We have been working on this neighborhood for awhile now, thought I would put it out here.



All these houses are made with every cost cuting measure one can muster. Not counting us, there may be 3 people on the jobsite at any given time that speak English.

The houses you see on the left are going for $480K. All of them, all the way up and down against that hill. The ones you see in the foreground on the right are going for $385K.

I know you cant tell it, but the last house on the right, where you see the roof angle change, is all section 8 housing from there down. The house on my right I am standing in front of, has a section 8 house right behind it.  As are the three blocks wide, 5 blocks long to the right of the picture, behind the $385's.

I will guess and say this development has 300 seperate front doors. I will further guess 250 of them are section 8.

Wait until welfare meets the Volvo. Its going to be a long mortgage.

Hey. City people need to live somewhere, might as well be in the city....

   A person that qualifies for section 8 housing usually doesn't qualify for a $385,000 mortgage.  At least I have never heard of one.  Usually, any old SCHMO buys the house with the understanding that he will rent out to only section 8 tenants.  The tenant moves into the 4(?) bedroom house with their 8 person family and pays about ten percent of the rent, while the government pays the landlord the remaining 90%.

   I don't know about WA, but in NewJersey every town has to allocate a certain amount of space to low-income housing.  The township may pay neighboring townships huge amounts of money to take that obligation, so the high falooting towns don't have to deal with "that element".

Is that New Holly?

