Ahmed envisions a $6 million affordable housing complex in the coming years, and a commercial sector teeming with the independent shops run primarily by immigrant women in Washington’s most diverse city. But for now, he’s hoping to have residents and tenants in the existing hotel by the end of the year.
As Seattle’s latest economic resurgence continues apace, minority groups like the first-generation immigrant and refugee populations living in Tukwila are vulnerable to displacement when investment flows into their neighborhood. Rents have soared in the city and neighboring suburbs, and lower-income residents are getting pushed further out; groups like Forterra are advancing the notion that one way to advance the cause of natural conservation is to combat housing unaffordability in urban areas.
“At a gut level it makes sense,” says Michelle Connor, Forterra’s vice president, who oversees the group’s urban work. “If we invest in those neighborhoods, what do we need to do to ensure that people can stay and actually benefit from those investments, as opposed to being pushed out?”
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