[NFBWATLK] Greater Seattle Chapter meeting this Saturday.

[Mike Mello]

Good morning all,

This Saturday from 10:00 - 12:00 the Greater Seattle Chapter of the National
Federation of the Blind of Washington will have our first meeting of the
year.

We meet at City University of Seattle 521 wall st in the Belltown
neighborhood the entrance to the building is located on the corner of wall
and 6th.

Our agenda for this month's meeting includes officer elections (remember to
bring your $5.00 for dues for the year), Chapter spotlight from Cindy,
update on Washington seminar from folks who are attending, Seattle for All
is our speaker and I am including some information from them for our
discussion.

We will also discuss fundraising activities and chapter social events for
2017.

Several events this weekend may impact transit, including the woman's march
on Saturday morning, give yourself extra time, We will also be going to
lunch as a group after the meeting.

If you have any questions, give me a call at 208-301-0565

-Mike Mello

 

 

Everyone deserves an affordable place to live. But housing in Seattle is
becoming too scarce and too expensive. Families and individuals across
Seattle are struggling to keep up with rising rents, and many find
themselves displaced from the city or making hard sacrifices simply to pay
the rent each month. 

That's why it's so exciting that we have recently made big steps toward
becoming a more livable and equitable city through the
<http://www.seattle.gov/hala/about> Housing Affordability and Livability
Agenda (HALA), a multi-pronged, innovative approach to address the housing
affordability crisis in Seattle that would create 50,000 new homes over the
next decade, including 20,000 homes reserved for low- and moderate-income
people.

The City recently adopted the new Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA)
program framework, the centerpiece of HALA. MHA is designed to harness the
unprecedented growth Seattle is experiencing to bring more diverse and
affordable housing choices for more families and individuals in Seattle. The
program will create more than 6,000 new affordable (rent- or
income-restricted) homes over ten years in neighborhoods all across the
city, made possible through changes to outdated zoning laws in our
opportunity-rich urban areas-main thoroughfares and their surroundings that
were designated as our "urban centers" and "urban villages" over twenty
years ago.

 <https://seattleforeveryone.org/> Seattle for Everyone is working to ensure
that MHA is fully implemented by advocating for the zoning changes needed to
begin to produce affordable homes through the program. These zoning changes
will allow for new buildings to help meet our city's need for more homes and
will ensure that homes come in a variety of shapes and sizes to meet
peoples' different needs-and MHA will require a portion of these homes to be
affordable to low- and moderate-income households. MHA and zoning changes
combined will allow more people across the income spectrum to take advantage
of the many opportunities and amenities that Seattle represents: good jobs,
good transit, great schools, beautiful parks, rich cultural diversity, and
more.

 

For information on how you can support affordable housing in Seattle,
contact Seattle for Everyone outreach coordinator Erin House at
<mailto:erin at seattleforeveryone.org> erin at seattleforeveryone.org