Seattle Social Housing
Developer Board
Alex
Lew
Board Member
ALEX
About
Appointed to the board by the Seattle City Council, Alex is an urban planner and multimodal transportation planner currently working at Sound Transit as a Senior Transportation Planner. He has previously held positions at King County and with Nelson/Nygaard, in addition to a term as a board member on the City of Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board. He has experience in public transit systems, multimodal transportation, and airport planning. Alex also provided value aid and insight to the King County Board of Health during the repeal of King County’s helmet law. He is actively involved with Who’s Streets Our Streets, a cohort building a platform for BIPOC individuals to participate in the drafting, review, and implementation of safety on our streets, in our neighborhoods, and he is on the board of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.
Alex has earned a Bachelor of Arts in Urban History and Sustainable Development from Columbia University and a Master’s in Urban Planning with Distinction from Harvard University. His multi-disciplinary experience in planning, demonstrated commitment to rooting work in social and racial equity, and his understanding of the complex intersection between public infrastructure and social wellbeing make him an ideal candidate for this position.
Devyn
Forschmiedt
Board Member
DEVYN
About
Devyn was appointed to the board by the Seattle Renters Commission. They grew up in Shoreline and moved to Seattle in 2016. Devyn worked full time as an early childhood teacher from 2015 until early 2024, which has contributed to their passion for building a better world for the next generation. They taught at a Head Start program for four years, through which they saw even more of the impacts that lack of access to safe and supportive housing and other resources have on families, especially those who are more marginalized. In 2024 Devyn started working as a paraeducator in a middle school special education class, which has even further intensified their drive to fight for a society that works for all people. Devyn strongly believes that housing is a fundamental human right. They believe that a healthy society has systems in place that allow every person to thrive.
In addition to working to connect families to resources, Devyn has done occasional small-scale volunteer work distributing material aid to unhoused communities. Devyn canvassed for Initiative 135 and has also been volunteering as a community organizer with the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition for several years, which has given them significant experience with building broad coalitions, public speaking, and managing logistics. Devyn has spent most of their adult life living in inadequate or unsafe housing of various types and absolutely knows firsthand how hard it is for even a single person working full time to reach a place of stability. To Devyn, social housing represents an opportunity for loved ones, the communities they serve, and so many others to reach that stability. Devyn believes it is one small first step towards an equitable world.
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 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.
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.
Tom
Barnard
Board Vice 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.
Tori
Nakamatsu-Figaora
Board Member
TORI
About
Tori was appointed to the board by the Martin Luther King Jr. Council Labor Council. Tori Nakamatsu-Figaroa, pronouns she/her, is a UFCW 3000 shop steward. For the past six years she has worked at Metropolitan Market and led UFCW 3000’s member advocacy on I-135 as part of the Movement Builder program. Tori is originally from Hawaii and experienced first-hand the challenges local people face in no longer being able to afford to live in their own communities.
She is inspired by the work of House Our Neighbors and labor working together to address the root causes of our current housing crisis, advocating for policy that both creates affordable housing and enables people access to the necessary resources to stay in their homes. She and other UFCW 3000 members played a decisive role in the outcome of this election, having collected signatures in grocery stores across Seattle and canvassing voters door to door.
Wylie
Duffy
Board Member
WYLIE
About
Wylie was appointed to the board by the Seattle Renters Commission. Wylie is a systems engineer and photographer living and renting in Pioneer Square. They moved to Seattle in 2014 after 2 years of homelessness in Nashville and over a decade of housing insecurity. While their housing insecurity continued in Seattle, they found community and purpose here that made Seattle more of a home than any other place they’ve been. They actively contribute to mutual aid and direct action efforts in the local area and prioritize dismantling kyriarchy.
Wylie brings experience from also serving on two other boards for arts equity non-profit organizations in the past, as well as working extensively in the non-profit sector in IT and instructor positions at film camps for queer youth. As a non-binary disabled queer, they hope to bring their experience to the table so they may advocate for folks who are often dismissed or left behind, with no accessibility accommodations provided or offered to help folks like them access the same resources as people who face less barriers to access. There is much work to be done and many hurdles to overcome, but Wylie is dedicated to doing whatever is in their power to increase access to affordable housing and make oppressive systems obsolete.
Chuck
Depew
Board Treasurer
CHUCK
About
Chuck was appointed by Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell. Chuck Depew is a Senior Managing Director for the National Development Council, a national non-profit that provides economic and community development assistance to local governments. For more than 52 years NDC has worked with local jurisdictions on multiple housing and economic development efforts. Chuck provides technical assistance in project finance, development negotiation and housing finance to communities throughout the Northwest, including Utah Wyoming, and Northern California. Recent work has focused on increasing NDC program support to communities such as the $105 million Washington Small Business Flex Fund, a small business revenue-based financing model, minority business commercial ownership initiative, and the creation of an EDA RLF Community of Practice. Prior to his tenure at NDC, Chuck was Deputy Director of the Office of Economic Development for the City of Seattle. He has over 35 years of experience in public finance, housing, economic and community development.
Mr. Depew has a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Planning from the University of California, at Santa Cruz; and a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Washington.