A Ballard carpentry student is learning his trade by building houses for the Othello homeless encampment in Rainier Valley.

Anthony Heath is a student at the Seattle Central College Wood Technology Center, and part of their school curriculum is building tiny houses for the city-sanctioned encampment at 7544 Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and 7529 Renton Ave. South.

The Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) owns the property, and they donated the materials for the project through fundraising.

Heath, 25, is from Olympia and has been living in Seattle for six years. He currently lives in Ballard. Heath started his carpentry training last quarter. Before that he studied marketing at North Seattle College. Partially through his studies he decided to make the switch to working more with his hands and building things.

“I love being outside and working with my hands. The biggest thing for me was that I wanted to actually build something and maybe give a family a home and look back and know I made a concrete stamp on the community, “ said Heath.

The houses being built by Heath and other students differ in designed compared to the 20 others already at the site. For instance there is more ventilation then the previous houses with the addition of windows in the front and back. The changes were made after a meeting with LIHI director, Sharon Lee, Seattle College students and instructors and actual residents from the camp. A major issue that came up was ventilation: the old designs only had one window. The new designs offer more ventilation with an additional window. They also have more insulation under the floors.

Other considerations were made with the thought of electricity potentially being installed in the future. Health said there are slots near the door where wiring could come through.

“We want to make sure it’s as comfortable as possible for the people living there, and we have the slot so electricians can go in and install it no problem.”

The Othello site currently has electricity hook-ups.

During this quarter the Seattle College class is framing the house and by next quarter they will be working on the roofing.


“We are learning something as well as getting the satisfaction of building a home for someone.”

“I feel fantastic about what I’m doing. I live in Ballard and see the homeless people there. … Homelessness is a big problem, but I don’t see the actual people as the problem. Building these houses is a step toward getting them into housing. Coming to school every day knowing that I’m working toward a good cause is absolutely fantastic. I think that’s exactly why I got into this trade. It’s pretty rewarding.”

The Othello site has mostly tiny houses and can house at least 100 residents.

Heath said he hopes that one day the tent encampment on NW Market Street could eventually be made up of all tiny houses. Currently the site has five tiny houses with around two people in each house. The rest of the roughly 25 people living there are in tents on wood pallets elevated 12 inches above the ground.

Sharon Lee with LIHI said that there are no plans just yet to replace the tents with tiny houses. The initial plans for the site were to bring in more houses, but the City built a permanent fence and Lee said now it will be difficult to bring the houses in from the outside. She also said that they were lucky they got the houses they have there because there was a short window before the City built the fence. However, Lee said there is potential for new houses if a group wants to build them on-site.