DESC’s North Star on N 143rd St
The Downtown Emergency Service Center is holding a community open house Wednesday on its planned project to build a new 120-unit “supportive housing” apartment building with onsite services for its residents on Capitol Hill’s Belmont Ave. There will be more than questions about the planned building’s height and unit count.
CHS reported this summer on the $6.5 million property deal that put a trio of former transitional housing building from Pioneer Human Services on Belmont Ave in the hands of DESC where the organization is planning to build “a new Permanent Supportive Housing project” on the parcels.
The strip of properties planned for the new housing and services facility is a few blocks west of the new Capitol Hill Stay out of Drug Area approved by the Seattle City Council.
King County’s program to fund this type of project says permanent supportive housing is housing “for a household that is homeless on entry, where the individual or a household member has a condition of disability, such as mental illness, substance abuse, chronic health issues, or other conditions that create multiple and serious ongoing barriers to housing stability.”
The buildings represent some of the most needed housing in the region that continues to be rocked by an ongoing homelessness crisis. They also can face extreme challenges.
The Seattle Times reported here on the August murder of Capitol Hill grocery worker Steve Eden who was stabbed and killed inside DESC’s 1811 Eastlake Ave supportive housing building, the second homicide in the facility in less than a year. The resident arrested and charged in Eden’s killing had previously been in jail for 21 years for murder and was convicted in 2021 “of second-degree assault for hitting a sleeping passenger in the head with a hammer onboard a Metro bus,” the Times reports.
Those extreme examples overshadow the day to day challenges of the Eastlake building and others like it as officials have raced to fund 1,600 units of emergency housing and permanent supportive housing across the county.
The facilities employ “around-the-clock staff” as well as on-site services like mental health and addiction programs. DESC says the Belmont project’s primary aim “is to help individuals achieve housing success with a focus on stability.”
“Through measuring housing longevity and other positive outcomes such as clinical and social stabilization, improved quality of life, and community engagement, DESC Belmont is dedicated to making a meaningful difference in the lives of those it serves.”
On Belmont Ave, the proposed change represents a matter of degrees. The buildings acquired by DESC were operated by Pioneer as transitional housing and halfway houses with more old school approaches including requirements around alcohol and drug abstinence, psychiatric treatments, and mandatory job programs.
For permanent supportive housing, the focus is on keeping our most vulnerable disabled, addicted, and mentally ill residents off the streets and in a structured living environment.
A campaign against the planned DESC project has taken shape as the Savage Citizens effort has made stopping the facility a goal. The campaign also calls on leaders like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to “Save Our City With US Military Assistance.” “Capitol Hill already has over three hundred people housed in multiple buildings that operate on this model variously called Housing First, Permanent Supportive Housing or Low Barrier Housing,” the campaign reads “Our streets are in chaos. We have done enough.”
City permitting is already approved to demolish the vacant buildings to make way for the new 120-unit DESC permanent supportive housing project. An August fire mostly destroyed one of the buildings waiting to be torn down.
Belmont DESC will serve people earning 30% and 50% of Area Median Income who are experiencing chronic homelessness. A spokesperson tells CHS that DESC tenants usually earn about 9% to 12% of AMI. The Belmont building will feature only studio units and is being designed for single adult residents.
DESC says Wednesday’s meeting at the Capitol Hill Library will be “an informational open house” with its staff on hand.
“We invite you to come and view our plans, meet staff and ask questions,” the event description reads.
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I’d never heard of this Savage Citizens group so I looked them up & everything I find sounds kookier & kookier. Apparently it’s run by a local yoga teacher who also runs the group that was putting up fliers a while back saying the solution to homelessness/addiction was simply meditation, lol.
Woo-woo NIMBYism basically, I guess.
That oh so very adult name alone should elicit undying respect from the community. Once they get a little more notoriety, it will read like an invitation to every local and out-of-state freak and funder. Any doubt this will end up on Newsmax?
“Savage” is just the founder’s last name. The group seems to be half PAC and half electoral campaign.
