Affordable housing in short supply

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

For people such as H.J. Russell, the inevitable gentrification and higher rents mean living a little closer to the edge.

Russell is fortunate. Based on his modest income, he qualified for a rent-controlled apartment in the Eagles Building at Seventh and Union. Despite its grandeur and special place in Seattle history, the national historic landmark building was in total disrepair only a few years ago. This is the building where Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin expanded the boundaries of rock music and where Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke of a better future for all races.

It took a partnership between A Contemporary Theatre and the Seattle Housing Resources Group -- plus $30 million -- to bring the building back to life.

Now it is a downtown jewel, an example of saving the best of the past. In addition to ACT's two new spectacular theaters, the building houses 44 apartments priced within reach of downtown doormen such as Russell as well as waiters, bartenders, clerks and security guards who earn less than $20,000 a year.

Like most downtown apartment houses, the Eagles Building has no vacancies, and there's a waiting list to get in, says Brien Thompson, an artist who is a live-in manager. He said not one tenant moved out when rents were raised this year. "The only people who move out are people leaving Seattle."

Several non-profit organizations are working to preserve housing for the destitute and working poor. One is Plymouth Housing Group, which manages 515 rooms in eight buildings, many of which were once run-down hotels.

Doreen Parrish lives in the recently renovated Pacific Hotel at Fourth and Marion Street. After six months in a shelter, Parrish moved into the Pacific where she has her own studio apartment. "My mind has never been so much at ease," says Parrish, who was blinded by a gunshot wound 14 years ago.

Bob Isaacson lives at Plymouth's Gatewood Hotel on Pine Street. Isaacson was a chronic inebriate before he sought help. "Before I moved to the Gatewood I was living in a trash bin."

Though he says he never begged for money, he scrounged for change and was always on the lookout for "snipes," half-smoked cigarettes. After five years of sobriety and a roof over his head, Isaacson says, "It's so nice to have an address, a feeling of belonging. It's a feeling of pride."

Continued:


• Once-seedy area now drawing empty-nesters and families alike