New Affordable Housing Complex Opens in Othello on Former Tiny Home Village Site

A new affordable housing complex and early learning center opened in Othello. Apartments are available for lease, and units are filling up quickly.

Nichols Court is a six-story building with 148 affordable housing units ranging from studios to three-bedroom apartments. It replaced Low Income Housing Institute's (LIHI) Othello Village, which offered temporary housing to people who were housing insecure.

The $73 million project developed by LIHI is located within a six-minute walk to the Othello light rail station, park, children's clinic, and schools. On-site, Nichols Court sports a fitness center, play area for children, community room, and rooftop deck.

The building will also feature an early learning center run by Refugee Women's Alliance (ReWA) that will be available to residents and community members. It will have six classrooms for over 100 infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with 70 staff members.

All the two- and three-bedroom units have been rented out, and 40 families have settled in while 23 families are in the process of moving in, said Sharon Lee, LIHI's executive director.

Prices for units range from $1,375 to $2,451, depending on the apartment, a person's annual income, and family size.

"It's very important that land be preserved around transit, where lower-income and working-class people can also stay in the community," Lee said.

LIHI develops, owns, and operates housing for the benefit of low-income, unhoused, and formerly unhoused people in Washington State and manages 82 affordable housing properties. Additionally, the organization operates or supports 18 tiny home villages in Seattle, Skyway, Tacoma, Olympia, and Tukwila.

According to LIHI, the Seattle area has the third-largest unhoused population of all major cities in the country, and the current stock of shelters and affordable housing cannot keep up with the dramatic increase in the number of people who are unhoused.

The property where Nichols Court is located was formerly Othello Village, a "tiny house village" that featured 30 small shelters that were heated, insulated, weatherproof, and lockable. These temporary homes, known as tiny houses, have offered unhoused people a path to permanent housing, employment, and connection to supportive services.

While LIHI gathers funds, permits, and other documents for permanent housing projects, the organization hosts tiny house villages on the sites to support unhoused people in the meantime. So far, LIHI has used five sites this way, moving the villages once construction is set to begin. The Othello tiny house village, in this case, was moved to Rainier Beach.

The new building, Nichols Court, is named after Melinda and Clifford Nichols.

Melinda Nichols was shocked and "kind of embarrassed" that the building was named after her. She suggested that the organization instead name the building after someone who "gives [LIHI] a bunch of money," but was told, "Shut up, you've worked for us for free for 25 years."

Melinda was the first female apprentice carpenter in Washington State and has worked with LIHI for over 25 years as a board member and volunteer. She cofounded the organization's Tiny House Program.

Clifford Nichols is a Native American artist and member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. His art in wood and fabric has been shown in museums and galleries in the Northwest and Southwest.

"I think it's really important for people to recognize that every person is valuable, and if they really can't afford anything … we need to help them," Melinda said. "We need to step up and make sure that they're going to be okay."

According to Lee, Othello has experienced a lot of gentrification and displacement, especially among the Black and Latino communities, as a result of people being priced out of the city.

"People have been forced out of the Central [District], forced out of southeast Seattle, and it makes sense that we have opportunities to retain people," Lee said.