Seattle Social Housing Board
Seattle Social Housing is governed by a 13-member board of directors. Members are appointed by the Seattle City Council and Mayor, Seattle Renters Commission, and community and labor organizations. Board members have a breadth of relevant expertise and experience spanning development, planning, finance and the lived experience of being a renter in Seattle’s market.
ChrisTiana ObeySumner
Board Member
CHRISTIANA
About
ChrisTiana ObeySumner (they/them) is a nationally recognized disability and housing justice advocate, social equity strategist, and founder of Epiphanies of Equity. Their lived experience with housing instability across six states—including Seattle—deeply informs their lifelong commitment to transformative, intersectional, and community-centered change. With over 325 clients served nationally, ChrisTiana has supported organizations in embedding anti-oppression frameworks that center those most impacted by systemic inequity.
Though initially applying for the Community Development seat, they were honored to accept a seat appointed by the Seattle Renters' Commission to bring their personal experience, passion, and strategic insight to the forefront. They view this appointment as a vital opportunity to help shape Seattle’s future in social housing by uplifting renter voices and advancing reparative justice.
Julie
Howe
Board Member
JULIE
About
Julie was appointed to the board by the Seattle City Council. Julie brings over twenty-five years of experience in affordable housing development and asset management. She has spent her career managing the acquisition/rehab and development of multifamily and single-family projects, both conventional, affordable/LIHTC and demonstration, senior and family, ownership, and rental. She is drawn to the complex and innovative, especially projects that are blazing new trails in how we live more affordably and build community, such as cooperatives and co-living. She has served as director, development manager and investment manager for several real estate development organizations, has served on multiple housing advisory boards and is a licensed real estate broker.
Julie has an undergraduate degree in environmental design and architecture from the University of Colorado – Boulder and a Master of Urban Planning with a Certificate in Commercial Real Estate from the University of Washington. Julie teaches about housing and real estate development in the UW Runstad Department of Real Estate. Julie is currently an Interdisciplinary URBDP PhD candidate at the UW, researching how housing may influence our mental health.
Kaileah
Baldwin
Board Vice Chair
KAILEAH
About
Kaileah was appointed to the board by the Seattle Renters Commission. Kaileah is a queer Black ciswoman born and raised in Seattle and living in the South Park neighborhood (98108). Her professional background is in non-profit people-centered HR, which she currently does at Seattle-based advocacy organization, Puget Sound Sage & Sage Leaders. HR approach to HR and life in general people- and care centered, in opposition to white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy, and celebratory of QTBIPOC ways of working and being. Kaileah’s multiracial background (mixed white & Black) has given her personal insight into how Seattle’s history of racialized land use and housing policy impacts people today. While both her white and Black grandparents having moved to Seattle within 15 years in the mid-century, she is the only Black person across three generations who continues to live in the city due to the region’s subtle yet persistent anti-Black racism and the sheer unaffordability of Seattle housing.
Kaileah is looking forward to helping the new Seattle Social Housing Developer add permanently and actually affordable people-centered housing to reinvigorate the city’s affordable housing landscape and meaningfully tackle our homelessness and displacement crises.
Katie
LeBret
Board Secretary
KATIE
About
Katie was appointed to the board by the Seattle Renters Commission. Katie is Native American and comes from a small-town reservation in Belcourt and has lived in Washington state for 7 years. Katie is currently living unhoused as a vehicle resident in Seattle, having lived previously in supportive housing, youth-oriented shelters, and having received rapid rehousing assistance. Katie has experience navigating Seattle’s complex system of resources geared toward serving people living unhoused and with that experience carries the knowledge of the challenges associated with accessing services, and with staying housed in our current ecosystem. Katie is a proud trans woman who has faced a lot of no’s and hurdles growing up. Katie wants to help others help themselves and to be a role model for others.
Karen Estevenin
Board Member
KAREN
About
Karen was appointed to the board by Martin Luther King County Labor Council. Karen Estevenin has proudly served as the Executive Director of PROTEC17 (Professional and Technical Employees Local 17) – a labor union with over 10,000 public sector members across Washington and Oregon – since May 2019. Alongside talented staff and dedicated member-leaders, she organizes through collective action for social, economic, and racial justice in our workplaces and communities.
As Executive Director, Karen is the responsible for the vision, direction, and operations of PROTEC17. She represents the union in official business and in advocacy and organizing efforts to build power for working people. Her passion for housing is aligned with the union’s mission to inspire action, advance equity, and build community – housing is a human right, especially for workers in and at the City of Seattle whose contributions are vital to making our city thrive.
Working in berry fields and fruit processing plants while growing up in Whatcom County was formative in the development of Karen’s passion for dignity and respect for workers. Years later as a tech-worker in Seattle, she led an organizing campaign in her own workplace to form a union with WashTech of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Over the last 20+ years she has worked for CWA, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) 3000, and Teamsters 117.
