Housing

Soundside

No more yurts. Orcas Islanders want affordable places year-round

If you can find a place to live and work on Orcas Island you’re set. But who's got the land?

Soundside

Leavenworth has become über expensive, pricing out the people who work there

When 80 percent of your local employees can't afford to live in town, what do you do? It's a question Leavenworth residents and officials are struggling to answer. When a community grows too large for it's confines, how do you keep people from slipping through the cracks?

KUOW Newsroom

Where to get out of the dangerous cold around Seattle

Freezing temperatures and possible snow are in the forecast for Seattle this weekend and next week. Some cities around the region will open severe weather shelters for people experiencing homelessness to escape the cold.

KUOW Newsroom

178 people in Seattle died this year while experiencing homelessness, the most ever

On the longest night of the year, volunteers read aloud the names of every person who died in this year without stable housing. Women in Black of WHEEL has been holding this annual vigil for over 20 years - and this year they read more names than ever.

KUOW Newsroom

People living in tents and RVs evicted from Green Lake Park in Seattle, days before Christmas

This week the City of Seattle is clearing a homeless tent encampment at the park, plus the RVs that have been parked nearby for months. The removal comes less than a week before freezing temperatures are expected in Seattle.

KUOW Newsroom

40,800 people in King County experienced homelessness in 2020

The previous estimate, based on a one night count from January 2020, was about 12,000 people living outside. King County’s Department of Community and Human Services says integrating data with two other service providers gives a clearer picture of the homelessness crisis in the region.

KUOW Newsroom

The Merkle Hotel in Tacoma was 'an unofficial safety net' for its tenants. Then it was taken away

Before October 31, 2018, the Merkle Hotel in Tacoma was home for tenants who couldn’t afford much else. That is, until a developer decided it was time to cater to a crowd that could pay more and evicted those who could not.

KUOW Newsroom

Controversial tent encampment cleared from Ballard Commons Park

On Tuesday morning the remaining dozen or so people living in the Ballard park were either offered temporary shelter or told to move along. During the peak of the pandemic there were over one hundred people camped in the Commons, and more who slept on the sidewalks next to the library across the street.

KUOW Newsroom

The sidewalks are tidy outside this tiny house village in Seattle, because the residents keep it so

To help keep up with the housing crisis in Seattle, tiny house villages are expanding for people experiencing homelessness. This fall one village added more tiny houses and xpanded and two more opened up to people seeking temporary housing.

Hey, I want to buy your house: Homeowners besieged by unsolicited offers

Lots of speculators are jockeying to get in on the hot market. Sometime they call homeowners multiple times a day. It can be an invasive nuisance, or worse.