Awards
2024 Awards and recognition
NAHRO honors SHA with six Awards of Merit
The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) honored the Seattle Housing Authority with six Awards of Merit. NAHRO’s awards were given in the Administrative Innovation category, which recognizes programs that improve the efficiency or effectiveness of administrative operations or the general functioning of the agency/organization and creates a resource bank of information performed by housing and redevelopment agencies and community development departments. The following initiatives received awards:
• SHA Computer Lab Program: Using grant funding, a new computer lab was opened and seven others, including one specially designed to serve people with disabilities, were upgraded with new, fast equipment. In addition, a new mobile lab program was developed allowing staff to bring equipment and innovative programming to a variety of locations.
• Digital Navigator Program: Using grant funding, SHA’s Digital Navigators distributed over 3,600 new laptops and iPads to tenants and taught them how to set up devices, sign up for the federal Affordable Connectivity Program, navigate the internet, set up email accounts, register for the SHA Portal, apply for a free ORCA transit card, use contemporary meeting apps and more. SHA’s multilingual Digital Skills Instructors provided intensive training, including a six-week class held at SHA properties throughout the city.
• Deferred Maintenance Dashboard: To adhere to public health guidelines and lower the risk of COVID-19 transmission during the pandemic, SHA paused routine maintenance repairs for 15 months. In 2023, an interactive dashboard was developed that cataloged needed repairs, evaluated and prioritized response needs and assigned staff with specialized technical skills.
• Deferred Maintenance Team: In conjunction with developing its deferred maintenance dashboard, SHA invested in a six-member Deferred Maintenance Team to strategically work uninterrupted in geographic blocks. Use of the team doubled traditional maintenance efficiency and significantly reduced workorder backlogs.
• Hinoki Apartments: Funded in part with a HUD Choice Neighborhood Initiative grant, Hinoki is SHA’s fifth Yesler residential apartment building. This 100% affordable housing building is a seven-story mid-rise that provides 136 homes in a range of sizes from one- to four-bedrooms with a total square footage of 180,127. Amenities include a protected courtyard, a community room, and garden plots available to residents.
• Race and Social Justice Supervisory Training Series: SHA’s Race and Social Justice Supervisory Training Series is a deep dive, mandatory training series for all supervisory staff at SHA to build awareness and skills to lead their teams with a focus on employee well-being, employee development, and working actively for race and social justice equity.
NAHRO honors SHA with an Award of Excellence
The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials honored the Seattle Housing Authority with an Award of Excellence for its CodeRED Tenant Alert System. Awards of Excellence honor programs that improve resident outcomes, resolve problems, are replicable by organizations of similar size, produce tangible cost savings and other positive results, enhance productivity, improve client services and demonstrate better service coordination. The 2024 winners were selected by regional juries from a pool of Awards of Merit honorees.
2023 Awards and recognition
NAHRO honors SHA with five Awards of Merit
The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials honored the Seattle Housing Authority with five Awards of Merit. NAHRO’s awards were given in the Administrative Innovation category, which recognizes programs that improve the efficiency or effectiveness of administrative operations or the general functioning of the agency/organization and creates a resource bank of information performed by housing and redevelopment agencies and community development departments. The following initiatives received recognition:
- Advocacy Mapping Tool: To increase the ease and efficiency of collaborating with fellow Moving to Work-designated housing agencies for education and advocacy on a federal scale, SHA created an interactive mapping tool to do outreach and education about the importance of affordable housing. The map allows users to visualize the physical locations of each agency and navigate in a multitude of ways.
- CodeRED Tenant Alert System: SHA developed a tenant alert system that enables SHA to rapidly text, email and call select groups or all residents and participants with urgent and emergency information. This could range from notifying residents of an SHA building about an elevator outage to messages alerting entire communities about a life-threatening situation.
- Emergency Housing Vouchers Implementation: Upon being awarded vouchers through the Emergency Housing Voucher program, SHA took an innovative approach to building regional partnerships and implementing administrative efficiencies to prioritize racial equity and move people into housing quickly. SHA was recognized by HUD for achieving 100 percent utilization of federal Emergency Housing Vouchers.
- HCV Housing Quality Standards COVID-19 Recovery Plan: SHA developed an 18-month recovery plan to return to pre-pandemic business operations. This effort put SHA far ahead of local and national counterparts in returning to ensuring decent, safe and sanitary housing for its voucher participants. Completion of the plan occurred 15 months prior to Moving to Work activity requirements.
- Yesler Arts Program: With support from the Kresge Foundation, SHA infused an unprecedented roster of arts and culture strategies into the Yesler Terrace redevelopment process. Artists developed community programs to mark moments of transition and acknowledged the histories and experiences of residents through storytelling, dance, photography and other art making.