One weekend last January, Monica Hall went to an open house at NewHolly, the mixed income redevelopment in Southeast Seattle sprung from the public-housing project Holly Park. The 38-year-old radio advertising salesperson found herself attracted to one of a new group of town houses for sale by Polygon Northwest, which had bought land from the Seattle Housing Authority. "I had to act fast," she says. Polygon was putting 10 houses on the market the following Saturday, and in a cunning marketing move by the builder, buyers were to be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis that required the buyer or a family member to camp out on the property until the sale doors opened. On Thursday, the first two families arrived. Friday morning, Hall's real- estate agent, keeping close watch on the situation, told Hall to get down there. Nine families ended up spending the night together, supplied by Polygon with pizza, doughnuts, and an office where the buyers could lay out sleeping bags. In the end, 40 potential buyers showed up. The demand was so great that Polygon, which has continued building town homes, has raised prices several times in just the six months since. Originally selling for $266,000 to $310,000, the three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom homes now sell for $309,000 to $383,000. Those are the cheap homes at NewHolly. On the verge of completing the 118-acre, 1,451-unit redevelopment after more than a decade of planning and building, Housing Authority officials recently showed off impeccably designed four-bedroom houses selling for around $450,000. And so answers one long-standing question about the national public-policy experiment that NewHolly represents. The experiment is known as HOPE VI, a federal program that has doled out grants to local housing authorities willing to tear down ugly, ghettoized public-housing projects and rebuild them with diverse communities where public- housing residents would mix with, and hopefully be inspired by, working, middle-class homeowners. Critics like the Seattle Displacement Coalition's John Fox lamented that all the money and energy was going into what they saw as gentrification rather than the creation of additional, desperately needed housing for the poor. But even taking HOPE VI projects on their own terms, nobody was sure whether they would work. Would upper-income folks really want to buy into developments that were in part public housing? Would inspiration and harmony, or resentment and fear, brew between the classes at such projects? There aren't many places in the country where you can get the answer to those questions, nor will there be. NewHolly is one of the first HOPE VI redevelopments to be built. Although others are in the pipeline, including nearby Rainier Vista and West Seattle's High Point housing projects, the HOPE VI program is being phased out by the Bush administration. What NewHolly has revealed is that the presence of public-housing residents doesn't matter a damn to home buyers in Seattle's crazy real-estate bubble. "If we were in Detroit or Cleveland, we wouldn't be able to do this," says Al Levine, the Housing Authority's deputy executive director. "Additionally, we were in a unique situation: We were able to raise the density." While housing authorities elsewhere have been tearing down big apartment blocks and replacing them with units on a more livable scale, Seattle's has been able to build up from the spread-out World War II matchbox houses that comprised its housing projects while still creating attractive single-family homes and town houses. That increased density has eased building costs. Even so, the costs are considerable and funded only in small part by federal grants. The Housing Authority has had to scramble to find the rest of the money from private and local governmental sources. It has managed to do so at its first, showpiece redevelopment, NewHolly. The task is not proving so easy, however, for Rainier Vista, now in the middle of construction. NewHolly construction began on the top of Beacon Hill and worked down to Martin Luther King Way in the heart of the Rainier Valley. Some residents have now lived in the new community for years. "In the beginning, there were some problems," concedes Joy Bryngelson, a Housing Authority employee who organizes community events there. The biggest, she says, was over the notion of private space. Kids from the old Holly Park weren't used to private, gated yards and so tromped right through them, much to the chagrin of their owners. It took lots of community meetings, but she says the issue was finally sorted out. In general, residents seem to have positive things to say about NewHolly. Class differences seem to be a nonissue. One of the first to move in was architect Jeremy Rene, who with his wife bought a home there in 1999. "Generally, it's OK," Rene says. "It's not problem-free." A couple months ago, his garage was broken into, something he thinks could have happened in any neighborhood. And he says there have been some issues over whose responsibility it is to maintain communal areas like parks—the Housing Authority's or that of the homeowners association. But he likes the fact that a new management company hired by the homeowners association is being "more active in making people toe the line" on regulations laid down by the association over how people should maintain their homes. It "protects equity," he says. But he's also made a connection he wouldn't have made in a generic planned community. A young Somalian woman in NewHolly's public housing baby-sits his 17-month-old son. In all, Rene likes NewHolly well enough to trade up to one of its new $400,000-plus homes, which he will soon move into. Tamara Harris likes NewHolly, too, although she is slightly in awe of her status as a homeowner. A few years back, she was making $10 an hour working at Union Gospel Mission and walking up to NewHolly on her lunch break to admire the homes. "The places were so expensive," she says. "I thought, 'Oh boy.'" This is probably the biggest failing of NewHolly, which was supposed to have affordable houses that even public-housing residents could eventually buy. Housing Authority officials say that 25 percent of its homes are "affordable," but that's affordable to lower-middle-class folks making 80 percent of the area's median income (and even then it's a stretch)(1), not public-housing residents who earn less than 30 percent of the median. Still, Harris, currently a temporary laborer for the city of Seattle, was able to afford a house through Habitat for Humanity, which has built 43 truly affordable homes on-site. NewHolly's public housing, mostly town homes, is unquestionably better than what it replaced. Although there have been gripes about expensive utility bills and the loss of green space and trees, several residents interviewed seemed content. Somalian mother Hodan Mahamed compares her two-story duplex with her old unit in Yesler Park, an old-style public-housing complex run by the Housing Authority. "Oh my God. It's not even close," she exclaims. Her old home had mice, and drug users hung out on the playground. Her current one, she says, is "brand-new" and a safe environment for her two daughters. She spent a year on a waiting list to get it. That's not bad. The wait for NewHolly's public-housing units currently stretches up to five years, proving it is as popular among low-income residents as among home buyers. Will the Housing Authority be as successful with its other HOPE VI projects? The Displacement Coalition's Fox believes the agency has started to cut corners at Rainier Vista by building denser apartment units for public housing. He worries that apartment buildings are subject to deterioration and the kind of unsafe environment that plague traditional public housing. In the first phase of the redevelopment now being built on the west side of Martin Luther King Way, you can see two apartment buildings that will have 75 units between them. Housing Authority officials say the increased density is appropriate to a site that is to be a light-rail transit hub. But the added density also saves money, and money at Rainier Vista is a problem. The agency recently lost out on its bid for a $30 million grant for a community center and doesn't know what it will do instead. Unexpected infrastructure costs, delays, and an agreement to build more affordable housing than at NewHolly have additionally put the Housing Authority in a financial quandary. "We may have to look at funding sources we haven't used before," says the Housing Authority's Al Levine. When asked what those are, he says, "I don't know. I don't have the answers yet." Meanwhile, residents of the burgeoning community are settling in. Victoria Tupua, her husband, and their four kids recently moved into a Rainier Vista rental home slated to be affordable. They pay a little more than $1,000 a month rent for a four-bedroom town house, which is far from cheap but which she believes is a good deal. She had searched for housing all over the region, including in supposedly affordable south King County. Even looking at places in the $1,200 range, what she saw at the size her family needed were "serious dumps." And her current home? She considers her just-built house in a convenient location close to her job as a patient services coordinator at Harborview Medical Center. "There's no comparison."