Sounds like Savage Citizens are pushing NIMBY-ism through a specifically individualist lens, attempting to target upwardly-mobile property owners in an effort to turn more wealthy Seattleites toward the side of the real-estate fascists. There’s no community solidarity at the private end of the public-private spectrum, so these anti-poor developer-fascists have to appeal to the very American ideal of aggrandized self-importance (American exceptionalism, if you will) but based on the propertied class’ higher socioeconomic status, the imagined fear of losing that capital and the associated power/status, and of course a predilection with personal responsibility and self-actualization (‘if only the homeless were as smart and cool as you, man/woman who has mastered transcendental meditation in the free time provided to you by way of passive income sources–only then could we truly flourish as a society!’)
Advocating against housing first policies is for true ghouls–it goes against all the data collected from OECD nations that have *shocker* reduced homelessness by providing housing to those in need. Not complicated!
Housing people is the answer. Just not in the middle of the city for those with severe addiction and severe mental illness. Long term residential treatment away from the city center is the answer. Severely addicted don’t get to harm the neighborhood with crime and antisocial behavior and those with mental illness don’t get preyed upon. If the addicted accept treatment and commit to re-entering society then the city will have temporary homes for them to live in while they get established. Ironically that is just what the buildings on Belmont were for many years. We believe there is a middle path to solve the epidemic in our streets that is beneficial to everyone. PS we don’t practice transcendental meditation. We offer mindfulness practice every morning at 6am online at: http://www.rebelsaintsmeditationsociety.com we hope you will join us.
So now that we’ve let the problem get so bad that we can’t avoid it, the answer is to push the addicted out of the center city and teach them to meditate? I mean, my bad for thinking you were using a mantra, but even if it’s mindfulness meditation I don’t see how individual meditation practice can help solve the systemic crisis of a lack of public housing and sky high rents–the actual thing fueling our drug addiction crisis and additionally creating our homelessness epidemic.
The problem of drugs and addiction is second order to the insane Seattle housing market (which has been inflated in part thanks to RealPage software, used by Washington landlords to set prices at scale, aka pricefixing) which pushed these poor and vulnerable people into these unstable or non-existent housing conditions in the first place…the first problem is a lack of affordable housing where people currently live, and the solution is housing first policies. Plenty of drug users are also people with homes in Seattle, and I don’t think addressing individual drug use, a second order issue, will solve any of the underlying conditions facilitating these poor people falling into hopeless addiction spirals, especially because these usually occur after being forced to become homeless due to unjust economic circumstances. Telling them to meditate to improve their lives is naive individualism, and seems to assume their initial fall away from society was due to their own individual failing and not the entire system letting them down. I don’t dislike meditation at all, but housing first policy and building public housing is a better way of helping these people feel human again, while not drilling into them the shameful suggestion that their homelessness is their fault.
Unless you’re advocating for rent control across the board, or medicare for all to truly address our nation’s mental health epidemic caused by the cold, grinding lives people are subjected to under Neoliberal Capitalism, any housing first policies that meet people where they are will ultimately be the successful ones. Trying to transform them into different people is missing the point.
You should offer these meditation practices specifically to landlords!
God knows they could use some mindfulness in their sorry lives.
Meditation by itself isn’t optimal.
Pilates AND meditation.
You’ll spring out of bed ready to conquer the world every day! Nothing can stop you, nothing!
Savage Citizens is about organizing citizens to consider and to act on the idea that housing the most severely addicted and very severely mentally ill people in the city without any behavioral requirements to keep that housing is destructive to our city center neighborhoods. The problem of addiction and mental illness is the first order problem for the city of Seattle. Drug tolerant Housing First buildings destroy neighborhoods. We are living in a neighborhood that is being harmed now, everyday, by the increase in these type of buildings since 2020. Look outside.
Housing First is not about low income or workforce housing. Savage citizens supports low income housing for working people. Housing First at 9-12% of AMI is an effort to create a system to deal with the severely addicted and severely mentally ill who are unable to work, aka disabled, without doing what really needs to be done. Strengthen drug possession laws. Strengthen involuntary commitment laws. Build long term residential treatment centers away from the city center. Get the addicts and the severely mentally ill out of harms way. Allow the neighborhoods to prosper.
