Work is well underway as the 40-unit Island Center Homes affordable housing project approaches the halfway mark.
The project, located at SW 188th Street and Vashon Highway, had been in a planning, funding development and permitting phase since 2017 before breaking ground in winter 2022. When completed, Island Center Homes will add 40 income-qualified rental units to the tight affordable housing inventory on Vashon.
Construction remains scheduled to complete in the late summer next year with occupancy beginning before the end of 2024. (Construction began in February this year.) The project is on track for its approximately $12 million price tag.
Vashon HouseHold is still developing the process for selecting tenants, Executive Director Jason Johnson said in an email.
“Community outreach targeting veterans, seniors, people with developmental disabilities, people who have experienced homelessness, and people who are engaged with the behavioral health system will begin next year and will help to inform the selection policy,” he wrote.
Rent will be set to 30% of an individual’s income, Johnson said, and in order to qualify, a renter would need to earn below 30% of the area median income. In King County, that means a maximum of $28,800 for a single-person household.
The math works out to $720 per month as the highest rent someone could pay at the rental units; that amount could also be reduced to factor in the price of utilities.
“(The $720 figure) would be the absolute maximum rent someone would pay as many/most of who we expect to serve will be below the 30% AMI line,” Johnson wrote. “If someone has zero income, they will pay $0 in rent.”
Founded as a nonprofit by community activists in 1990, Vashon HouseHold works to address rental availability on Vashon. This year, it acquired a 12-unit apartment building, launched its Home Share program and started building Island Center homes.
When completed, Island Center Homes will be laid out in a cluster on 1.2 acres of the property, which has eight water shares. Five buildings will each contain eight single occupancy suites complete with individual baths. Residents will share kitchen, laundry, and common living areas.
To facilitate a thriving, healthy community at the site, Vashon HouseHold will create shared space agreements among residents and provide interior and exterior custodial and maintenance staff, as it currently does with existing properties.
Providing wrap-around social services will also be a priority; the organization plans to assign a social worker to help meet the existing and emerging needs of residents.
Looking forward, “we would like to develop another community land trust homeownership community such as Roseballen and Sunflower,” Johnson wrote. “We see this as an important workforce housing strategy. But at this very moment, we do not have such a development in the pipeline.”
As for the Home Share program: “We established a self-imposed goal of 15 matches, and we expect to get pretty darn close to that,” he wrote.
To find out more about all of VashonHold’s programs, including its portfolio of affordable homeownership properties on Vashon, visit vashonhousehold.org.
