to open this summer. “That will be the centerpiece for Housing Hope’s work in the east county area, from Snohomish up the valley to Sultan, Gold Bar and beyond,” Petersen said.
Construction has yet to start on the third development, Twin Lakes Landing, a 50-unit complex in Marysville’s Smokey Point area just west of I-5. It will be a regional center, too, with classes and programs for people in affordable housing, Petersen said.
Economic empowerment plans include remodeling the HopeWorks Station building at 3331 Broadway. It is home to social enterprise businesses that provide job training. More businesses are planned, and campaign money will support start-up costs, employment readiness programs and internships.
A second phase of HopeWorks Station is also planned, construction of a five-story complex adjacent to the Broadway site. It will provide housing for people employed by the on-site businesses or in training.
Children’s services to be helped by the campaign include adding a child development specialist. “Currently, we have about 350 units of housing and one child specialist,” Petersen said. Kids whose families become homeless “are torn away from friends, classroom relationships, and the stability of housing,” said Petersen, adding that a specialist can help parents find suitable resources to help.
Plans also call for enhanced staffing, facilities and parent education programs at the Tomorrow’s Hope Child Development Center on Evergreen Way in Everett. That facility offers 112 licensed child-care slots, many for families who have been homeless. Funding will help the center update its outdoor playground with safer structures and a cover to allow rain-or-shine play.
Along with the Generations of Hope campaign, Housing Hope is also funding a new ChildHope Endowment fund, with an initial goal of $1.2 million to support its children’s program for decades to come, Petersen said.
Greenland said major supporters who have contributed to the capital campaign will be honored at an invitation-only dinner March 26. This summer, he said, Housing Hope will reach out to the public for donations.
“We’re continuing to build on the know-how and track record we have,” Petersen said.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Hope dinner
The annual Community of Hope Dinner, which supports Housing Hope programs in east Snohomish County, is scheduled for 6 p.m. March 12 at the Golf Club at Echo Falls, 20414 121st Ave. SE, Snohomish. Donations collected at event. Information or RSVP at: www.housinghope.org/whatsNew/CommunityofHopeDinner.html
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