2023 Public Housing Communities Honor Roll
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading recognized the Seattle Housing Authority in its 2023 Public Housing Communities Honor Role. Honor Roll members demonstrate their leadership and depth and breadth of contributions supporting children through a variety of programs and partnerships. Honorees employ strategies and tactics that leverage the resources of public housing agencies and organizations to advance seamless systems of coordinated and aligned care, services and family supports that are 24/7/365 and multigenerational. These public housing communities have: Shown sustained effort for more than a year; prioritized collaboration with school districts, other agencies, organizations and institutions to amplify the desired outcomes; used data to set baselines and targets, track progress and promote accountability for outcomes; and addressed foundational critical early school success and equitable recovery objectives, such as school readiness and attendance.
Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting
The Seattle Housing Authority was awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting in 2023 by the Chicago-based Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada.
2022 Awards and recognition
NAHRO 2022 Award of Merit
The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials honored the Seattle Housing Authority with a 2022 Award of Merit for “Advanced Water Heating to Increase Efficiency: A Replicable Model for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction in Seattle.” SHA participated in an innovative public-private partnership to install and demonstrate feasibility of a commercial heat pump water heating technology using a low global warming potential refrigerant (CO2) at Bayview Tower. This demonstration project, a part of the larger Department of Energy Advanced Water Heating Initiative, creates a proving ground for an emerging technology in the United States that, at scale, could greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in SHA’s portfolio. NAHRO’s award was given in the Administrative Innovation category, which recognizes programs that improve the efficiency or effectiveness of administrative operations or the general functioning of the agency/organization and creates a resource bank of information performed by housing and redevelopment agencies and community development departments.
2020 Awards and recognition
NAHRO 2020 Award of Excellence
The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials honored the Seattle Housing Authority with a 2020 Award of Excellence for its Digital Initiative. NAHRO’s award was given in the Administrative Innovation category, which recognizes programs that improve the efficiency or effectiveness of administrative operations or the general functioning of the agency/organization and creates a resource bank of information performed by housing and redevelopment agencies and community development departments. Entrants in the Awards of Excellence are chosen from among the Award of Merit entries by NAHRO Regional juries and sent on to national juries for the choice of winners by competition.
2020 Jack Kemp Award
The Urban Land Institute Terwilliger Center for Housing awarded the Seattle Housing Authority with the 2020 Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award for its development of Red Cedar apartments at Yesler. The award is given annually to affordable and workforce housing developments that represent outstanding achievements in several areas, including affordability, innovative financing and building technologies, proximity to employment centers and transportation hubs, quality of design and involvement of public/private partnerships.
NAHRO honors SHA with an Award of Merit
The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials honored the Seattle Housing Authority with a 2020 Award of Merit for its Digital Initiative. NAHRO’s award was given in the Administrative Innovation category, which recognizes programs that improve the efficiency or effectiveness of administrative operations or the general functioning of the agency/organization and creates a resource bank of information performed by housing and redevelopment agencies and community development departments.
2019 Awards and recognition
Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting
The Seattle Housing Authority was awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting in 2019 by the Chicago-based Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. In a statement, GFOA said the Certificate of Achievement for SHA’s 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report “is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management.”
2019 Gold Skyline Award
Seattle Business magazine’s Skyline Awards recognizes excellence in commercial real estate projects in the Puget Sound region that have been groundbreaking, innovative, challenge-conquering and problem-solving. The Seattle Housing Authority was awarded the Gold Skyline Award for Multi-Family Low-Mid Rise Development of the Year for its redevelopment of Yesler.
2019 ACEC Best in State Silver Award
Hoa Mai Gardens and the Yesler Hillclimb won the 2019 American Council of Engineering Companies' Best in State Silver Award in the “Unique or Innovative Applications" category.
2018 Awards and recognition
Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting
The Seattle Housing Authority was awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting in 2018 by the Chicago-based Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. In a statement, GFOA said the Certificate of Achievement for SHA’s 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report “is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management.”
Washington State Housing Finance Commission Friend of Housing Award
Executive Director Andrew Lofton received the Washington State Housing Finance Commission's Friend of Housing Award. The awards are presented each year to individuals, projects or organizations who have made exceptional contributions to creating or supporting affordable housing.
NAHRO Award of Excellence
The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) honored the Seattle Housing Authority with a 2018 Award of Excellence in Administrative Innovation for its Specialized Maintenance and Repair Training (SMART) program. Awards of Excellence honor programs that improve resident outcomes, resolve problems, are replicable by organizations of similar size, produce tangible cost savings and other positive results, enhance productivity, improve client services, and demonstrate better service coordination. The 2018 winners were selected by regional juries from a pool of 193 Awards of Merit honorees and SHA was one of only 19 agencies nationwide to win an Award of Excellence.