When not causing good trouble, Karen is active with her community and family in Seattle. A graduate of the University of Washington, she loves the Huskies, is an avid runner, and enjoys spending time in the mountains with her husband and three boys.
Kay
Zimmerman
Board Member
KAY
About
Kayellen was appointed to the board by the Seattle Renters Commission. Kayellen was born in Michigan, was a treeplanter throughout their 20s and experienced intermittent homelessness into their 30s. Kayellen worked as a baker and cook for the next 30 years, as a side hustle Kayellen worked as a caregiver, and now work as a a full time caregiver. Throughout this time, Kayellen has done mutual aid, food security and housing work. Kayellen believes that to make it through the times ahead, we must bring all people to the table. Kayellen has worked for many years with LIHI, Bellwether, Community Roots, HUD, and SHA to get folks into housing. Kayellen looks forward to social housing adding more housing to the current landscape.
Mike
Eliason
Board Member
MIKE
About
Michael was appointed to the board by the Green New Deal Oversight Board. Michael Eliason is the founder of Larch Lab –part architecture and urbanism studio, part ‘think and do’ tank – focusing on research and policy; decarbonized low-energy buildings; and climate adaptive urbanism. Michael is also a writer and an award-winning architect specializing in mass timber, social housing, baugruppen (urban cohousing), and eco-districts. His career has been dedicated to advancing innovation and broadening the discourse on sustainable development, Passivhaus, non-market housing, and decarbonized construction. Michael is a graduate of Virginia Tech and became a Passivhaus consultant in 2010. His professional experience includes work in both the Pacific Northwest and Germany.
Ryan
Driscoll
Board Member
RYAN
About
Ryan was appointed to the board by the Seattle Renter's Commission. Ryan (he/him) has been a renter in Seattle for over a decade. His professional background is in education, community engagement, and policy. He has worked as a social worker supporting people in navigating the affordable housing system and engages frequently with renters through his current position with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights. Through his work in community-based conservation and community organizing, he has become a firm believer that the people most impacted by programs and policies should be centered in their creation, iteration, and assessment.
Ryan learned about social housing while studying housing policy at the University of Washington. He was a signature gatherer for I-135 (which created the Social Housing Developer) and was a field lead for I-137/Prop 1A (which created a dedicated funding source for the Social Housing Developer). He firmly believes in the mission of the Social Housing Developer to create publicly-owned, permanently affordable, mixed-incoming housing where renters have a central role in influencing the direction of the developer. He is excited for the developer to create climate-resilient spaces where communities can grow and thrive.
In his free time, Ryan enjoys reading science fiction, running, exploring local breweries, and playing board games.
Tom
Barnard
Board Chair
TOM
About
Thomas was appointed to the board by the Seattle Renters Commission. Thomas was born in 1954 in Syracuse, NY, and lived there until 1980, moved to San Francisco and then Oakland during the early 1980’s. then moved to Dallas, TX in 1985, and then to Seattle in 1987. Thomas relocated to Seatac in 2018, as they could not find affordable rent in Seattle. Thomas spent three years in factory work, and many years in the restaurant business as a cook/chef, transitioning out in the late 1980’s after moving to Seattle.
In the 90’s Thomas received a BA in Political Economy and Community Development from Evergreen State College and worked for the WA State Legislature as a Session Aide and as an organizer, researcher and writer in two nonprofits. In the 2000’s Thomas received a Master in Public Administration from the Evans School of Public Policy with a concentration in urban issues, including housing, workforce and economic development and transportation. Worked as Policy Analyst for the Port of Seattle Commission from 2008-2016. Thomas ended working life driving for 3 years for Uber/Lyft. Retired in 2019-2020.
Brian
Abeel
Board Treasurer
BRIAN
About
Brian is a retired finance executive and former Certified Public Accountant with forty years experience in accounting, finance, aerospace, technology, management and board leadership.
Brian is passionate about ensuring high quality services are available to meet the needs of those in our community who suffer from mental illness and substance use disorders. To that end, he serves on the board of the MultiCare Behavioral Health Network, the largest provider of mental health services in Washington State, where he is board chair. He also recently joined the board of Crisis Connections, a nonprofit provider of suicide prevention and other crisis intervention telephone support based in Seattle. Previously he served on the boards of BECU (the fourth largest credit union in the USA), Building Changes, Elder and Adult Day Services and Casa Latina.
Prior to retiring in 2020, Brian was as an executive with The Boeing Company, where he served as Director of International Accounting Operations and, before that, Director of Financial Accounting. Earlier in his career his experience included the international accounting firm of Ernst and Young and a small Seattle-area aerospace subcontractor.
Brian is married and has three grown children that he and his wife adopted from Ethiopia. When not engaging on boards he enjoys hiking, biking, theatre, movies, reading, travel and spending time with his family.