We have other organizations that have nothing to do with housing. Our meditation-based recovery program can teach people to be abstinent and to not have to die or suffer in severe addiction. For those who are severely addicted to fentanyl and/or meth Savage Citizens believes that detox, then extended 12-24 months of residential treatment away from the drugs (away from the city) that includes mutual aid recovery like AA/NA/Hungry Ghosts United, will likely be effective.
“Housing people is the answer. Just not in the middle of the city for those with severe addiction and severe mental illness. Long term residential treatment away from the city center is the answer.”
The services are all here. Moving people to concentration camps in Soap Lake isn’t the cure.
Oh you meant to say hospitalization away from the drugs. Like this: https://www.alberta.ca/recovery-communities
The data shows that housing only works if you have mandatory treatment for addicts and the mentally ill. The policies in cities across the US resembles the plans of well-known South Park gnomes:
You seem confused because you’re adding in an extra step –the “?????” part is where I think you’re getting confused.
You just need the first and third dot, and then solving homelessness all of a sudden makes sense. First, no home, then…home. Still following?
One caveat though, you just can’t make money off of them in the form of rent, which you would assumedly use to sustain yourself in lieu of having the earnings from a real job that you work at…maybe that’s where you’re confused?
His tax dollars. That’s the real issue. “Those people” don’t deserve help from me. I didn’t make bad choices…yada yada yada.
They have zero clue how deeply heartless they come across.
People are dying in these buildings from city sponsored addiction. Moral Hazard for all of us. What is Heartless? Listen to the experience of residents, staff and CARE Team Chief new documentary out this week : Behind Closed Doors
There’s in house professionals so. What is your actual beef? I bet it’s $$$$$$$
Thanks Gem,
What you are referring to is an addiction recovery group that incorporates the proven group methods used for decades by AA/NA with evidenced based mindfulness practices as researched and proven effective by Professor Alan Marlat at the UW. The combination has been proving effective for years with all forms of addiction. No God or religion required. Many who are unable to accept religion are benefiting. If you know anyone who may benefit please refer them to http://www.hungryghostsunited.com. That’s what we do in our spare time.
We are decades long Capitol Hill residents who are serious about reversing the destruction of the neighborhood. We find nothing kooky about responding to this disaster in a principled and compassionate way. Kooky is pretending that it’s compassionate to have mentally ill people suffering wandering the city streets. Residents and businesses continue to leave. The streets are still filled with the severely addicted and untreated mentally ill. Olmstead and Fuel are the latest to be forced to leave directly due to the addiction and mental illness epidemic on Broadway.
The conditions we are living under are unacceptable. This is not what cities are. We do not accept the status quo. There is a way out of this debacle. The first step is to refuse to allow more harm. We believe the DESC project is actively harmful to the dignity of everyone involved. We believe this project is directly harmful to Capitol Hill socially, economically and spiritually.
Based on this alone, I stand by my woo-woo NIMBY comment entirely–NIMBYism & the “compassion” you cite here are inherently incompatible, IMO.
Compassion for all. Everyone is harmed by the drug tolerant permanent housing model. The residents are harmed by the city and DESC enabling their addictions. Many have and will continue to die from addiction in drug tolerant permanent housing. Leading up to their deaths we send the message as a city that it’s ok if they kill themselves. We don’t care enough as a society to stop them forcibly. This is the definition of moral decline. We can and must do better. Everyone on Capitol Hill is degraded by denying this moral decline is happening. Our ancestors knew that if you allow people to kill themselves with drugs in public that it would tear down the society.
Also: would love to see where you’re getting the info that Olmstead & Fuel were “forced to leave directly due to the addiction and mental illness epidemic,” when that hasn’t been the public messaging there at all! Do you have intel that runs counter to what those owners themselves have said, such as, “I do not think Broadway specifically is unsafe for workers. We did have some safety incidents, but those were not the driving factor behind the decision, and not necessarily unique to Broadway,”?
They will site ONE sentence to make the “moved cuzza drugs” argument.
There’s literally 3 paragraphs stating it was not crime. It was the walk up business model. Then? They updated it to make it clear. Crime was not the reason.
