Building Housing. Supporting Communities.

GS Consulting, in partnership with Ally Community Development, is developing Mount Zion Housing at 19th, 61 units of housing for low income seniors in Central Seattle. Mount Zion Housing Development (MZHD) was created by Mount Zion Baptist Church, which dates back to 1890 and is the largest African American congregation in the state of Washington. The neighborhood is ground zero for Seattle’s gentrification with rents escalating far faster than incomes in the last three decades. The Central District is the historic center of the African American Community in Seattle; but the area has gone from 70% African American in the 1970s to less than 18% today. The units will be studios and one-bedrooms serving seniors 55 years and older at 30%, 50%, and 60% of the area median income. This project will offer affordable rental units for seniors who have been displaced, or are in danger of being displaced, due to rising rents, allowing them to remain in the community where they raised their children and have called home for much of their lives.  

The project will be financed with funding from the City of Seattle Office of Housing, Washington State Housing Trust Fund, King County, and a private bank loan. Five of the units will be for people with severe disabilities and fifteen of the units will target veterans.

Mount Zion Housing on 19th is scheduled to start construction in the summer of 2021 and be completed at the end of 2022. 

Ginger Segel completed an assessment of the need for the project for the Tulalip Tribes, interviewing stakeholders as to the family size, service needs, and program elements that would work best for homeless Tulalip Tribal members. The assessment identified the need for housing for single individuals as well as small families in a supportive structured community. The Tribes are planning to create 17 one- and two-bedroom cottages and a community building with staff offices, large community kitchen and multipurpose room, homework room, child play area, and laundry. The cottages will be very modest in size at 480 square feet including a full kitchen and bath.

The village will be funded from the Washington Housing Trust Fund Cottage Housing Program, private foundation dollars and Tribal resources. The village is planned to break ground in the summer of 2021 and be completed in 2022.

The Sno Valley Senior Center (SVSC) has lamented the lack of affordable rental housing for seniors in the Snoqualmie Valley for many years. As local farmers and other long-term residents age, the lack of housing options force them out of the area where they raised their children and spent most of their lives. There is no affordable housing option in Carnation, and no affordable senior housing between North Bend and Redmond.

In the spring of 2021, Ginger Segel conducted a feasibility study that included constructing an apartment building on land owned by SVSC just north of the center of downtown in Carnation. She found that the site can accommodate 15 one-bedroom apartments with rents affordable to households at 30, 50 and 60% of the area median income. Applications for funding to the Federal Home Loan Bank, King County Housing Finance Program, and Washington State Housing Trust Fund will be submitted in 2021, and construction planned to start in the fall of 2022.

Pacific Place Apartments in rural South Bend were built in 1988 with financing and rental assistance from USDA Rural Development. The complex has been described as ‘the nicest place to live for seniors’ in the city, with 24 units, 21 of which have rental assistance allowing for tenants to pay 30% of their actual income for rent.  

The Joint Pacific County Housing Authority is seeking to purchase and preserve this important subsidized housing in a County that has a severe housing shortage. GS Consulting, in partnership with Ally Community Development, has completed predevelopment work including completing due diligence, negotiating a purchase option, and securing $1.3MM in state funding for renovations. 

JPCHA is expected to purchase the property in the summer of 2021 and envelope and accessibility upgrades will be completed by the end of the year. This is an occupied renovation; the residents will not be displaced.