Thanks to a fantastic cutting edge community partnership, today five First Place homeless families are moving out of shelters and transitional housing into brand new, permanent affordable housing in the Rainier Valley. Traditionally it is very difficult to get for-profit companies to build permanent affordable housing for homeless people due to their financial instability. However, in this wonderful community success story—Cobalt Mortgage provided the Construction funding, and the private land owner and developer Thach Nguyen constructed the townhomes. First Place acquired the PROJECT Based Section 8 vouchers with the help of Seattle Housing Authority. Nhon’s House is considered a model other communities can study as a solution for finding housing for homeless families.
The families, including 4 families headed by a single parent, and dual-parent family, are all moving in to their beautiful new homes over the weekend—sharing in the work. As the keys were handed out to families in a special ribbon cutting event this morning. A friendly neighbor who lives across the street from Nhon’s House and who was once in a similar situation, stopped by to donate a twin bed to a First Place family—and at the same time the President of the South Shore Elementary School P.T.A. and his school aged son came out of their home and was introduced to the families and school aged children who will be moving in across the street.
First Place has a 23 year history of helping families in crisis, and today is a very special day when the value of community partnerships and the incredible efforts of so many great people have come to fruition. The bottom line is that because of this project, 20 individuals and school aged children will not be on the street tonight, as a result of this effort.