It’s simply because they are hiding behind excuses. They can’t say what they really want to.
Constant erratic behavior by untreated mentally ill and drug addicted living in drug tolerant housing on Capitol Hill has harmed every business open to the public on Capitol Hill. All employees subject to physical threats and harm. Many closed businesses over the last three years. Walk-up business model? That means nowhere to sit and hang out. Nowhere to sit and hang out because of the open air drug market. Obvious.
The open air drug market on the 400 Block of Broadway is the direct cause of those closures (and others). More will follow. That drug market did not exist before the opening of four LIHI drug tolerant buildings within three blocks of Broadway. Every business on Broadway has been experiencing the harm to revenue and the constant danger to staff for years. Those are the hard facts. Olmstead needed additional business at night. Drug market makes Broadway at night too risky and just depressing. Fuel was unable to create the conditions that made Vivace a success. Can’t put out tables for customers to sit and hang out because addicts and mentally ill will take over tables, panhandle and harass customers. No tables=no destination. Repeated incidents of violent behavior toward staff by severely mentally ill and addicted. All businesses on Broadway are dealing with the same conditions. Permanent drug tolerant housing is at the heart of the problem. City is funding its own demise.
Sorry Joe, you’re just either describing conditions in a city where people are suffering, economically, or just fear mongering about the problems of small business. All data points to housing first policies, argue with Europe if you don’t like it. Sure their taxes are higher and help fund those initiatives, but idk if you’d like that solution. The city is funding what it can fund, and it could fund more if it taxed the wealthy more. This is not confusing.
Europe funds these things at the country level, not city level.
They’ve since stolen 350 million to dry Joe’s tears. Now he has tears of joy? Nope..Still bitchin’.
You can’t help these people.
Thank you for speaking the truth. At least a few people in the neighborhood can connect the dots
The building will serve tenants earning 30 – 50% of median area income. So they will have jobs, sounds good!
Capitol Hill Blog reported project income level to be 9%-12% AMI
A reporter should do some digging and find out what percentage of the residents of the other housing operated along the same lines by DESC are employed.
higher numbers were reported incorrectly first and then corrected down to 9-12%. lower number is correct.
We live on this street and the EMTs already show up to the low income housing building 2-4 times a DAY. How many times will emergency come to these buildings? Already such a nuisance to tenants now- is the city equipped with budgeting for all these calls for help?
It’ll only get worse, sadly. And while I am not a proponent of these buildings, odds are the City would have to pay for supporting these folks more if they lived on the streets anyways.
This is true! I for one am a proponent of these buildings, but expecting that housing these folks is going to be a cakewalk is naive…we’ve allowed the problem of homelessness to become far too serious to have it improve after a couple of low-income apartment buildings get built. We need to greatly increase funding for behavioral health wraparound services (that’s what tax increases are for) and stop things like SODA and SOPA which criminalize the vulnerable populations we’re looking to re-introduce into society. They’re humans after all…
There is a third option. Already being done in some cities. Quickly build shelter away from the city center and neighborhoods. Bring the services to the people in need onsite. Pass legislation strengthening the use of involuntary commitment. Fund and build long term residential treatment facilities for both addiction and mental health. Already being done in some states. Convert some Housing First buildings to re-entry abstinence based temporary housing for people who succeed in addiction treatment.
This is just useless NIMBY-ism being laundered as “helping”
Very well said.
No. This is how responsible cities behave to save the lives of the severely addicted and the mentally ill and to save the neighborhoods for the responsible citizens and businesses living in those neighborhoods.
“ Pass legislation strengthening the use of involuntary commitment.”
Take our rights away? Ummm…Mkay.
Are you severely mentally ill and a danger to yourself and others? Are you a drug addict who is committing crimes that harm the community to support your habit? People who cannot function in society without harming others or putting themselves in harms way continuously need to be stopped from doing so. This why commitment laws exist. This is why criminal laws exist. These laws and others protect the rest of us and the city as a functioning space. Foundational.
Jail is soooper expensive. The weight on the average person gets heavy.
