The Seattle Senior Housing Program (SSHP),
which is administered by Seattle Housing Authority, plans to start
using a special waiting list check-in program on October 1, 2008.
Known as "Save My Spot," the program was initially rolled out in
June 2007 for people on SHA’s Low Income Public Housing waiting
lists. It will require SSHP applicants to check in once a month to
keep their position on a waiting list.
The check-in system is designed to help
move people into housing more quickly by reducing the amount of time
required for maintaining, updating, and checking waiting lists. It
requires people on waiting lists to call in, or to check in on the
Save My Spot website (www.savemyspot.org),
once a month, on any day of the month, at any time − 24 hours a day.
People who use the telephone system can
hear instructions in any of nine languages besides English: Amharic,
Cambodian/Khmer, Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, Somali, Spanish,
Tigrinya and Vietnamese. People who use the website will see
instructions in English and in 16 other languages.
“Save My Spot will keep our waiting list up to
date,” said Judi Anderson, the senior property manager who
administers the Seattle Senior Housing program. “Often people move,
find another place to live or experience life circumstances that
prevent them from joining our program. Our interview show rate is
often less than 50 percent. With Save My Spot, we hope to bring
people in more quickly. Save My Spot will also lessen the worry for
our applicants about whether or not they are still on the list.”
Seattle Senior Housing owns 23 buildings
in the City of Seattle; the program has 993 apartments in buildings
that range from 24 to 72 apartments each. (Four of these buildings
permit residents to have a cat.) Of the program’s residents, 90
percent are seniors, and the rest are disabled younger people. SSHP has
a tiered rent system based on residents’ gross income. At present,
rents range from $248 to $720.
Beginning October 1, the Save My Spot
check-in requirement will apply to all SSHP waiting lists along with
all Public Housing wait lists: Yesler Terrace, the Scattered Sites,
and the 29 Low Income Public Housing high-rise buildings.
If an applicant is on both Low Income Public Housing and SSHP
waiting lists, as many applicants are, checking in once is all that
will be needed.
For more information about the Save My Spot program and SSHP,
please call Property Management Administrator Cindy Sribhibhadh at
(206) 615-3302, or e-mail her at
csribhibhadh@seattlehousing.org.
