— by Hedrick Smith —
Orcas has the irresistible lure of a natural Paradise and the attraction of a welcoming civic spirit – a caring human community. [In 2006], that community spirit inspired San Juan Islanders to raise $18.5 million to save Turtleback Mountain from development and to preserve its pristine beauty.
Every summer we enjoy the remarkable community-funded Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival and rally to support the youth center at Funhouse Commons, the commitment of SeaDoc to protect wildlife and our natural environment, and the multiple services funded by the Community Foundation.
For people who care about the Orcas community and who understand the financial stress on middle class families today, the cause that has had the most enduring impact on sustaining our way of life is OPAL, the community housing trust. (OPAL = “Of People and Land”)
Owning a home is a core value of the middle class American Dream. But in places like Orcas, given the long-term influx of affluent vacation and retirement home buyers, that dream is priced out of reach for many average families.
Fortunately, 25 years ago, some wise and thoughtful Islanders founded OPAL to create affordable housing. People donated land, money, even houses. Over the years OPAL has raised $14 million in private and public assets, enough to provide affordable homes to own for 100 Orcas families and reasonable rentals for 29 more. Today, one in 20 people who live on Orcas year-round and one in 10 children live in OPAL homes.
Truth is, Orcas wouldn’t function the way we want without OPAL. Walk into almost any store or restaurant in Eastsound and odds are you’ve just met an OPAL homeowner – 19 small business owners and 21 restaurant and grocery store workers live in OPAL homes.
Nearly a dozen teachers, tutors and school aides; ten nurses and health care providers; more than 30 landscapers, building trades and home service workers; more than a dozen artists, musicians, photographers and actors; and nearly a dozen staffers at public agencies and non-profits like Orcas Center – all have homes in six OPAL neighborhoods and nearly a dozen scattered houses.
Without OPAL’s help – obtaining, building and offering homes for sale at a median price $225,000 below the county median, those families might not even be on Orcas today. They would have been priced off island. Without OPAL, our island would have lost their essential skills because long-time residents could not afford to stay and younger families could not afford to move to Orcas to replace them.
“Affordable housing is critical to making a community,” observes Pete Moe, director of [Orcas Recycling Services/]the Exchange, former Funhouse director, and an OPAL homeowner. “Were it not for OPAL, our island would lose many working families.”
So for everyone, especially for those of us who cherish Orcas as an irreplaceable retreat from the world, underwriting OPAL is a wise investment – not charity but enlightened self-interest. OPAL makes life affordable for people whom we depend on to make Orcas livable and enjoyable for all.
We need OPAL, and OPAL’s current wait-list of working families in search of homes need our support – for the sake of our entire community.
Hedrick Smith is the former Washington D.C. Bureau Chief of The New York Times and author of the current best-seller, Who Stole the American Dream?
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I agree completely with Mr. Smith’s opinion about OPAL, but I think there is a gap in OPAL’s vision for the island and that involves care for the oldest needy part of our population. We do not have a facility that provides care for elders, and OPAL might well become involved in that in the future, but so far the emphasis on elders has primarily to include the able ones in existing projects. That’s better than a lot of other plans, but Orcas deserves more.
The August 30 auction, An Orcas Family: 130 years and Counting, will raise seed money for what could become true community for those in need of caring rather than only a place to live. “Care at the core”is a good motto for Eastsound, and it would be a deepening of our community to have a facility that would encompass assisted living on up through acute care.
Hedrick, I couldn’t agree with you more. The problem with Opal is it’s lack of transparency in the bidding process and playing fast and loose on the allocation side. I have been here 19 years and gave up attempting to bid on work years ago. Money could be saved and more housing could have been built were it not for the faulty process.
Thank you for a well-written and accurate article!
Even as an OPAL contributor, I did not know many of the facts you have provided. It makes me proud to live on an island which has so many people who value our communal wealth .. the land. True wealth equality may never be achieved, but at least OPAL is working for it.
Thank you and well said. As a current school board member served twice as chair, it’s been my concern for years that young families and teachers would not be able to afford living here if it weren’t for OPAL. It is critical for the overall wellbeing of this community that we have affordable housing and OPAL leadership has got it right.
I know and admire many of the families and I can’t imagine our schools, our children or this community without their many contributions.
Mr. Aldort may have the need to moan about everyone else’s process, but thank heaven we have OPAL and it works! Be a contributor, be a supporter, or just be thankful! Merry