First year at Donna Jean’s Place, a Capitol Hill shelter where time is the most important resource

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(Image: Donna Jean’s Place)

By Moa Segerholt, UW News Lab

After being homeless three different times in Seattle, 60-year-old Benev Brandt says that Donna Jean’s Place is the best shelter she’s ever been in.

“Physically, I could find a safe place to sleep. And mentally, I could find a place to rest,” said Brandt.

Brandt says she has been homeless most her life and came to Seattle from California when she was 21. She has stayed at numerous shelters, but Donna Jean’s has provided her the most lasting healing, she says.

Donna Jean’s Place is a women’s emergency shelter that opened on northern Capitol Hill early this year as a collaboration between Operation Nightwatch and St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral.

Deacon Frank DiGirolamo, executive director of Operation Nightwatch, says he hoped that the shelter would help 100 women annually.

Since the opening at St. Mark’s last winter, the number has grown beyond expectations. DiGirolamo said that they’ve already helped more than 230 women at the shelter — named in honor of Donna Jean Palmberg, the widow of Operation Nightwatch’s founder — in the past year.

“This provides 7,000 nights of shelter per year, which sounds small – only 20 people per night, right? – But that’s 7,000 times that someone won’t be subject to being harassed or assaulted. So we think that’s a little seed of effort that can grow a lot,” Digirolamo said.

Donna Jean’s might also show that one of the most important resources a shelter can provide is time.

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Hugo House announces new permanent executive director — and says the book almost closed on the Capitol Hill literary arts center in 2024

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Pepe Montero will become the permanent executive director (Image: Hugo House)

Capitol Hill literary arts center Hugo House announced a new leader this week. The 11th Ave nonprofit announced Pepe Montero has accepted the position of permanent executive director.

The appointment marks the culmination of what it says has been an eighteen-month recovery period for the Capitol Hill literary center, which narrowly avoided permanent closure in early 2024.

“The path to this announcement began during one of the most difficult chapters in Hugo House’s history,” the announcement reads. “We found ourselves with a mostly new board and a completely overwhelming question: who could we get to run the place?”

The transition from interim to permanent leadership comes after a challenging period for the arts organization. CHS reported here in early 2024 as its then-director resigned amid ongoing challenges.

Hugo House was founded in 1996 and had been well-positioned among Capitol Hill and the city’s strongest arts nonprofits. In 2018, it opened its new 9,600-square-foot writing center on the ground floor of the new mixed-use apartment building developed on the corner Hugo House has called home since the late 1990s. Continue reading →

Paradise adds Birrieria Jalisco #1 to its Broadway mix

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A seat at the Paradise bar

One thing you have to hand the recent generation of new Capitol Hill restaurants moving into old Capitol Hill restaurant spaces is that they work hard. Places like Mint and Martini — an Indian joint that moved into former Barrio space on 12th Ave — and Broadway’s Paradise in the long ago home of the Broadway Grill will be open this Thursday when much of the rest of the Hill’s restaurants will be closed for Thanksgiving.

(Capitol Hill’s bars are another story with many open for the holiday for when you and friends and family could most use a drink.)

Paradise continues to hustle. CHS reported last November as the Mexican restaurant and bar moved in after the closure of Olmstead in the former Broadway Grill space. Continue reading →

Maps show how Katie Wilson won in Seattle including strength in Capitol Hill and the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods

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The final margin will be around 2,017 votes but — especially in our new era of highly optimized political campaigns driven by data and block by block analysis — a win is a win.

With King County Elections set Tuesday to certify the results of Mayor-elect Katie Wilson’s November victory in Seattle, here is a look at how the political battle played out in maps of Seattle and the neighborhoods around Capitol Hill and the Central District.

We also have a few maps showing the borders for the month’s other progressive victories including a few neighbor vs. neighbor political battlefronts.

This summer as we examined mapping of the August primary, CHS asked, “Who didn’t vote for Katie Wilson on Capitol Hill?” after the Capitol Hill renter’s impressive showing in the neighborhood helped drive an even more impressive top showing in the primary.

Today, as the mayor-elect is forming her transition team, laying out first priorities around homelessness, and preparing to work with an also-new city council, Wilson is preparing to take office in a city where the mayoral vote seemed to split across precincts by lines that delineate differences around wealth, ownership, and equity. Her summer trend held on in November but the Capitol Hill and Central District border skirmishes with incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell supporters made for a less decisive victory in Wilson’s home area in November. Continue reading →

Seattle Social Housing: On track to have first property inked in 2026

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The newly formed Seattle Social Housing organization and CEO Roberto Jimenez are preparing for the first full round of funding in 2026 as the public developer begins its mission to build and acquire buildings for affordable housing.

