Good day everyone! Greetings from All Saints Lutheran, located on the west end of downtown Spokane’s oldest neighborhood, Browne’s Addition. Our location gives me an opportunity to keep up with housing issues for some of the poorest folks in town. Using this information led All Saints to participate in a low income housing project dating back to 2007. Four Spokane ELCA congregations formed Spokane Urban Ministries and went on to build Walnut Corners Apartments, a 47 unit low income housing property right next to Salem Lutheran in west central Spokane. After the harrowing process of financing, building and working with management companies we decided to manage the buildings ourselves. Spokane Urban Ministries (SUM) board of directors has been actively in charge of the operations and management of the apartments since 2014. I currently serve as president of the board, and as such am quite involved in the day to day work. We have a great manager, Tami Thomas, who is in charge of daily operations. Our daily maintenance and repair issues are very ably handled by Mikhail Levchenko. Those original four ELCA congregations have become just two now, but we always saw this housing ministry as a “life together” project that could involve many other churches if not our entire Synod!
There are many trials in the affordable housing business, but SUM has been able to provide the best apartments we can in a very difficult market, in a challenging setting. Our waiting lists are very long since the demand is so high. The pandemic brought a new set of challenges our way, but we have been able to, not only make it through in good shape but have begun looking at expansion opportunities. After 14 years we feel that we have some expertise in the affordable housing arena and will be able to make a difference in a very tough housing market that does not favor our poorest or newest siblings in the Spokane area.
With this in mind I would invite any of you, who are interested in affordable housing, to get in touch with me. We need willing and compassionate folks to sit on the SUM board to help with some of the exciting changes to come! The board meets monthly, usually on a Thursday late in the month, but we have been flexible, especially during pandemic! We offer Zoom connection to meetings so anyone can participate!
Thank you for your time!
Pastor Alan Eschenbacher Email Me