Tag: BIPOC STAHC

BIPOC Meet the Organizers

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Carol Rashawnna Williams

 

STAHC has been in development for several years by local artist and organizer Carol Rashawnna Williams. STAHC culminates from Carol’s extensive experience as a Real Estate Agent in solar and renewable development, permaculture and land use, creative space management, nonprofit and small business management, and career development. Carol is also a professional painter, muralist, and musician. She coluted on the first City of Seattle Building Art Space Equitably – BASE, the Rainier Avenue Business Coalition, Hillman City Collaboratory, Nature Consortium, YouthBuild, YWCA, Environmental Professionals of Color (EPOC) and others. In addition to these credentials, Carol has first-hand experience of displacement, houselessness, and intoxified “affordable housing” solutions often designated for low-income professionals of color, such as artists. 

Carol has first-hand experience of being gentrified, deeply impacted by displacement, houselessness, and intoxified “affordable housing” solutions often designated for low-income professionals of color, such as artists. All these experiences together have informed the design vision for STAHC. As a co-constructed project, each advisor, volunteer, Artist-Owner, and neighborhood elder has had their own experience of the pressures of displacement in Seattle, and all are leaders in their own communities in various ways. This project seeks to leverage their skill sets and assist in assuring these prominent BIPOC Seattle based artists can stay here in Seattle not forced to leave. 

 

The BIPOC STAHC is part of the Sustainable Seattle Interweave program, a network of BIPOC and Frontline organizers to restore a sustainable Seattle. Through S2 Carol is a part of the advisory committee to the board of directors. The Community-Organized Resource Development (CORD), a BIPOC group of developers, community organizers, and real estate agents now back the project. The land owner desires to re-develop 5 acres of land, and plans to implement the STAHC, under Carol’s management, as a prototype for an equitable investment opportunity for Artists & Gentrified Seattle Residents to purchase housing in Seattle. Led by an initial cohort of BIPOC artist-owners, neighborhood residents, and elders from an adjacent Senior Center, together the community cohort, facilitated by Carol, establishes the vision, community connection, and design for the site.

Organizing Community: 

Devon Midori Hale | Community Engagement Consultant

Alexander Chauhan | Technical Consultant

Emanuelle Roy | Technical Consultant and S2 Board Member

Innocent Muhalia | Architect Consultant

Em Piro | Sustainable Seattle (S2)

Dominick Ojeda | Land Use Consultant and S2 Board Member

BIPOC Sustainable Tiny Art House Solutions

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BIPOC Sustainable Tiny Art House Solutions

 

STAHC envisions establishing a new precedent for a viable, creative, build-to-own, environmentally sustainable, healthy, equity-building, low income BIPOC-led infrastructure alternative to Seattle’s unacceptable neoliberal neighborhood development and housing model. This project will be replicable throughout Seattle, particularly in BIPOC-inaccessible and high-displacement neighborhoods.

 

> Advance economic mobility and opportunity. The goal is to keep Seattle Artist of Color/BIPOC in Seattle and to allow them to own their first starter house that could be used to purchase their dream house later or provide funds for other dreams. Artists will have the opportunity to build their portfolios not only on this project, but also on the replicated sites as well.

 

> Prevent residential, commercial, and cultural displacement. This project aligns with the need for affordable home ownership for artists of color and amplifies/activates their voices/power and commitment to community by being co-located in residential communities. This project model seeks to introduce the Tiny House Community model with an equity-first mandate to Southeast Seattle, to confront Seattle’s rampant gentrification and displacement of BIPOC communities. By embedding the project with artists, the Community is established by a group with natural pathways for cultural competency, communications and outreach. 


> Build on local cultural assets. With low-materials costs, the project may leverage local cultural knowledge, especially from Immigrant communities. Rainier Valley has one of the densest East African populations in the region, who also offer expertise in architecture, landscape, permaculture, and farming practices. The artists act as designers/owners and design their own houses in tandem with each other. 


> Promote transportation mobility and connectivity. Walkability, connectivity. Artists can have live-work spaces which can be toured by patrons and/or turned into night markets (kind of like the small Trailer Park Mall in Georgetown), art walks, or community art classes.


> Develop healthy and safe neighborhoods. Permaculture design ensures artists are able to grow their own, culturally responsive organic food, and share food with neighbors. Water catchment systems, solar power grid tied design assures the land is also being considered at the heart of the design.


> Enable equitable access to all neighborhoods. The model is based on a Land Trust, held in perpetuity, at $50,000/house. This model is scalable and replicable, and could be used on other sites with vacant land. This model is NOT designed a ‘downsize’ for the privileged who have already bought a house. The design is inherently at its core an equitable, clean, safe solution for those most affected by gentrification, to build a substantial amount of equity for future generations of BIPOC and can be launched anywhere in Seattle, which means no redlining.