About Us
Welcome to Housing Solutions Network! We are so glad you’re here.
Housing Solutions Network (HSN) was first initiated in 2018 in response to the growing workforce housing crisis in East Jefferson County, Washington. As a grassroots effort brought forth by many community members concerned about affordable housing for the local workforce, HSN works to facilitate connectivity, communication and the co-creation of new strategies to increase the availability of affordable and attainable housing in our region. We work alongside local housing champions – both individuals and institutions – by providing support and capacity building to ensure success.
HSN fundamentally works to grow a network of housing champions using the Community Network Building approach. Much of our work is driven by community members who volunteer their time and energy to identify obstacles to affordable housing and then craft and implement strategies to create new solutions (often in groups). To get a sense of our work, check out our 2020 Accomplishments, 2021 Accomplishments, and 2022 Annual Report.
We have a mighty team of one full-time staff, one part-time paid change-maker, and dozens of committed community volunteers.
We hope you’ll join their ranks!
Here's What We're About...
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Meet Our Change-Makers
Liz Revord
Network Director
Liz Revord comes to HSN with previous non-profit leadership
experience, a master’s degree focused on environmental and community activism, and a passion for helping others. Affected by our community’s housing crisis, Liz is hoping to share her story and connect with others to find solutions that work not only here in Jefferson County, but can also be implemented beyond our peninsula. She and her husband enjoy their time outdoors hiking, biking, and exploring the beautiful PNW with their rescue pups.
Eric Jones
Share our Spaces Campaign Strategist
Eric is here to build community; he knows without community the future doesn’t look so bright. He brings an eclectic mix of experiences and perspectives through degrees in visual communications and international studies, work in the non-profit sector at both the staff and board level, growing several small business, teaching English as a foreign language, and succeeding at several years of stay-at-home parenting. He is enjoying pushing the boundaries of low impact, small living with his wife, two daughters and their collection of animals.
Housing Solution Network's Steering Committee
Jane Armstrong
Chair
Jane and her husband moved to Port Ludlow in 2014 and into Port Townsend five years ago.
Jane managed a variety of food processing operations for the last 20 years of her career. Having made multiple moves herself, finding home and community have always been important to her.
The Housing Solutions Network provides the opportunity to collaborate with others interested in digging in and in finding solutions to these difficult challenges . And in the process, to appreciate even more how special, talented and creative our communities and people are.
Fred Kimball
Member
Educated as a geological engineer and mining engineer, Fred spent 15 years in mining industry tramping around the west and Alaska. Fred claims he walked out of a tunnel and moved to Port Townsend to be a “hippy carpenter”.
Fred has lived in PT Since 1986 and owned and operated Kimball Woodworks a general contracting business and cabinet shop for 30 years.
He have been active with Habitat for Humanity for over 20 years, was a board member, past board president, construction committee, advocacy committee, finance committee. Fred was also a member Jefferson County Affordable Housing Task Force and currently active with Housing Solutions Network as HAT member and Support council.
Fred claims he is also ‘currently trying to be retired’!
Member
Steve was born in Kansas City and has been moving north and west ever since. He lived in Denver for over 25 years and, in 2006, moved to Port Townsend to be near the water and to connect with a ‘human scale’ place in which he could plug in and help make a difference.
Housing Solutions Network is a great example of how that can happen in a community like East Jefferson County.
While Steve have had a number of careers, most of his professional life was spent in the software development and business consulting areas. In 1981 he joined a software development start-up in Denver and later became the president of a ‘boutique software and business consulting firm’.
In his time in Port Townsend, Steve has served on the boards of The Food Co-op, Jefferson Land Trust, Bayside Housing and Services, and Quimper Mercantile Co. It’s great being here and being part of this dynamic community.
Housing Solutions Network and Jefferson Community Foundation
HSN was initially incubated at JCF as a field-of-interest fund in order to meet a gap in the housing landscape: a space for new community leaders to develop new solutions for affordable workforce housing. It was the founders’ intention to pilot the effort in a measured, low-overhead environment and then, if successful, to build the governance and operating structures needed to become independent from JCF.
In addition, HSN has directed new funding to housing efforts through the Jefferson Community Foundation, provided scholarships for grant writing workshops, offered coaching and Board development for local organizations, and cultivated a wide-reaching communications platform to educate community members about housing challenges and housing solutions in our community.
HSN currently operates as a distinct initiative from JCF, with one full-time staff and two dedicated part-time staff members and a set of programs that are unique from JCF’s core programs and services. JCF still offers HSN support through administrative support and offers strategic feedback and guidance upon request. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any additional questions regarding the nature of our relationship.
