Puget Sound: Learning Exchange: Advancing Equitable Mixed-Income Communities

Philanthropy Northwest and the Puget Sound Asset Funders Network shared a learning exchange with Mark Joseph, Founding Director of the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities and Salin Geevarghese, Founding Director, Mixed-Income Strategic Alliance and Innovation and Action Network, to examine a set of ideas and strategies designed to build thriving communities. We learned about the Alliance’s national work and research as well as discussed their emerging efforts within King County and Seattle housing communities.

Multiple efforts are in play to address our homelessness and affordable housing crisis. As we strive to resolve these urgent issues, how can we also map strategies and resources to strengthen neighborhoods and address wealth divides to advance the well-being of people and sustain resilient communities? 

To fuel lively Q&A, additional local partners, Andrea Akita, Director Communities of Opportunity, and John Haines, Executive Director, Community Investment Trust, shared their interesting and potentially aligned models as we considered a mix of ideas and ways to best leverage resources and combine forces that build wealth and support the well being and belonging of residents as neighborhoods develop.

The Mixed-Income Strategic Alliance is a partnership with the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Urban Strategies, Inc. Learn more about the Mixed-Income and Action Alliance in their two-page brief.