For many low-income parents in Spokane Valley, Washington, the math has never worked: you need childcare to hold a job, and you need a job to keep your housing. The Spokane Housing Authority is trying to short-circuit that problem by building childcare directly into its next affordable housing complex.
At Orchard Vista, a 240-unit affordable housing development going up at 9910 E Appleway near Spokane Valley City Hall, SHA is planning a dedicated early learning facility of roughly 4,500 square feet on a quarter-acre section of the property. The authority is now seeking an operator to help design the space during construction and then run it long-term under a lease once the building is complete.
The stakes are real. Spokane County qualifies as a childcare desert under federal standards, with more than three children under age five for every licensed slot in many neighborhoods. Washington lost roughly 30% of its licensed family childcare capacity between 2019 and 2023. For families at the lower end of the income scale, that shortage is more than an inconvenience. Research consistently shows that lack of childcare is the single largest barrier keeping low-income parents, especially mothers, from holding steady work, and unstable work is the leading predictor of losing housing.
Source: NationGraph.
Affordable housing alone hasn't been enough to solve that. SHA, led by Executive Director Pam Tietz, has increasingly moved toward projects that bundle housing with services rather than treating housing as a standalone fix. Orchard Vista is the most ambitious version of that approach yet and one of the agency's largest new builds in years.
The co-location model has gained policy momentum nationally. Under the Biden administration, HUD explicitly encouraged housing authorities to pair housing with supportive services including childcare, and Washington State's 2021 Fair Start for Kids Act expanded childcare subsidies while a 2023 capital budget created dedicated funding for early learning facility construction.
Spokane Valley's politics make the project notable in their own right. The city, which only incorporated in 2003 and has historically had a council skeptical of subsidized housing, is now home to one of the region's most deliberately integrated affordable developments.
The selected childcare provider will be unusually involved from the start, consulting during the architectural and engineering phase before taking over operations. That early seat at the table is designed to ensure the facility actually works for the families who will live upstairs. When construction wraps and Orchard Vista opens its doors, how well that arrangement holds together will be closely watched.
