Strategic Plan, 2024-2026 | Tacoma Habitat

02.

04.

05. Program Goals

06. Community Goals

07. Organizational Goals

08. Mission, Vision & Values

summary

In 2023, Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for Humanity (Tacoma Habitat) completed a robust strategic planning process with Cedar River Group LLC to identify how best to continue serving the Pierce County community.

Tacoma Habitat is at an exciting moment of growth in its impact across the county. Founded in 1985, Tacoma Habitat has worked to increase affordable homeownership opportunities across Pierce County for almost 40 years. While it is known for its new home construction—they just completed construction on their 300th home—Tacoma Habitat has also expanded the ways they help moderate-income households access and preserve affordable homeownership. Their services include rehabilitating and preserving affordable home opportunities for first-time buyers, operating three home improvement retail stores, and providing critical home repairs to ensure seniors can age in place. They have expanded into broader homeowner preparedness counseling, foreclosure prevention counseling, and actively engage in advocating for fair and just housing policy.

The strategic planning process included engaging a task force made up of board and leadership staff members, interviewing community leaders and Habitat homeowners, a staff survey, and a deep dive into the local affordable housing landscape and statistics.

Additionally, the planning process incorporated two major opportunities were presented to Tacoma Habitat in 2022. Tacoma Habitat received a donation of $4.5 million from author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, which presented the chance to invest in organizational growth, stability and sustainability. Tacoma Habitat began working with the Pierce County Housing Authority (PCHA) to be prepared to acquire the majority of their single-family rental portfolio, which they plan to divest over the next three years.

This strategic plan charts an ambitious path for growth, equity and engagement. The acquisition of the Pierce County Housing Authority homes will require scaling up housing production capacity, along with more counseling, education and engagement to ensure there are qualified buyers. As that project closes in 2025, Tacoma Habitat aims to maintain the higher production level of affordable homeownership opportunities into the future.

At this time of profound expansion, Tacoma Habitat is excited to share the updated vision that the strategic plan yielded. With this new plan, the organization is ready to rise to the challenge of producing even more affordable homeownership opportunities in response to the greatest need the Puget Sound region has seen yet.

strategic priorities

01 02 03 04

Attaining homeownership is more challenging than ever before. We need to scale up while remaining focused on our mission.

Programs like housing counseling and critical home repair have helped many families avoid houselessness and foreclosure. We need to expand these programs.

scale up home production expand current programming emphasize diversity,

equity and inclusion

We recognize the history of inequity in housing and commit to prioritizing DEI inside our organization and in our community.

invest in community partnerships

We strive to form authentic partnerships with community organizations–particularly those led by communities of color.

contributing stakeholders

Bill Robertson, MultiCare Health System

Denise Nicole’ Franklin, Habitat Homeowner

Felicia Medlen, City of Tacoma

Jeff Robinson, City of Tacoma

Julie LaRocque, Tacoma Housing Authority

Kathi Littmann, Greater Tacoma Community Foundation

Laurie Jinkins, Speaker of the Washington House of Representatives

Michael Dotson, Banner Bank Community Foundation

Michael Mirra, Community Member

Ryan Mello, Pierce County Councilmember

T’wina Nobles, State Senator, Tacoma Urban League

key insights from community members

We want Habitat to keep doing what they’re doing and grow; we really rely on them and need them to exist.

[Tacoma Habitat] is effective and good stewards of their dollars raised.

Beyond creating homeownership opportunities, it’s important to support thriving, healthy communities through planning, partnership and advocacy.

There is a crisis in housing affordability with a need for more ‘missing middle’ opportunities. This crisis is worst for communities of color, with lowest rates of ownership for Black households.

mapping community challenges & opportunities

Gentrification: From 2000 to 2019, Black households bought more homes in the northern and southern portions of the city but moved out of both owned and rented homes in the central area. White households rented more homes in Central and North Tacoma. This indicates that Central, West End, and East Tacoma show signs of gentrification.

Homeownership Disparities: From 1990 to 2020, Black homeownership rates substantially decreased, compared to stable or increased rates for all other racial groups in recent decades.

Downrenting: From 2014-2018, there were more affordable rental units per household at or below 80% AMI. But due to higher income households in affordable units, there was an effective shortage of over 16,000 rental units. This gap is in part caused by the lack of homeownership opportunities for moderate-income households.

housing needs in pierce county by 2044

**

** Eligible Habitat homebuyers have household incomes between 50% and 80% AMI.

8%

of new construction projects from the last five years in Pierce County were “middle housing,” such as duplexes and condos, which is the type of housing in highest demand.

33%

of Pierce County households are housing cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of thier income on housing.

program goals & strategies to improve output

01

Increase and preserve an affordable homeownership pipeline through a combination of repair, rehabilitation and new construction.

Purchase, rehab and resell as many Pierce County Housing Authority properties as possible.

Prioritize acquiring land that supports increased new home construction.

Evaluate and implement the best options to increase volume of homes available for purchase.

Preserve existing affordable housing through repairs for seniors, persons with disabilities and/or Veteran homeowners.

Research anticipated population, demographic and economic changes to meet future need.

02

Serve a large and diverse pool of moderate-income first-time homeowners, with an emphasis on increasing homeownership in the Black community and other communities of color.

Expand organizational capacity to offer more financial counseling, home purchase preparation and related services.

Serve as a comprehensive homeownership resource for income-qualified Pierce County residents looking to buy or preserve a home.

Identify and recruit potential income-qualified, first-time homebuyers— particularly within the BIPOC community. 03

Recruit and retain a larger and more diverse group of volunteers and community partners.

Develop new ways to engage volunteers outside the traditional construction model.

Identify new populations from which to cultivate volunteers.

Continue to partner with Habitat for Humanity International on global housing solutions.

community goals & strategies to improve impact

01

Build a culture of affordable homeownership.

Form authentic partnerships with community-based organizations—particularly those led by and working with communities of color.

Convene, educate and spark community conversations about affordable homeownership and housing.

02

Ensure that all homes—including affordable homes—are in communities where residents can easily make healthy decisions, with convenient access to amenities that enable individuals and families to thrive.

Cultivate advocates to elevate the need for affordable homeownership and thriving communities.

Form partnerships and coalition-building in planning and designing thriving communities.

Evaluate future investments for consistency with Tacoma Habitat’s values and breadth of goals.

03

Serve as a policy, advocacy, and thought leader in the region to promote and increase access to affordable homeownership.

Advocate for policies and practices that support streamlined, predictable and expedited processes to increase affordable home production.

Increase access to affordable lending products and down payment assistance for low- to moderate-income buyers.

Advocate for increased funding sources to subsidize affordable homeownership and housing.

organizational goals & strategies to improve capacity

01

Expand infrastructure and capacity to meet the anticipated growth and evolution of the organization.

Identify organizational/structural changes needed to manage the PCHA properties.

Identify projected staffing and space/facility needs.

Review and update the succession plans at all levels.

Identify needed board skills and continue recruiting high-caliber and diverse community leadership.

Explore new technology investments to support efficiency, job performance, and communication. 02

Organizational culture and practices reflect a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Review and update recruiting, hiring, promotion and staff retention policies.

Review and update organizational policies, practices and partnerships.

Provide initial and ongoing training for staff, executive leadership and board members. 03

Our brand identity encompasses both the breadth of programming and the importance of its work.

Develop a clear story/infographic to explain our role in the homelessness/ affordable housing continuum.

Develop new communication about: (1) the multiple ways Tacoma Habitat increases access to affordable homeownership and (2) the breadth of incomes served.

Create internally focused training and communication to ensure that all staff can explain the organization’s mission and role.

Develop and expand opportunities in the storefronts for community education, homebuyer engagement, volunteer recruitment and fundraising.

mission

Seeking to put God’s love into action, we partner with people to achieve and preserve homeownership and to build generational wealth, hope, and opportunity.

vision

To build and foster thriving communities where everyone has a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home, with strong futures for all.

values

Homeownership

We believe in the power of people working side by side with volunteers to achieve homeownership, change lives, improve communities, and build hope and generational wealth that can break the cycle of poverty.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We recognize there are systemic racial injustices in society. We believe these must be addressed and overcome in our practices, our programs, and our advocacy.

Partnership

We build authentic partnerships with people we serve, as well as churches and other faith communities, corporations, community organizations, and volunteers who help us build thriving communities.

Stewardship

We are responsible to our community and accountable to our donors, partner families, and volunteers to achieve excellence and the efficient use of our resources.