How one woman is still combating Seattle’s housing crisis, even in death

Jean Darsie loved her modest Seattle home — the sturdy brick walls, the shaded garden, the breezy view. She considered herself fortunate to spend 50 years there, particularly as the city’s housing costs soared all around.

That helps explain why Darsie couldn’t bear to see anyone sleeping on the streets, her friends say. Why, in life, she spent so much energy aiding unhoused people. Why, in death, she decided to give her home away, rather than let it be sold and replaced with a multimillion-dollar McMansion.

Before dying from cancer last year at age 83, the longtime activist bequeathed her North Beach property to Homestead Community Land Trust, which develops affordable homes for lower-income families to own.

Darsie designated the nonprofit to renovate her house and add a second, new home on her large lot. So, two families will benefit, rather than one.

The work began last month.

“She thought everybody should be able to live in that neighborhood,” said Jenn Adams, who was staying in a van when she met Darsie years ago and who now works for the vehicle-resident outreach program that Darsie and others started. “She didn’t see poor and rich. She saw people.”

Bequests like Darsie’s — a couple of homes here and there — won’t solve Seattle’s housing crisis on their own. But the median price for a nonsubsidized Seattle home was $926,250 last month and there are about 2,000 applicants on Homestead’s waiting list, so every bit matters, said Kathleen Hosfeld, the organization’s CEO, thinking Darsie’s story might inspire others.

“I can feel her presence in her home when I’m there,” Hosfeld said.

Can-do attitude

Darsie grew up in California, went to the University of Washington and came to social-justice activism relatively late in life, friends say, near the end of a career that included working on information technology for King County.

An entry point for Darsie was the Seattle chapter of the Women in Black group, whose members organized anti-war protests at Westlake Park and stood vigil (as they still do) for homeless people who had died while living outside. Her advocacy also included environmental and economic issues.

Among other things, Darsie was a founder of an organization eventually called the Ballard Community Taskforce on Homelessness and Hunger, working to address the challenges the neighborhood was facing. She helped various nonprofits with her IT expertise and spoke up at public meetings for things like homeless shelters, hygiene centers and tiny house villages.

Though Darsie understood why some people were apprehensive about homelessness services, she made it her mission to overcome such concerns, said Michelle Rosenthal, who once ran a Ballard business group and became friends with Darsie, later buying a house next door to the activist.

Whether you agreed with her left-wing politics or not, “She was a fierce advocate” with a deep conviction in “the intrinsic humanity” of people experiencing homelessness — someone who was always asking herself, in a matter-of-fact way, “How do we fix this?” Rosenthal said.

The most prominent example was Darsie’s work with vehicle residents, said the Rev. Bill Kirlin-Hackett, her partner for more than a decade in an effort to keep vehicles used as makeshift homes from getting impounded over parking tickets.

Before taking action against a vehicle, the city would give the advocates a heads-up and a chance to do outreach. They’d knock on the vehicle’s door and offer help. Sometimes, that meant bureaucratic guidance. Sometimes, cash for tickets or repairs. Sometimes, a pathway to permanent housing.

The program now gets some public funding but scraped by on private donations during the years when Darsie served as a volunteer, driving her little electric car up and down some of the city’s roughest roads and “just trying to keep people’s heads above water,” Kirlin-Hackett said.

Vehicle residents opened up to Darsie, maybe because the retiree looked like a sweet old lady, said Adams, who once gave Darsie a “bleeding heart” plant to tend in her garden. But the activist wasn’t a pushover, Kirlin-Hackett said.

“She wanted people to be honest and clear about what they needed,” he said.

Added Rosenthal: “She developed one-on-one relationships with several homeless individuals and families, and did what she could to provide them with the services they desperately needed, often becoming a trusted friend.”

Future buyers

Homestead plans to sell Darsie’s three-bedroom house for $310,000 once it has been renovated, Hosfeld said, predicting monthly payments of about $2,200.

“This is a million-dollar home,” at least, “so we’re talking about $750,000 below” what the market would otherwise demand, Hosfeld said.

Homestead plans to sell the property’s new home, a two-bedroom detached accessory dwelling unit, for about $275,000, Hosfeld added.

Under the land trust model, families buy the homes and Homestead retains ownership of the land, with agreements in place to ensure the homes remain affordable for future buyers. Because families don’t own the land, their property taxes are reduced. The aim with Darsie’s house is to select a family of three or four with an annual income as low as $75,000 — think of a schoolteacher or medical technician, Hosfeld said.

In this case, the Homestead buyers will get Darsie’s electric car as part of the deal (to use or sell, as they wish). She insisted on that, Hosfeld said.

Homestead can’t choose buyers based on their race, but most are people of color, Hosfeld said. The organization tries to match buyers with homes in neighborhoods where they were previously displaced or excluded, she said.

Perched above Puget Sound, between Golden Gardens and Carkeek Park, North Beach is quiet and safe. The neighborhood’s homeowners get keys to a stairway that leads down to the beach.

Once upon a time, someone with a regular job could aspire to buy a house there. Now, as with many Seattle neighborhoods, the bar has been raised, said Eric Pravitz, Homestead’s director of real estate development.

“It’s a great neighborhood for kids,” he said. “But unless the parents have a tech job at Amazon or something like that, it’s going to be pretty difficult.”

That bothered Darsie, who disliked the huge new houses popping up in her area and the inequality they represented, said Lisa Connelley, a close friend.

“She cared about the fact that normal, working-class people couldn’t afford to buy,” Connelley added, trying to put her finger on what made Darsie tick.

“I think she was really going to use every ounce of her being … to do good for others,” Connelley said. “She just had that in her.” In life. And in death.