Public Partner
Spokane Public Library
Contributed land, existing community assets, and a hundred-year stewardship arrangement that anchors the project to the civic life of the city.
Featured Mandate · Spokane Rise Apartments · Spokane, WA
The nation's first
library–refugee
housing partnership.
A 48-unit mixed-income community in Spokane on a hundred-year stewardship arrangement with the Spokane Public Library. Certificate of Occupancy targeted May 2026.
Deal At A Glance
- Units
- 48 · mixed income
- Affordability
- 51% restricted ≤80% AMI
- Senior Lender
- Washington Trust Bank
The Test a Deal Must Pass
Every project looks sound in its first quarter. The real test is what happens when one of its partners comes under pressure.
Midway through development, one of our partners entered receivership on an unrelated matter. These are difficult circumstances for any organization, and the situation remains theirs to resolve. In many deals, this is the moment investors call their lawyers and lenders begin a quiet review. In ours, the project did not pause. Construction continued. Investors were protected. The schedule held.
That outcome was not luck. It was the consequence of how the deal had been structured from the beginning: a project-specific LLC, ring-fenced partnership agreements, and capital relationships built deliberately at the entity level rather than at the sponsor level. Sound architecture, drafted in calm, paid for itself under pressure.
Certificate of Occupancy is scheduled for May 2026. The building will open exactly when it was supposed to.
The Partnership
A municipal library, a hundred-year lease, a working community.
The Spokane Public Library contributed 1.64 acres along with the site's geodesic dome, community garden, and book kiosk. In return, the project entity is developing and stewarding the new community center and public spaces for one hundred years at one dollar per year. Library and housing co-locations exist in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Miami, but as reported in The Inlander, this is the first known project of its kind built specifically to house refugees.
Capital Partner
Washington Trust Bank
Senior lender and CRA investor throughout development. A regional banking relationship that has proven durable under pressure.
Sponsor & Architect
Courage Housing
Equity participant, lead pre-development, entity structuring, and capital assembly. We hold ownership alongside the work.
Execution
Built fast.
Built right.
The development timeline compares favorably to conventional LIHTC projects of similar scale, which routinely run three to five years from site control to delivery. Our schedule discipline reflects a deliberate choice: smaller, faster, mission-aligned capital stacks over slower, larger, formula-driven ones. Why speed matters.
Site Control → Groundbreaking
~7 months
Pre-development, entitlement, capital close
Groundbreaking → C of O
12 months
Vertical construction through occupancy
Industry Benchmark
3–5 years
Typical LIHTC project of comparable scale
The Stress Test
What holds when a partner's creditors come calling.
Most mission-driven deals are not designed for the difficult case. They are designed for the brochure. Ours are designed for the day a partner's creditors arrive, so that the project, and everyone depending on it, stays whole.
Architectural Decision
Project-specific LLC.
The development entity was structured at the project level, not consolidated under any single sponsor, so that the project's assets, debt, and equity sat outside the reach of receivership on any other matter.
Architectural Decision
Ring-fenced partnership agreements.
Investor protections, operating control, and waterfall mechanics were drafted on the assumption that one party might need to step away involuntarily, and that the building still needed to open on time.
The Residents
Investing in the people who rebuild strongest.
Refugees arriving through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program are among the most rigorously vetted entrants to the country, often subject to more than fourteen separate screenings, and consistently demonstrate strong tenancy, rapid self-sufficiency, and long-horizon upward mobility.
With USRAP currently paused at the federal level, Spokane Rise has pivoted to serve New Americans more broadly while maintaining its affordability commitments, with 51% of units restricted at or below 80% of area median income. We remain prepared to welcome USRAP arrivals the moment the program resumes.
Residents will receive comprehensive wraparound services through partner organizations: healthcare navigation, employment support, English language instruction, and workforce development. These services correlate, in our experience and in the literature, with measurably lower turnover and lower loss-to-lease. Refugee and New American communities are also associated with declining crime in the neighborhoods that receive them: of the ten U.S. cities that received the highest proportional refugee inflows between 2006 and 2015, nine saw significant drops in crime.
Deals that survive adversity.
Partners who deliver under pressure.
We structure capital and shepherd pre-development for projects that need to hold together when the conditions change. Write to us about the project you cannot afford to lose.