Advocates Working Together - Affordable Housing and Environmental Protection

Ann Russell has been KulshanCLT’s homeownership coordinator since October 2005. She has a conservation background and is keenly interested in how creating healthy sustainable communities involves a dedication to both environmental and social justice issues. Jill Clark has been active in Whatcom County’s nonprofit community for more than 15 years, and has been raising awareness and funding for KulshanCLT since 2005.

Back when Kulshan Community Land Trust began in 1999, the idea was, “Homes, affordable at the right location, will take development pressure off working farmland, natural areas and vital habitat.”

Now, Kulshan Community Land Trust (KulshanCLT) has a vision for growing a community everyone can afford, and it looks like this:

•Compact urban neighborhoods with plenty of amenities and easy access to jobs and transportation choices, filled with people who reflect our economically diverse community;

•A healthy mix of homes, affordable at the wages of the jobs nearby;

•Land that is appreciated, conserved, productive and affordable in perpetuity, including open space, parks and farmland;

•Generous and grateful citizens involved in and shaping their community.

We know this vision is challenged by growth-related issues bearing down hard. Whatcom County’s population has grown by more than 17,000 people since 2000 and is projected to top 196,000 by 2010. Median home prices in the county have risen 76 percent since 2002. At the same time, when wages have barely changed at all according to HUD, how can an average family afford a home? With some of the most productive and diverse agricultural land in the state, more farmers, especially young families who want to work the land, can’t afford to live on the land they farm. How will our changing economy fit into the mix? How will global climate change affect how and where we grow?

How do we hold onto the KulshanCLT vision through challenges such as these? What is the guiding light to keep hope and action alive? Hope and action are linked, inextricably. Generosity and gratitude are linked, inextricably. Health, agriculture, conservation and housing are linked, inextricably.

In the late 1940s conservationist Aldo Leopold said, “One of the anomalies of modern ecology is the creation of two groups, each which seems barely aware of the existence of the other. The one studies the human community and calls its findings sociology, economics and history. The other studies plants and animals … the inevitable fusion of these two lines of thought will constitute the outstanding advancement of our time.”

As we contemplate the important issues of where we put homes and services, where we grow our food, and how we preserve and protect our parks, open space and natural resources, Leopold reminds us that our highest calling may lie in the land and our relationship to it. And when it comes to relationships, what a coincidence that the word “economy” and “ecology” have the same Greek root – oikos, which means “house” or “household.”

Another wise conservationist, Sigurd Olsen said, “… the preservation of the natural world is more than rocks and trees and lakes and wildlife. It is concerned with broad social values that have to do with human happiness, deep human needs, values that may be a counter-action to the type of world in which we live.”

Values unite us. They help us see how economy, ecology and household are interrelated and evolved, rather than fragmented, from oikos. At KulshanCLT we believe that by talking more about our community values and focusing less on the minutia of our differences we will open doors, unleash ideas and create a more livable and fair Whatcom County. Values connect and inspire us to be receptive to the community’s needs. Values tell our stories and story is powerful in creating relationships.

Generosity, abundance and gratitude guide the work of KulshanCLT. These values compelled us to create a “Generosity and Gratitude” speakers series. The series is meant to inspire and engage members of the community, to “tell a new story” and with it, create new relationships. Last year KulshanCLT brought Peter Forbes of Vermont’s Center for Whole Communities to Bellingham. “Our relationship to land — good, bad and indifferent is still the enduring story of our lives,” he told us. The history of this relationship tells the story of our values.

Russel Barsh, director of the Center for the Historical Ecology of the Salish Sea, followed with a talk in February 2007. His archaeological research confirms a Coast Salish culture that, for eons, sustained a diverse, bountiful economy of abundance and generosity without sacrificing biological diversity. What relationship can we forge that strengthens this legacy of great generosity, common wealth, abundance and gratitude, and what will the enduring story of our lives tell?

One of the most compelling aspects of KulshanCLT homeownership is that it transcends speculation, and instead cultivates a genuine relationship with the land that offers homeowners safety, security, permanence and a sense of community. Likewise, homesellers can benefit from generosity and a desire to share their wealth with others. “This community provided for me,” says Freda Tepfer who sold her home at a discount so an income-qualified family could purchase it at an affordable price in December 2006. “If what I have to give back is to sell my house in a way that helps keep Bellingham affordable and to help someone buy a home, then I am the lucky one.”

KulshanCLT homeowners are stewards of affordability because they preserve the community’s investment and keep the home affordable for future working families while enjoying the benefits of homeownership. KulshanCLT homeowners are the neighbors you want to have. Almost half work in the private sector, including health care, banking, retail and services. Forty-five percent of homeowners work for nonprofit organizations or the government sector, including schools and education, and many homeowners are entrepreneurs and own their own local business.

When we work to nurture and transform our relationship to the land, we create a broader context for social and environmental change and action. We recognize the interconnectedness of human and natural systems and find common ground for solutions that create a win for everyone. In KulshanCLT’s vision, that is a community that has the aspects we described above, but it could mean so much more. The beauty of a community vision based on community values, community stories and community action is that, like land, it has no boundaries and there is nothing it cannot overcome. §