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RCAC Self-Help Builder News December 2011 Volume 4, Issue 4 >
Friend of Housing award
By Pam Teitz
I am pleased and honored to announce our first Friend of Housing award. The first award recipient is John Campbell.
Livelihood implies compensation or earnings for your skills; however, compensation is not always in the form of money and John Campbell exemplifies that other rewarding livelihood, being a volunteer and community catalyst. John has been a force for affordable housing in San Juan County for decades. He is a retired architect, living on Orcas Island. John is a volunteer’s volunteer.
John is the founding board member of Homes For Islanders (HFI), a non-profit affordable housing developer in San Juan County. HFI uses the USDA Rural Development 523 program to develop “sweat equity” homes allowing purchasers to work into homeownership. He volunteered his architectural skills, designing all of the homes.
Through HFI, six neighborhoods now provide 49 homes for working households who otherwise could not afford housing in Washington’s least affordable county. Twenty-one additional homes will be completed soon.
John serves on the San Juan County Housing Bank Commission (HBC) formerly the Housing Advisory Board, which is a volunteer advisory board to the County Council on affordable housing issues, programs, and policies.
With the aid of a CDBG planning only grant, funding was obtained to conduct a county-wide affordable housing planning effort resulting in an affordable housing action plan for San Juan County.
John’s accomplishments do not end here.
In 1998, John wrote a grant application to the Housing Trust Fund to establish a down payment assistance loan fund for low-income, first time homebuyers in the county. The application was rejected since John wasn’t a county employee, but a volunteer. The application was reformatted and submitted by John Manning, director of the county health department, who commented that John Campbell did most of the hard work and research for the $474,000 grant awarded in 1999. An additional HTF grant was awarded in 2002 totaling $250,000. Since inception, this down payment assistance loan program has helped over 45 low-income people purchase homes.
Knowing the need for affordable rental housing also existed; John went to HUD to request Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers for county residents. HUD awarded those vouchers and today this program provides 20 low-income disabled residents with long-term, stable housing subsidies.
In 2008, John prompted the county to use some of its 2163 Homeless funds to provide rental subsidies for extremely low-income seniors in the county that were at great risk of homelessness. Through his leadership the Housing Bank Commission developed the “San Juan County Senior Rent Subsidy,” which currently provides 12 very low-income seniors with stable rental subsidies. This program was expanded to include eight disabled persons.
In 2010, dissatisfied with the county’s response to low-income housing issues, John petitioned the Growth Management Hearings Board to force the county to take action. While this petition was unsuccessful, the advocacy community supporting it was strengthened through the effort.
Does Livelihood ring a bell here? Obviously there is more that John Campbell has done, but I don’t think there is anyone here who doubts that John is a Friend of Housing.