Meet Francis Jacobson
 Francis Jacobson has joined the HRB team as a regular volunteer providing office support, research and writing. Here's his story . . .
I grew up on Bainbridge Island and personally never gave much thought at the time to affordable housing on the island. I had never thought of it as being an issue in my life. I had done some work for St Vincent de Paul in Seattle which consisted of providing assistance to those in Seattle 's First Hill and Downtown areas in the mid 1990s.
I came back to the island in 2001 and was lucky to find a very affordable apartment right in the center of town. The more time I lived here as an adult, the more I appreciated the area. Now that a series of personal missteps and an economic downturn decades in the making, I found my whole life focused on the island and every aspect of it from it's history to it's business climate to it's community. I decided to volunteer for HRB after doing other volunteer work to stay viable and have grown to become very interested in it.
My work here not only gives me practical skills but an education in real estate, housing and understanding just who lives here and what consists of "affordable housing." Like anyone growing up in a well-to-do area, "affordable housing" meant negative images of Cabrini Green, urban poverty and crime. Even when I moved here in 2001 I thought of being here as an "escape." Now I can appreciate diversity in a community and being here is not an act of "doing good" but in doing what is necessary and productive.
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