Seattle househole median income=$42,364  Source
80% of median=$33891
That's close enough to wear I am and my ability to pay for a house/mortgage/taxes/Association fees maxes out in the $100,000 price range.

Quoted:    A person that qualifies for section 8 housing usually doesn't qualify for a $385,000 mortgage.  At least I have never heard of one.  Usually, any old SCHMO buys the house with the understanding that he will rent out to only section 8 tenants.  The tenant moves into the 4(?) bedroom house with their 8 person family and pays about ten percent of the rent, while the government mortgage buying taxpayer pays the landlord the remaining 90%.    I don't know about WA, but in NewJersey every town has to allocate a certain amount of space to low-income housing.  The township may pay neighboring townships huge amounts of money to take that obligation, so the high falooting towns don't have to deal with "that element".

Well, at least they won't have to go far when they're looking for their missing cars, tires, stereos and TVs. Nice narrow streets and no driveways either, that's gonna be fun when the eight member families bring their five cars with them. Great planning, Seattle.

Polygon, yipes.  I'm not surprised they are using every cost cutting method in the book, they invented most of them.....

Must be nice that welfare rats can have better homes than most of us that work our asses off.


I wonder if a FoodStamp package comes with the deal?

Quoted: Must be nice that welfare rats can have better homes than most of us that work our asses off. I wonder if a FoodStamp package comes with the deal?

I don't know if you can call that nice. You have a pretty nice spred, and I had rather live in a place like yours than the shit hole that CavVet posted.

If someone pays $480,000.00 for a house that close to your neighbors has goto to be crazy.  I could buy hundreds of acres and put a nice house on it for that price.

Quoted: I don't know if you can call that nice. You have a pretty nice spred, and I had rather live in a place like yours than the shit hole that CavVet posted.

Well thank you sir for the kind word.

I like my land, It is the Doublewide I dont care much about. It will be going away in the next year or so, and something more stout put on the property, But unlike those people in Seattle, We dont get any handouts from the Govt., Just raped at tax time.

But not in Peirce or MLK counties.


ETA:

Quoted: If someone pays $480,000.00 for a house that close to your neighbors has goto to be crazy.  I could buy hundreds of acres and put a nice house on it for that price.

Quoted: If someone pays $480,000.00 for a house that close to your neighbors has goto to be crazy.  I could buy hundreds of acres and put a nice house on it for that price.

I have 5 acres, not even one mile away from me, the new houseing going in is on 1/4 acre lots, high 300's to mid 400's.. and it is going fast!, about 300 homes total in a 5 mile area.

I moved out of the city six years ago.  Our cul de sac wasn't as tight as the pics, of course but tight enuff.  But even in skagit co the houses are popping up like dandilions.  My ol granpa wouldn't recognize Sedro-Woolley.  High density housing and traffic, inevitable.  I don't know how you kids are gonna deal with it let alone pay for it. ms

Quoted: Hey. City people need to live somewhere, might as well be in the city....

Yeh! Keep the bstrds out of my back yard!!!!! I don't need to pay higher prop taxes!!

 

Quoted:
   A person that qualifies for section 8 housing usually doesn't qualify for a $385,000 mortgage.  At least I have never heard of one.  Usually, any old SCHMO buys the house with the understanding that he will rent out to only section 8 tenants.  The tenant moves into the 4(?) bedroom house with their 8 person family and pays about ten percent of the rent, while the government pays the landlord the remaining 90%.

AND PEOPLE WONDER WHY OUR GOVERNMENT IS SCREWED UP.
You can work your ass off and get taxed the more you make, or you can sit on your fat lazy welfare sucking ass and have it GIVEN to you for free!In the meantime we the taxpayers are paying for the "landlord" and most likely the welfare clown.

Yeah, So There! gunchyck....

AND PEOPLE WONDER WHY OUR GOVERNMENT IS SCREWED UP. You can work your ass off and get taxed the more you make, or you can sit on your fat lazy welfare sucking ass and have it GIVEN to you for free!In the meantime we the taxpayers are paying for the "landlord" and most likely the welfare clown.

