We recently received very exciting news from Becky Bicknell at Housing Resources Group: Kenyon House has earned LEED Platinum certification through the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED for Homes rating system. Kenyon House is the first project in the State of Washington to attain LEED for Homes Platinum certification for affordable housing and only the second in the entire country! The project received grant funding from Home Depot and Enterprise Green Communities to support green building efforts, including the LEED certification process.

Specific green building elements of Kenyon House include: the preservation of many tall, mature trees, which offer natural beauty as well as solar shading in the summer; orientation of the building to take advantage of passive solar heating and improved natural lighting; water-efficient lavatory faucets and shower heads; highly efficient boilers; and efficient gas-fired radiant heating and passive cooling. In addition, more than 65 percent of the construction waste was diverted from landfills.

Kenyon House demonstrates that not only is it possible to create beautiful, supportive housing for the some neediest and hardest-to-house in our community, but we also can (and should) build it in a sustainable way. Kudos to our development team partners, particularly Housing Resources Group, SMR Architects, and Walsh Construction Co./WA, for this remarkable achievement!

What is LEED? According to the USGBC website: "The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria."