The Holly Park development, in southeast Seattle, was built in 1941 to house defense workers at Boeing. Its simple, wood-frame houses later became home to low-income residents. By the late 1990s, however, the structures had fallen into such severe disrepair that they were slated to be razed and replaced using local, state and federal funds. In the proposed mixed-income development plan, higher home prices would subsidize those for lower-income residents. Members of the Seattle-King County Homeless Coalition strongly opposed the plan, which had resulted in a significant net loss of low-income units.

Here, John Fox, coordinator of the Seattle Displacement Coalition, stands in front of a group of deteriorating Holly Park homes. The advocacy group wanted the City Council to withhold funding for the Holly Park project until there was a plan to replace the lost housing.

Caption information source: “Homeless now oppose rebuilding Holly Park," by Nancy Roberts Trott, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 13, 1997, pp. B1-B2.