Applying for units at NewHolly NewHolly includes several kinds of units with specific eligibility requirements and application procedures. Applicants for the Low Income Public Housing units at NewHolly and Rainier Vista must earn 30 percent of  area median income or less. Note that this is different than other Low Income Public Housing communities, where the income limit is 80 percent of area median income.

Number
in
household
       (30% of median)
1 $16,350
2 $18,700
3 $21,050
4 $23,350
5 $25,250
6 $27,100
7 $29,000
8 $30,850

If New Holly is being run the same as other SHA projects are then in general, tenants pay at least 30 percent – but not more than 40 percent – of their monthly adjusted income for rent and utilities. (Tenants may pay more than 40 percent of their income after the first year.) The program does not place limits on the amount of rent a participating owner can charge, but rents must be comparable to similar units in the same area.

SHA screens all applicants for criminal history. If an applicant’s criminal background indicates that he or she may not be a suitable resident, his or her application may be denied. Denial is automatic if an applicant has committed certain offenses, such as:    *      Eviction from public housing for illegal drug activity within 3 years    *      Current use of illegal drugs    *      Methamphetamine production in public housing or elsewhere    *      Sex offenses requiring sex offender registration    *      A record indicating a pattern of alcohol abuse    *      Controlled substance possession or use within 2 years    *      Controlled substance delivery within 5 years    *      Intent to sell drugs within 5 years    *      Sexual assault within 10 years    *      Felony assault within 5 years    *      Misdemeanor assault within 2 years    *      Four or more assaults of any kind within 10 years    *      Arson within 10 years    *      Homicide within 20 years    *      Burglary within 2 years    *      Robbery within 5 years    *      Armed robbery within 10 years    *      Kidnapping within 7 years    *      Prostitution within 2 years    *      Domestic abuse within 5 years    *      Any other felony convictions within 3 years    *      Any crimes that indicate habitual criminal behavior Please note that time intervals do not include time incarcerated.

High(low)lights from the 1994 SHAs executive summary

Holly Park is the Seattle Housing Authority's most severely distressed public housing community. It currently contains 893 units in one- and two-story wood frame townhouses on a 102-acre rolling site in southeast Seattle. In 1993 the median family income at Holly Park was $7,012, compared to $43,900 for Seattle overall. Roughly 85 percent of Holly Park's population is non-white, many of whom are recent immigrants who have difficulty speaking and understanding English and communicating with one another. Most distressing is the number of children who live in poverty; 63 percent of the children under 18 years of age at Holly Park live in poverty compared to 16.2 percent citywide. Physical deterioration has also taken its toll at Holly Park. Originally constructed in 1941, over the years there have been major deficiencies such as poor site drainage, loose and peeling lead-based paint, deteriorating site infrastructure and building conditions, and units which lack insulation, have outdated heating systems and suffer from poor design. The mixed-income community will include all income levels: 800 units of subsidized housing (400 allocated to very low-income households and 400 reserved for low-income households) and 400 units of market rate housing.

BTW this may be the Rainier Vista development and not New Holly, but they are similar to each other.

CavVets initial point and statement of Wait until welfare meets the Volvo. Its going to be a long mortgage. may be true.  It will be interesting to see how the 400 families with the $385K-$480K houses get along with their 800 neighbors who don't make enough to get a $60k home.  

Will class envy run rampant?

CavVets initial point and statement of Wait until welfare meets the Volvo. Its going to be a long mortgage. may be true.  It will be interesting to see how the 400 families with the $385K-$480K houses get along with their 800 neighbors who don't make enough to get a $60k home.  

Will class envy run rampant?



I'm surprised that they allow gun ownership with this mix.

Quoted: I'm surprised that they allow gun ownership with this mix.

