Housing Equity Listening Project
or h.e.l.p.
We have been selected to participate in the RWJF Local Data for Equitable Communities grant program!
RWJF, in partnership with the Urban Institute, awarded 30 grants nationally to help communities use data to catalyze action and create healthier communities with projects on housing, transportation, community safety, climate and environment, the built environment, and healthy food access. Our project focuses on housing.
We are excited about this opportunity and look forward to sharing our work with you. https://urbn.is/LocalData26
about the project
Understanding the barriers to maintaining safe and healthy homes to improve housing conditions.
Institutional failures in code enforcement, funding gaps in public repair programs, lack of accountability for landlords, and weak tenant protections all contribute to housing inequities, particularly for residents with low incomes. These public policies and allocations of resources can lead to people living in dilapidated and potentially hazardous homes that affect their health and well-being. The South King Tool Library, with branches in Federal Way and Auburn, seeks to investigate the structural, financial, and access barriers that prevent residents with low and moderate incomes from maintaining safe and healthy homes.
The South King Tool Library will first convene a resident advisory board to codesign a multilingual housing survey that asks local renters and homeowners about housing conditions, needed repairs, experiences with landlords, and potential solutions. The South King Tool Library will administer the surveys during tool-lending hours, repair workshops, and pop-up events. The team will contextualize the survey data with storytelling sessions and participatory mapping sessions to identify areas with concentrations of poor housing conditions. The project team will then facilitate workshops where residents can validate findings, craft narratives, and rank action priorities. In collaboration with the advisory board, the staff will summarize the findings and recommendations in a community brief and outreach campaign.
Through this project, South King Tool Library hopes to inform Auburn’s 2027–28 Community Development Block Grant allocations and the King County Housing Division’s repair funding priorities. Both agencies are actively soliciting community input to inform the spring 2027 planning cycles. City of Auburn Code Compliance staff can use the findings to identify areas to focus efforts, and the Valley Regional Fire Authority can target areas most in need of fire prevention resources. South King Tool Library hopes that residents will use this evidence to activate resources, better engage with agencies, strengthen community-based programs, and build sustained organizing capacity for systemic change.
resident advisory board
We are recruiting a cross-section of our community to create a Resident Advisory Board (RAB). We anticipate the RAB will consist of 5-10 members representing diverse housing experiences and perspectives from across South King County.
Join us for more information or if you are ready to jump in check out the RAB Application
First Meeting & Information Session
Thursday, 8/20
5:30-6:30 pm
SKTL Auburn Location
410 H Street NE, Auburn WA 98003 (Behind Messiah Lutheran Church)
This Resident Advisory Board will play a critical role in:
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co-designing a multilingual survey
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advising community outreach strategies
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reviewing and interpreting findings, and
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helping to prioritize recommendations for local decision-makers.
A central goal of this work is to ensure that those most affected by housing inequities help shape the questions, interpret the findings, and guide recommendations.
Over a nine-month period, the project will gather community input through surveys, story circles, workshops, and participatory mapping activities. See more about the project, South King County Equitable Home Maintenance Data for Housing Justice, and its expected outcomes in the attached project brief.
RAB Members will participate in monthly meetings and provide guidance at key stages of the project. We are committed to create a collaborative process that values lived experience and engages residents as partners.
We welcome your referrals! If there are residents, tenants, homeowners, community leaders, or clients you believe would be interested in contributing their perspectives, please share this opportunity with them and encourage them to apply -- or share their info with me and I will reach out! We would also be grateful if you could share this opportunity through your networks, newsletters, social media channels, or community meetings.