Volunteer with the DSA Community Service team and LIHI

Volunteer with the DSA Community Service team and LIHI

Want to contribute to real work that really needs to get done? The Community Service team has you covered! We’re partnering with the Low Income Housing Institute to help beautify, repair, and organize some of their properties around Seattle, starting on June 3rd in South Lake Union!

Want to come? Here’s what you need to know:

When: June 3, 10 AM – 3 PM (rain or shine)

Where: South Lake Union neighborhood, specific address to follow.

What: Help LIHI, the Low Income Housing Institute, repair, clean up, and beautify one of their properties for residents who were formerly homeless or home insecure.

How: We’ll be spending some time on yard work, small beautification projects like cleaning leaves and landscape, and other activities that will give residents a sense of pride in their dwellings.

Who: Any interested DSA member is welcome. Have a +1? Guests are welcome, but please let us know their name and email for insurance purposes and also to make sure LIHI can prepare the right amount of work (and lunch).

What else: Wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty and bring along a water bottle. Rain gear and sunscreen encouraged (it is Seattle, after all). Lunch will be provided (pizza!) but if you’d like water and a snack, please bring along.

Have other questions about the day of? Please ask us: [email protected] or #community_service on Slack.

The bigger context:

Why LIHI?: The SDSA community service committee agreed on several requirements for a project partner:
That their mission align with SDSA’s core values and platform,
That they address a “uniquely Seattle” need, and
That the organization be in good standing with both the population they serve and the community as a whole.

LIHI checks all of those boxes. Their mission–to “develop, own and operate housing for the benefit of low-income, homeless and formerly homeless people in Washington State; advocate for just housing policies at the local and national levels; and administer a range of supportive service programs”–is one in keeping with SDSA’s demand for housing as a human right. By both maintaining existing properties (such as our first project site in SLU) and creating new ones (through their Tiny House Program), LIHI is helping lead the charge in the fight against homelessness in our city.

While the experience of homelessness is obviously not limited to Seattle alone, its impact stands out starkly in a city of exploding wealth and rapid growth that nevertheless fails to meet the basic needs of its most vulnerable residents. LIHI’s commitment to serving a population that has been both created by and devastated by the amassing of capital and Seattle’s particular brand of NIMBYism is an admirable one.