SHA (Seattle Housing Authority) would have a hard time trying to ban them

RCW 9.41.290 State preemption. The state of Washington hereby fully occupies and preempts the entire field of firearms regulation within the boundaries of the state, including the registration, licensing, possession, purchase, sale, acquisition, transfer, discharge, and transportation of firearms, or any other element relating to firearms or parts thereof, including ammunition and reloader components. Cities, towns, and counties or other municipalities may enact only those laws and ordinances relating to firearms that are specifically authorized by state law, as in RCW 9.41.300, and are consistent with this chapter. Such local ordinances shall have the same penalty as provided for by state law. Local laws and ordinances that are inconsistent with, more restrictive than, or exceed the requirements of state law shall not be enacted and are preempted and repealed, regardless of the nature of the code, charter, or home rule status of such city, town, county, or municipality.

They can keep that shit.

Quoted: Quoted: CavVets initial point and statement of Wait until welfare meets the Volvo. Its going to be a long mortgage. may be true.  It will be interesting to see how the 400 families with the $385K-$480K houses get along with their 800 neighbors who don't make enough to get a $60k home.   Will class envy run rampant? I'm surprised that they allow gun ownership with this mix.

I think the 400 mortgage paying families are going to see their equity evaporate. Best bet is to stuff 25 illegals in the house at $250/mo each, otherwise you're gonna lose your ass. That's what the subsidized immigrant families will be doing. The streets are going to be clogged with cars. You'll have to park five blocks from your house.

Quoted: We have been working on this neighborhood for awhile now, thought I would put it out here. images.snapfish.com/3448282723232%7Ffp47%3Dot%3E232%3A%3D%3B8%3B%3D833%3DXROQDF%3E2323%3A63%3B988%3A3ot1lsi Wait until welfare meets the Volvo. Its going to be a long mortgage.

If they were in palistine, the place would be called a refuge camp, but us ingenious Americans call them $$$housing developements$$$.
Maybe it will keep more city people in the city.
I'll stick the my little trailerpark in the woodz for a while longer, it shouldn't be to long tell we move to the our new place.

 DD

Quoted: Quoted: Hey. City people need to live somewhere, might as well be in the city.... Yeh! Keep the bstrds out of my back yard!!!!! I don't need to pay higher prop taxes!!

Where is your back yard?

Quoted: Roughly 85 percent of Holly Park's population is non-white, many of whom are recent immigrants who have difficulty speaking and understanding English and communicating with one another. This sounds greatMost distressing is the number of children who live in poverty; 63 percent of the children under 18 years of age at Holly Park live in poverty compared to 16.2 percent citywide. Physical deterioration has also taken its toll at Holly Park.Most likely because the people there don't give a shit about other peoples property Originally constructed in 1941, over the years there have been major deficiencies such as poor site drainage, loose and peeling lead-based paint, deteriorating site infrastructure and building conditions, and units which lack insulation, have outdated heating systems and suffer from poor design. The mixed-income community will include all income levels: 800 units of subsidized housing (400 allocated to very low-income households and 400 reserved for low-income households) and 400 units of market rate housing. It will be interesting to see how the 400 families with the $385K-$480K houses get along with their 800 neighbors who don't make enough to get a $60k home.

This all sounds just so F**ked up!!!! Why do we have to pay other peoples way it just pisses me off. I have been homeless before (twice once because employers did not pay me two months in a row & I have lost two homes) and I have made my way back up the ladder. I did not get any fucking help from no body. Yet if they (immigrants or lazy people) don't work or cannot live within the means of what they make, the Gov steps in and takes from the middle & rich and gives it to them. I think this is a shitty way to do bussiness unless its for the totally disabled. I don't give a fuck if these people are on the street & starve to death. I was always told growing up if you don't work you don't eat.

On a side note I'm not totally hartless sometimes I do give food or a little money to the poor/homeless on the street corners. Unless you have stood there you don't know what it is like to get all the looks from people in cars. But I think the GOV needs to step out and quit making lazy asses.

Rant off for now and if I stepped on your toes, oh well. Just my two cents.

Quoted: Rant off for now and if I stepped on your toes, oh well. Just my two cents.

Not my toes.

I'm ok with the .gov offering a helping hand to pull people up by their bootstraps and help them get to their feet, I draw the line at having to stand there and hold them up on their feet for eternity.   IMHO that's where the welfare system is broken, and I don;t know how to fix it, but killing it off isn't fixing it either.

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime."

I will add insult to injury. This is not New Holly and this is not Polygon, although I worked that shithiole too.  This is is another liberal tax and spend pork project.


