Photo by clare jensen
HELPING HAND. Volunteer Safa Lohrasbi, a student from University of Puget Sound, planted salvaged native plants at the Puyallup Tribal Housing Authority’s Elder Healthy Home March 17. The environmentally sustainable, energy-efficient home, located at 1413 E. 32nd St., will host a public open house March 29-30.
After virtually 15 years of inactivity at the Puyallup Tribal Housing Authority, the prototype home for the future of affordable green homes will be unveiled.
Construction on the Elder Healthy Home began last fall as a starting point for future housing authority developments to follow suit.
The single-family home, which uses only sustainable, energy-efficient materials and systems, and is formatted in a way to fit to tribal elders’ lifestyles, has been what Annette Bryan, executive director for the housing authority, calls “a learning experience.”
“We have learned a great deal about putting energy-efficient systems in this home as well as what the footprint of the house needs to be in order to be cost efficient,” she said.
The home is now open for tribal members and March 28-29 it will be open to anyone in the public who is interested in learning more about eco-friendly home building.
The original plan was for the first Elder Healthy Home to be duplicated in a 33-home elders’ development on Waller Road.
Because of the unanticipated price of the first Elder Healthy Home, the exact design will be modified but the systems will remain the same.
There will also be a reduction in the number of homes in the development, something that Bryan said was done for “a variety of reasons.”
She said the Waller Road development is still in the design phase, with no clear timeline for completion.
“Architects are working out the footprint. As far as the energy systems, solar systems, that make it an efficient home and make it suitable for elders, those features will be put in to (those homes),” she said. “There are so many [logistical] issues with the Waller Road (development), we wanted to take our time and do it right. We’re making sure it’s not the standard, typical Indian housing.”
This May, the housing authority will begin construction on 22 townhouses near the Tribe’s Grandview Early Learning Center on Tacoma’s East Side.
These homes will be targeted towards younger families with children, and use similar environment-friendly systems and materials.
“We want to take that stigma with standard HUD housing and turn that around,” said Gregory Combs, project manager for the Puyallup Tribal Housing Authority.
“We want to give them (Native Americans) durable, healthy housing.”
The Puyallup Tribal Housing Authority worked with several organizations in this project, including EcoFab, Environmental Works, Martin Luther King Housing Development Authority, Tacoma Power and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) office of Native American Programs.
“I’m really excited and proud of the fact that we’ve been able to connect the tribe with a number of agencies and nonprofit organizations. This is a great model for them to build on in the future,” said Callie Ridolfi, managing director for EcoFab.
Ridolfi said because the home ended up costing more than they had planned for, there was no money to landscape the home.
The Native Plant Salvage Alliance donated hundreds of plants, amounting to about $7,500, plus volunteer hours, to landscape the elders’ home.
Volunteers spent March 17-19 arranging and planting the wide assortment of plants that will one day grow into a miniature forest for elders to enjoy, and even eat from.
Trees such as big leaf maples, Pacific dogwood and crabapple, and edible plants such as salal, black cap raspberry, black gooseberry and nettles will flourish into a natural, native ecosystem.
Bill Brookreson is a member of the Native Plant Society and volunteered along with several others March 17 to transform the brown land into something that will be enjoyed for years to come.
“It’s tremendous to be able to do this knowing the budget constraints that everyone is under…whatever we can do to make it better,” he said.
Open house tours for the Puyallup Tribal Housing Authority’s first new home in 15 years will be open to the public 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 29-30. The Elder Healthy Home is located at 1415 E. 32nd St.
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