NAHRO honors SHA with three Awards of Merit
The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) honored the Seattle Housing Authority with three 2018 Awards of Merit. The winning projects were: Specialized Maintenance and Repair Training (SMART) program, Customer Service Awareness, and Lean Public Housing Inspections in the Administrative Innovation category.
Seattle Sounders FC Golden Scarf award
Executive Director Andrew Lofton and Seattle Housing Authority were presented with the Golden Scarf award at the July 29, 2018 Seattle Sounders FC match. The award honors the partnership and community-centered efforts between SHA and the RAVE Foundation to bring services to the Yesler Community that are focused on soccer, art, and community-building. A few times each season, Sounders FC selects members of the community to honor their service. They are presented with a special gold scarf, which has come to symbolize the game of soccer. Awardees raise the scarf over their heads, signaling to the fans to do the same.
2018 Gold Nugget Grand Award Winner
Hoa Mai Gardens received PCBC's 2018 Gold Nugget Grand Award in the Best Affordable Housing Community – 60 to 100 du/acre.
2018 Gold Nugget Award of Merit
Hoa Mai Gardens received PCBC's 2018 Gold Nugget Award of Merit Winner in the Best Affordable Housing Community – 60 to 100 du/acre.
2018 Urban Soccer Symposium Innovation Award from U.S. Soccer Foundation
The Seattle Housing Authority’s Yesler Redevelopment has been awarded the 2018 Urban Soccer Symposium Innovation Award from the U.S. Soccer Foundation, the national model for sports-based youth development programs in underserved communities. SHA earned the award for utilizing an imaginative approach and original programming to create positive social change in underserved communities, including collaborative efforts with RAVE Foundation and Sounders FC to integrate soccer into the cultural framework of the historic downtown Seattle neighborhood.
2017 Awards and recognition
2017 Washington Alliance of School Administrators (WASA), Community Leadership Award
WASA presents this award annually to a community member or group in recognition of their outstanding contributions toward education. The Seattle Housing Authority and Seattle University were recognized for their work in the Choice Neighborhood collaborative, a regional collective-impact initiative centered on the redevelopment Yesler Terrace. SHA and SU partner with local organizations and nonprofits to create a cradle-to-career pipeline of learning resources for children and youth to significantly improve high school and college graduation rates.
2017 Seattle Commute Trip Reduction Awards, Bronze
Seattle Housing Authority received the Bronze award from the City of Seattle for its progress towards reducing employee drive-alone rates, providing innovative and comprehensive commuter programs to their employees, and showing high levels of engagement with the program and their peers.
2017 HUD Secretary's Award for Public-Philanthropic Partnerships
The Council on Foundations, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, recognized the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with the HUD Secretary’s Award for Public-Philanthropic Partnerships. The award honored the partnerships between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, King County Housing Authority, Tacoma Housing Authority, and Seattle Housing Authority.
Seattle Housing Authority’s Raven Terrace named nation’s best public housing redevelopment
Raven Terrace, the Seattle Housing Authority’s second new residential building at Yesler, was named the best public housing redevelopment in Affordable Housing Finance magazine’s 2017 Readers’ Choice Awards for the Nation’s Best Affordable Housing Developments.
Seattle Housing Authority gets top award for financial reporting
The Seattle Housing Authority was awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting in 2017 by the Chicago-based Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. In a statement, GFOA said the Certificate of Achievement for SHA’s 2016 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report “is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment.”
Seattle Public Schools Outstanding Partnership award
The Seattle Housing Authority received an Outstanding Partnership award in 2017 from Seattle Public Schools for its innovative approach in supporting students at school and at home to reach their educational goals.
2016 Awards and recognition
HAI Group 2016 Risk Management Award
The national Housing Authority Insurance Group announced the Seattle Housing Authority as the winner of its 2016 Risk Management Award for the Resident Safety category.
HUD Secretary’s Award for Healthy Homes
The Seattle Housing Authority received the 2016 HUD Secretary’s Award for Healthy Homes in the Cross Cutting Coordination program category. SHA’s efforts and the Breathe Easy Program in the Yesler Terrace Apartments were judged outstanding by the independent reviewers at the National Environmental Health Association and by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
2016 Gold Nugget Awards, Award of Merit
Architect Weber Thompson received an Award of Merit for Raven Terrace in the Best Affordable Housing Community. The Seattle Housing Authority developed and Walsh Construction built the project.
2016 Wasla Awards, Merit Award Winner
Architect Weber Thompson received the Merit Award in the Residential Design Multifamily category for its thoughtful design execution of Raven Terrace.
2016 Builder’s Choice Awards, Citation Award
Architect Weber Thompson received a Citation Award in the Affordable Housing category for Raven Terrace. The award celebrates thoughtful planning and innovative details to advance the notion of what makes a house a home.
2015 Awards and recognition
NAHRO Award
The Seattle Housing Authority received a National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials Award of Merit in Housing and Community Development for the HCV Resource Development Plan.