Advocacy & Stewardship

Placekeeping in the Duwamish Valley

Anti- Displacement and Affordable Housing work

 In recent years the affordable housing crisis has hit our community very hard. Displacement is one of the top three concerns for community members, and as the River cleanup and more attention from the City continues, our low-income residents are being displaced at an alarming rate. DRCC/TAG is staffing a member of the Duwamish Valley Affordable Housing Coalition  in order to support vulnerable community members. Lack of affordable housing and displacement of people of color and low-income residents are frequently linked with examples of environmental injustices being perpetrated on the same demographics. We see the correlation between the two and we have heard the community’s request for support.

For more information, please contact Robin@duwamishcleanup.org

We support the Duwamish Valley Affordable Housing Coalition’s three-prong approach:

• Preservation of naturally affordable housing 

• Creating of new new affordable housing 

• Creation of new affordable housing space 

Supporting our communities in the wake of the cleanup

We are working with Duwamish Valley stakeholders and community so that they are able to effectively partner to address environmental justice, local wealth building, climate resilience policy and infrastructure, affordable housing, and workforce development challenges. Our vision is a resilient neighborhood organized to advance health equity, center the voices of those most affected by environmental disparities and systemic racism, and where neighbors, workers, and businesses are able to thrive in place despite projected climate change impacts. Only with strong and powerful communities rooted in place will we be able to weather the storm of climate change. Being rooted means having fair housing, dignified work, public transit, and healthy food.  With a rapidly changing city, the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition is drawing the links between gentrification, displacement, climate change and community power.

The Duwamish Valley’s vulnerability to sea level rise and air pollution mean that climate change events will have a greater impact on this community than on wealthier and healthier areas in Seattle.

90% of City acres projected to sustain permanent increase in water levels are in South Park. This inundation may render these areas unlivable and unworkable, causing significant economic impact. To understand the environmental justice implications, census tracts impacted by projected flooding according to social variables including income, minority status, language, and housing have been assessed. The analysis revealed the communities most impacted by flooding are also disproportionately underserved, most notably in South Park/Georgetown.

Community Capacity & Organizing

We seek to streamline the many small local interest groups, to bring them together and integrate their missions, and most importantly to support voices that are commonly overlooked and/or not heard within community meetings and organizations and regarding decisions directly impacting them. We wish to amplify the voices of low-income neighbors, immigrant neighbors, and people of color. In the Duwamish Valley, most of these voices belong to African-Americans, Native Americans, and Cambodian, Latinx, Vietnamese, and Somali immigrants and refugees. We envision a coalition-type body as our goal is communication and support while ensuring that the voices referred to above are given equitable airtime and opportunity to speak and organize as a decision-making body. We feel strongly about the role of equity in this effort and how it will affect communication between representatives and community.