Kater, Thanks for the on the ground reality. We invite you and everyone else reading this to join us to oppose this project as bad for Capitol Hill. We need a group to make this happen. Tell the other people in your building. Bring your friends and come to the DESC Open House on Wednesday. Our streets did not look like this before this housing model. We can do it differently even on Capitol Hill.
lololol…Good luck. Hang out there and wait for the Great Pumpkin is time better spent.
“the EMTs already show up to the low income housing building 2-4 times a DAY.”
Really? Interesting. How many people are housed there? 200? 300?
I think you only care about your money. I think the “nuisance” is you hear and see things that are not there because it’s statistically impossible!
Why so blatantly self centered? Just tell the truth. Ya don’t have to lie to kick it.
Capitol Hill has had 5 new LIHI low barrier buildings since 2020 be installed. The effect has been more crime, more OD incidents and more drug dealing. Threats to passers by who get accused of being too close to drug dealers. Now DESC wants to put another building with people experiencing drug abuse crisis right into the same area.
At some point this region is going to reach saturation point with people in crisis becoming the defining aspect of the area. Which is a really unfortunate outcome for anyone living here who is not a part of the drug user / drug enabler industry.
To the people who have all appeared to accuse people of being MAGA if we don’t obey the various Progressive narratives: this is how Progressives lose elections like you lost the Mayoral election in 2021 or 5 out of 7 open City Council seats in 2023. By assuming Seattle has two flavors: you the noble Progressive, and MAGA… you denigrate and downplay at least one third to possibly one half of the electorate – all varieties of Democrats who are not card-carrying DSA, or who are Independent / unaligned, or have no party at all. All of us are just fed up with crime and drug use ruining our daily quality of life. Gaslighting us isn’t going to work when we see the crime and the crisis happening on a daily basis.
well it’s replacing buildings that were already doing this, but with better facilities and oversight, or at least that is the pitch. there’s no need to set up a straw man argument and get pre-defensive against all the people you are inviting to attack you. there are risks to this model and oversight and accountability are important. So let’s push for those – housing first is proven to be effective but no one said it was easy or simple.
thing is, these folks don’t just evaporate if there’s no place for them to live. they stay on the street and in tent cities. the drug use and dealing is still there – just perhaps not so close to you. that you don’t want this in your backyard makes you by definition a NIMBY. do you have an alternative? think they’ll build these in Ballard, in Magnolia, in Maple Leaf? Maybe Amazon will volunteer some of its unused office space? There’s not a lot of options. It’s part of the risk we all take on living in the urban center. Capitol Hill has always been seedy and it still is. You and I both chose to live here anyway. So unless you have a better solution than providing more housing in one of the few places it’s possible, your complaint is just kind of that… a complaint.
The oversight is simply lipstick on a pig. Fully staffed? The staff just sit there and watch everything go down. Why would they get involved and risk getting hurt from some drug-crazed addict?
If you’re reading this and you are staff we want to talk to you. Please contact us at http://www.savageforseattle.com
Just make stuff up so you feel right. wow…How about actual FACTS? “Pre outrage” is dead on the money. You and chicken little
Since when has Capitol Hill been seedy? Maybe in the 90s but it wasn’t like that from 2000-2020. The area has always been full of apartments, condos, townhomes, and single family homes along with small businesses. There have been bouts of seediness in some parts but that’s usually been in waves and cleared when SPD was actually doing their job. It doesn’t have the seediness that I’ve seen in Pioneer Square, the ID, or anything close to what I’ve seen in SF’s Tenderloin and SOMA districts. We’re more at the same level as Nob Hill and Russian Hill.
Honestly, I’d like to see this building be built on First Hill or in Yesler Terrace closer to county and city services. I’d like to see more buildings be built for those making 50-80% of the AMI vs the lower half. That’d make for a more interesting Cap Hill with more residents who want to see the neighborhood thrive. You’d get more teachers, artists, musicians, service workers and starting/lower paid office workers.
If the DESC insists that this building be built on Cap Hill, I want to know what will be their proposed staffing model and how they plan to curb/prevent fentanyl and meth use and drug dealing in their building and how will address any potential incidents of DV.
