(WSB photos)
We told you a bit about The Hope Factory when Mayor Katie Wilson used it as the setting for her announcement of legislation to add hundreds of shelter spaces – including tiny houses – this year (WSB coverage here). The Hope Factory, at the west end of S. Nevada Street, is a cavernous space where volunteers build them. Today, those volunteers include members of the giving group Impact West Seattle.
When they voted to give one of their recent quarterly contributions – comprised of donations from their 200+ members – to The Hope Factory (aka Sound Foundations Northwest), they also made a plan to join the volunteer builders for a day, and today is that day.
We asked if we could stop in to see how that went, and just came back from that visit. Impact West Seattle has eight members building this morning and eight more arriving for the afternoon. This morning, they’ve been building walls; this afternoon, those walls will be raised to finish assembling tiny houses; paint follows.
The Hope Factory – which got its start in West Seattle, with a tiny-house-building operation under a big canopy at Camp Second Chance – has this down to a science, with everything arriving pre-cut, so volunteers just have to assemble, with the help of manuals as well as other, longtime volunteers.
The volunteer operation opens new spots every week after their weekly newsletter goes out on Wednesdays. You can read the newest edition and subscribe here.