Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association Programs
Home and Place
We believe that every person has a right to a safe affordable place to call home. Over the course of the last 15 years, DNDA has developed and preserved 191 affordable housing units at nine properties, providing low-income housing and assistance to over 1100 people. Our work is characterized by mixed-use development which incorporates the neighborhood’s most crucial community facilities, including the West Seattle Food Bank and Community Resource Center, the Delridge Library, the Delridge Neighborhood Service Center, Southwest Early Learning, and the wide range of occupants and resources at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.
Arts and Culture
We believe that creativity, self-expression, and cultural development are at the core of neighborhood vitality. In 2005, DNDA reclaimed and transformed the abandoned Frank B Cooper School into the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. Youngstown houses youth-serving arts organizations including Arts Corps, Nature Consortium, 12th Night Theater, Youth Media Institute, The Service Board, the Southwest Interagency alternative program of Seattle Public Schools, as well as 36 low-income residential live/work artist lofts. Youngstown has exceeded its original vision and has become a powerful resource for investing in youth, convening community, and bringing creative economic vitality to Delridge. Youngstown is the preeminent institution in Delridge for community gatherings, hosting over 20,000 participants annually.
Health and Active Living
We believe that all people have the right to lead a healthy and active life, and we are dedicated to empowering our community with the knowledge and resources to make healthy choices. Our community currently has unacceptably high rates of obesity and diabetes resulting from conditions related to chronic under-investment in the neighborhood, such as a lack of healthy affordable food and safe inviting places to play. Since 2007, we have partnered with a broad range of philanthropic, research, policy, and business partners to transform the systems and policies that have resulted in these conditions.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
The greatest recent success of DNDA has been the ability to adapt and innovate through a period of significant organizational transition. As DNDA’s founders moved on to other projects, significant turnover occurred within the board of directors, and we saw the exit of the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center’s founding director. Still, the need for a community development presence in Delridge, and the demand for a hub of arts and cultural activities such as Youngstown provides, only continued to grow.
DNDA has weathered this transition with strength and optimism. DNDA’s mixed-use low-income housing projects remain near capacity, providing housing and basic services to those most in need. The organization’s board of Directors is growing and redefining their vision in order to continue meeting the needs of the Delridge community, and the energy in the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center is livening under the directorship of newcomer David Bestock. There is a clear focus on cultivating and integrating the creative resources within Youngstown, and leveraging those resources in order to provide youth and families throughout the greater Delridge neighborhood with innovative programming and inspiring artistic opportunities.
DNDA is a hub organization that serves as home to a wide range of internally self-sufficient programs and initiatives to support neighborhood development. As such, one of the most crucial organizational needs is general operating support to provide the organizational resiliency to serve as a stable foundation and to be able to respond to emerging needs and opportunities.