Community is on the mend from troubled times

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Connie Uy can laugh now at the memory of how bad life used to be at the troubled Mount Baker Village Apartments in Rainier Valley.

But as a young social worker 10 years ago, she was assigned a body guard to protect her as she went door to door, making house calls to Cambodian refugees.

Asian gang kids repeatedly tried to drive her off -- without success, Uy says proudly.

Back then, the village apartments were a filthy embarrassment to a city as wealthy as Seattle. Toilets were broken. Roofs leaked. Apartments were unheated, riddled with rodents and cockroaches. Most were horribly overcrowded with refugees, Uy recalls.

"These people had no one to help them," she says. "I told them, 'This is America. We want you to be able to live a better life.' "

The prospect of a better life is what brought them to Rainier Valley. As far back as the turn of the century, the valley has been a first stop for many immigrants.

Today, almost a century after the Italians settled "Garlic Gulch," Rainier Valley remains Seattle's most racially diverse community.

It also is a neighborhood on the mend after years of economic neglect and white flight. It has turned a corner, residents and officials say, and once again is attracting home buyers, national retail chains and private investment.

HomeSight, the community-based non-profit corporation, has been selling its new affordable homes near the Interstate 90 lid as fast as it can build them, says Executive Director Dorothy Lengyel. About 65 percent of HomeSight buyers are people of color. To qualify, all must be first-time home buyers.

The 100 new homes and townhouses, which start at about $105,000 for a two-bedroom townhouse, have helped reunite the north end of the valley with Judkins Park and the Central Area. In all, 170 homes will be built in an area that was torn asunder for years by I-90 construction.

The north end of the valley is also a vital jobs center, where 2,500 people a day report for work. That figure, the city says, will double by 2014.

Continued:

• Problems linger but there are signs of hope
• Crime rate not as bad as many think