Common Roots Housing Trust Origin and Purpose

Community Council Speech -Marcus Whitman

Founding Board Member Joy Smith speaks at Community Council Annual Meeting about Common Roots Housing Trust Origin and Purpose.

Thank you all for coming here today-this is fun when we can all get together like this. I enjoy spending time with almost all of you!

For those of you who know me, I don’t often speak out or speak up but you know that I have some favorite subjects and those subjects start with of course my grandchildren -and don’t leave right after lunch because I will be coming around to each of you individually with pictures-Mary wouldn’t let me do a power point.

I, also, enjoy talking about my community home of Waitsburg because there is always something happening in Waitsburg. And, with more and more enthusiasm and excitement -I enjoying sharing the successes and goals of Common Roots Housing Trust.

I will be forever grateful to Community Council for the role they have played in solving global problems for the communities of Walla Walla Valley.

Community Council has consistently and generously shared its staff and resources to help foster solutions to problems that Walla Walla valley stakeholders have identified as critical to each of our economic development processes and to our community building. In every community there is work to be done.

And I truly believe that Every region that shares close adjacent ties and borders with other cities should have an organization, akin to Community Council, with the excellence of Community Council, that brings stakeholders to one table to solve the problems that globally exist amongst all our communities.

One of those challenges in 2018 was affordable housing and the lack of affordable workforce housing in all of our communities.

The Community Council Executive Director and Board of Directors understands the need to build economic development and the stumbling blocks that impede economic development in rural communities. Housing is where economic development lives. …Housing is where economic development lives. And Communities, when they discover what they care about, are a powerful force for change.

Affordable housing is when housing costs – rent or mortgage, insurance, taxes utilities – do not exceed 30% of a households income. Based on this definition, affordable housing includes housing for moderate-income, working class households whose wages simply have not kept up with housing costs.

Under the sheltered umbrella of Community Council, in 2018, 38 community members met for 16 weeks listening to resource speakers to better understand the causes, compounding factors, and strategies of rising housing costs in our region. They then spent nine weeks refining and approving the findings, developing conclusions, and making recommendations to improve the availability of safe and affordable homes for rent or purchase to households of all income levels.And just like you all in this room today, the people studying this challenge were smart and committed to the work.

The primary result: Common Roots Housing Trust established with a 12 member founding board who stayed together for over 4 years gaining financial funding and executive leadership for Common Roots.

Our first years as a Housing Trust were mentored by the generous guardianship of Community Council sharing financial costs to ensure our mission success. It was a big financial and PERSONNEL commitment by Community Council.

BMAC provided financial stewardship of our monies as we obtained our 501C3 status in Washington and Oregon.

Now, today, we have excellent executive leadership with Kathryn Witherington guiding our mission to secure affordable housing. Four of our founding board members still serve on our 12 member Tri-Partite board.

Our Fern Avenue project in Walla2 is entering the development stage and with Department of Commerce monies and a partnership with Blue Mt Community Foundation, we plan to have families with names on homes by year’s end.

In Waitsburg, we have purchased property with the help of a grant from Sherwood Trust and plan to have those homes in development by 2027.

We have viewed and explored options on several scattered site homes and are working with Horizon Project to purchase a multi generational large family home in Milton Freewater.

Any and all of you can join us as we build affordable homes by becoming members of Common Roots Housing Trust and by donating via our website Common Roots Housing Trust CRHT.org. Please check out our website today.

The successes of CRHt is happening because of the stewardship and partnership of Community Council- and I want to express my appreciation to the Community Council Board of Directors and Exec Mary Campbell for your excellent work on behalf of our Walla Walla Valley community. Thank you and thanks to you all for being here today and everyday for your communities.

You’ve all helped to make dreams come true.