GRACE

Architect. Mother. Seattle Planning Commission.

"We've lived in Seattle since 1999. We rented for many of those years and we also lived in a condo we owned. We knew that we wanted to live in the city. We also knew that we wanted to live in community housing. It just offers a lot of choices and a lot of opportunities.

I don't like to drive. Walking around, you get invested in your neighborhood in a different way than driving. We wanted to be able to walk to the coffee shop and wanted to be able to go to grocery stores and go to restaurants and have cultural amenities that wouldn’t require a long bus ride. This is a place we plan to live in forever. It’s for the long-term. So, we’re actually thinking about growing old in this place. We didn't want to be reliant on having somebody come pick us up to take us to the doctor or reliant on a shuttle service or isolated somewhere you need a car to get around. We wanted be able to walk to a hospital.

There are 9 units and 28 people, including 17 grownups and 11 kids. In a community house like this, I like knowing my neighbors, knowing that they have my back. So if I need someone who can pick up my daughter or just need some support, there's somebody around I can trust. Or if I forgot to turn off the oven someday I can call someone.

One of our neighbors has a dog and sometimes the dog would run into our apartment. We walk kids to school together. My parents’ first reaction when they came to visit (we were having dinner and you could hear kids playing down the courtyard or people coming and going) and my parents both said, 'it feels like you're alive here.' They just meant the fact that there were other people around us…

I love Seattle. It’s amazing to be in a really dense urban environment with lots of different activities and culture. Water and nature are not far away.

I'm on the Planning Commission and I love that Seattle is wrestling with being a big city and being a small city, and all of the conversations right now about race and social equity are great things to be talking about and paying attention to. We are at the forefront of the nation in that regard.

In my dreams, Seattle would be an inclusive place where all races and economic ranges could have access to every neighborhood in the city. Neighborhoods would be diverse and multi-racial. My daughter goes to public school six blocks away, and we were there last Tuesday for cultural night, and it was great to see the racial diversity of the kids. But I worry that we're going to get to a place like San Francisco where only the wealthiest people can afford to live.

I think it's really important that we have a city that is for families, and that families can afford to live in the city or have the choice to live in an apartment building or condo or live in a single-family house so they don't have to move to Renton or to Shoreline to be able to afford what they want.

If you say you care about all people, then why wouldn’t they have access to your neighborhood?"

Home is Capitol Hill cooperative cohousing with 9 home units—28 people, including 17 grownups and 11 kids.

We are #SeattleNeighbors. Seattle needs more homes, of all shapes and sizes, for all our neighbors.