I didnt know anything in New Holly wasnt Section 8.  It did have more English speakers working the project fwiw, but the Polygon houses were even shittier built.


The residents I see in the two are new, non native immigrants in the one I pictured above, and stereotypical  American welfare recipients in New Holly.


Saddest part is, if you want to see good building, you have to see a private house, with a small contractor only in particular parts of the city..


And then there are those who are dumb enough to hire the Tongans to do their concert work. When something is too cheap to be real, it aint real, and your dumb ass just got what you paid for. Never, but never, but never ever ever let Tongans do concert work for you, or anyone you know. oh my goodness.

 

Quoted:    A person that qualifies for section 8 housing usually doesn't qualify for a $385,000 mortgage.  At least I have never heard of one.  Usually, any old SCHMO buys the house with the understanding that he will rent out to only section 8 tenants.  The tenant moves into the 4(?) bedroom house with their 8 person family and pays about ten percent of the rent, while the government pays the landlord the remaining 90%.    I don't know about WA, but in NewJersey every town has to allocate a certain amount of space to low-income housing.  The township may pay neighboring townships huge amounts of money to take that obligation, so the high falooting towns don't have to deal with "that element".

These arent built by the .gov for investers to steal our money, these are built by a developer. Some are being sold to the owners to live in, others are section 8, that just happen to be adjacent.

Totally different from what you are describing. The yuppie lady vacuming runner rugs at 10 AM when I took this picture, just out of camera on my right, had her Volvo in front, and her hubbys golf shoes were on the porch.

The Volvo owners better get used to diversification. HUD has a new mandate decreeing that the low income housing population be mixed through the census tracks. I won't say which Housing Authority I work for, but I will add that about 20% of all housing residents are just trying to get through tough times and move along while the rest are leeches that should to be forcibly escorted out of the country. If the Fed locked our doors tomorrow and said they were shutting down HUD forever I'd be happily unemployed. The worst ones are the Middle Eastern immigrants who believe that the USA is the land of the free. Free money, free home, free power/water/sewer, free food, free to do whatever you please and scream to the ACLU if anyone says anything different. If taxpayers really knew the horseshit that goes on they would burn all public housing down to the ground.

One last point, the one I work for says tenants cannot posses firearms on the property, period. How's that for infringing on a Constitutional right?

I'm torn on this; I don't have a problem helping anyone get on their feet and I think it's the right role of government to have programs in place for people to fall back on when times are tough. It's what the people that use the programs actually do with themselves that is what makes the difference. Unfortunately most don't seem to do shit.

Those homes aren't worth 100k in my book but the land they sit on is at a premium. It is somewhat ridiculous that the section 8 home is nicer than what most can afford working their ass off. Watch what happens to those homes though in ten years. I used to drive past Shalishan in Tacoma every day and not once did I see anyone doing a single thing to make their lives better there. The neighborhood looked like shit when I was a kid and it looks like shit now. Of course they are all being rebuilt also just like the pictures that were posted. What kind of incentive is there to get OFF the dole when the house you can afford isn't as nice as the house the .gub is subsidizing for your family? This IMO is the problem with the fed in general. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and they obviously have too much tax money if urban renewal projects are at this scope now in my book.

Was it FDR's new deal that federalized things and they just never recovered to the states taking care of themselves or what? I just don't understand where we gave the fed so much control over our money that without their funding the states can't take care of things like this themselves. Maybe Im being shortsighted?

I have a close relative that resides in section 8 housing. They recently rebuilt the apartments where he is at and they are nice but modest places. He isn't anywhere capable of taking care of himself due to health issues but he also brought it on himself in a way by living one hell of a selfish life. Now we're paying for him too. He is a Vet so that helps as he did serve in time of war but his family is completely off the hook as is he for his living his life the way he did. I see him and can't help but feel some amount of empathy in a way, he is a lonely old man and he's dying, trying to undo a lifetime of bad choices. It's a true testament to me every time I think of all the things that make life really worthwhile.

It also makes me grateful as hell that I don't live that way.

Quoted: Must be nice that welfare rats can have better homes than most of us that work our asses off. I wonder if a FoodStamp package comes with the deal?

No Fukin Shit...... Lazy bastards always complaning for more