The Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) has completed work on the Good Shepherd House, a new affordable housing development built in partnership with the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd.
Located at 1415 22nd Avenue, the project consists of a seven-story, 86-unit apartment building - including 84 units of supportive housing for formerly homeless residents, a manager's unit, and a separate three-bedroom apartment for use by the church. The apartments are currently leasing up, and are earmarked for veterans, asylum seekers, and persons transitioning out of tiny homes.
The development stands on a property which was the home to Seattle's first ever tiny home village.
“In 2014 LIHI was working in partnership with Nickelsville to address unsheltered homelessness," said LIHI Executive Director Sharon Lee. "The Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd had previously hosted a tent city for Nickelsville. Working together with the church we all thought we could do better than tents and decided to try out a new concept of building a tiny house village. Pastor Steve Olsen, Trustee Steve Tucker and the congregation generously offered their vacant lot next to the church. That lot became Seattle’s first tiny house village and kicked off a program that has grown to over 20 villages that have sheltered thousands of people. And now that very same lot has become this beautiful building that will provide permanent housing for those in need for generations to come. My heartfelt thanks go to Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd for their amazing vision and charitable spirit.”
The project was the first to make use of Seattle's new ordinance permitting bonuses for affordable housing developments on land owned by religious institutes. Without that bonus, the project would have been limited to 65 residential units. LIHI, which has a 99-year ground lease for the land, built the project using funds from the Seattle Office of Housing, HUD, and other sources.
The building was designed by Runberg Architecture Group and built by Walsh Construction.