In an update, the organization says it has issued its first “request for information” for developers to identify “existing properties” Seattle Social Housing could acquire and make part of its program: Continue reading →

Suspicious death investigated at encampments below Capitol Hill I-5 overpass — UPDATE

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The Seattle Police Department says there were “suspicious circumstances” after a person was found dead last week near encampments under the Pike and Pine overpasses of I-5 below Plymouth Pillars Park.

A man who told police he was coming to visit. friend at the encampment area above I-5 reported the body around 12:30 PM Wednesday.

Seattle Fire was called to the scene and confirmed the death. “Upon closer inspection, there were signs of suspicious circumstances,” police investigating the scene reported. Continue reading →

Pikes/Pines | Small, loud, rusty brown, and back in town — Have you spotted a Capitol Hill Douglas’s Squirrel?

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Douglas’s squirrel (Image: WDFW)

A few years ago I took a walk at the Arboretum while waiting for my partner to finish an appointment. It was a crisp Fall day and being mid-week and late morning, the many trails were mostly free of pedestrians and I wandered about enjoying some idle time outside. Turning down a small path beneath towering Douglas firs, I stumbled upon a pile of fir cones that had been pulled apart and heaped atop a small log.

I was amazed, because I was almost certain who had created this mess: a Douglas’s Squirrel, Tamiasciurus douglasii.

Finding the sign of a squirrel at an urban park is far from a shocker. Most of us go through our day to day seeing and summarily ignoring most of the Eastern Gray Squirrels, Sciurus carolinensis, we encounter (except for the ones that gulp down our bird seed). However, Douglas’s Squirrel was not expected. At the time, I was certain they only existed in small pockets of mature(ish) coniferous forest in Seattle, like Discovery or Seward Park. But here was nearly irrefutable proof, a telltale sign I’d come to recognize from decades of hiking and naturalizing across Western Washington.

Douglas’s Squirrels are diminutive, brown and rusty red colored, and by far the most common tree squirrel west of the Cascades in Washington. Being rodents, it should be no surprise to find one cropping up unbidden and unnoticed (and I wouldn’t blame anyone if they didn’t share my immediate enthusiasm for this). That’s exactly how Eastern Gray Squirrels have shown up across the US. They hitch a ride or are accidentally transplanted. Eastern Gray Squirrels may be introduced, but they have thrived in our cityscapes, finding plantings of street trees offering them the nuts and acorns of their native ranges and bountiful other food sources for their flexible, omnivorous diets. Continue reading →

This week in CHS history | 2015 Pike/Pine shootings, STG buys Kerry Hall, arrests at ‘Essential Workers’ march on Capitol Hill

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(Image: SPD)

Here are the top stories from this week in CHS history:

2024

 

Seattle Theater Group — operator of the Paramount, Moore, and Neptune — buys Capitol Hill’s Kerry Hall in $6M deal


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City hears feedback on ‘activation’ for Capitol Hill’s problem parks — and reopening Seven Hills

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Dialogue circles and sticky notes about Seven Hills Park at Wednesday’s meeting (Image: CHS)

Questions from the parks department survey

Seattle Parks officials say they hope to hand off a report to the mayor’s office by the first week of December on plans to reopen Seven Hills Park and bring changes and activities to parks across Capitol Hill to address complaints about homeless encampments and crime.

Wednesday’s meeting to gather feedback about possible activation efforts and safety changes to the parks drew a strong turnout to the Garfield Community Center as officials organized the crowd into three circles — one for Seven Hills, one for Broadway Hill Park, and the smallest circle for the tiny but still loved Tashkent Park along Boylston Ave. The process reached an acceptable volume level when the large Seven Hills group was moved to the adjacent “teen room.”

There were consistent themes from those who raised their hands to speak in the circles including stories from a parent afraid to take their child to the park following encampment violence and witnessing an overdose and assisting in a resuscitation, and a general feeling that safety and maintenance work decayed during the pandemic and never recovered.

Ideas included increased maintenance, forming volunteer and “friends of” groups, and, one attendee suggested, “replacing all the dirt” in Seven Hills after years of camping and drug use.

“I think our park is representative of the city,” one neighbor said about Seven Hills.

Most speakers agreed on one thing above all else — please, no permanent fences. Continue reading →

The Roll Pod brings its take on Indian bowls and wraps to 22nd Ave

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(Image: The Roll Pod)

(Image: The Roll Pod)

An Indian fast food concept already familiar for its food truck presence on First Hill and its growing roster of shop locations including Bellevue and White Center is now open on 22nd Ave across from the neighborhood’s Safeway.

The Roll Pod’s newest location is celebrating a grand opening Saturday. “We delight customers with yummy, fresh, balanced Indian food on the go assembled in a ROLL or a BOWl, easy to carry and eat” is the pitch.

Owners Anubha Singh and Parimal Kumar have grown The Roll Pod to include regular food truck locations plus restaurants in Bellevue, White Center, and now on the edge of the Central District and Capitol Hill. Continue reading →