No one wants to see Capitol Hill turn into a blighted neighborhood.
If you researched? You’d have your answers. I ain’t gonna fill you in either.
The “better solution” is enforce the law and clean the streets of drug crime and homeless camping. This is a bridge too far for Seattle’s Progressives though. Who feel terrible any time we do it. And as with all policy matters in Seattle, it isn’t how well they work, or how many people OD and die because of them … it’s how doing them makes a Progressive feel. The most important aspect to consider is: How ill doing this make a Progressive feel. Apply that rule to Seattle public policy; a lot of it suddenly makes a lot more sense why we do it.
War on drugs was a complete fail. Nice thought though.
You know what is a complete failure? Harm reduction and housing first. By any metric it has been a disaster for the addicts and everyone else. We need a course correction rather more leftist, gas-lighting about “evidence-based” programs and “deeply affordable” housing. Anyone with half a brain can see that giving a bunch of addicts free apartments with no rules isn’t working and that each new building is like a dirty bomb going off in the neighborhood. We need to prioritize treatment and it shouldn’t be voluntary.
First, you use “addicts” and “homeless” interchangeably…which very telling of your indifference about their plight. You clearly don’t care about solutions if you say “You know what is a complete failure? Harm reduction and housing first.” Just listen to yourself!!! You fascist. You want no solutions, you just want to bash the vulnerable and protect landlords. Housing first and harm reduction have worked in every implementation, and their success is a factor of how much they are funded. BY TAXES. Cry more about it.
Second, gas-lighting means nothing anymore because of people like you, because what you’re doing is exactly that–yet claiming I am. Luckily, I have facts and data on my side that prove your reality is a fictional, conservative fever dream. Also, I’d imagine if you were actually interested in solutions, you wouldn’t get so defensive when people like me and other commenters suggest completely reasonable solutions. You just tear them down and say none will work. Your “solutions” are draconian punishment of individuals for having slipped through the cracks of our pitiful American system of greedy trash humans who defend private property as a god-given right (not personal property, please don’t even start with me)
Your world outlook is sad and nihilistic, seek help
There is a third option being done in other cities already. Banning all street camping and sleeping. Providing safe temporary shelter away from the center of the city. Strengthening involuntary commitment laws. Evaluating those that are severely addicted and severely mentally ill and sending them to long term residential treatment. The DESC, LIHI housing first model is an existential threat to the city itself. It violates quality of life to such a degree that it drives residents, businesses and employees away. It overwhelms all of our emergency services and courts and hospitals. We need a massive build out away from the city center and the political will to stop tolerating the anti-social behavior associated with addiction and some mental illness. We hope that everyone reading this will take a moment to consider what we are saying with an open mind. We are forming Savage Citizens and need your help. If you have energy, skills, money or time and a commitment to do what is right for everyone in the city let us know.We have to start somewhere: http://www.savagecitizens.com
Anti-homeless screed
I went to the “savages” page. OMG…lol
It’s simply a dog whistle campaign.
“The DESC, LIHI housing first model is an existential threat to the city itself.”
Really? Your savior Benito Cheetolini is the clear and present danger. Not poor people.
Translation: NOT IN MY BACKYARD
I support it. Something like this is better than the patchwork of cheap old buildings that were serving this purpose there before.
But you have to laugh at the “left hand, meet right hand” situation here where people most at risk of homelessness and addiction are being housed a couple blocks from an exclusion zone for people dealing with homelessness and addiction. Is it come to capitol hill or isn’t it? Obviously it’s not that simple but a coordinated effort this isn’t.
dc, this is a completely different model than what was being done before on Belmont. Pioneer Human Services was successful in creating transitional housing for people leaving the WA ADATSA free drug treatment on demand program. Everyone living there had completed at least a month of abstinence based treatment and were required to stay abstinent. In addition, each resident was required to work or to be in school or job training. This model was very effective with thousands of people achieving long term sobriety and rejoining society. All in all the old model was a medium risk to the neighborhood with a huge spiritual and social upside. This changed when Pioneer started moving towards a halfway house model for those being released from prison. I have no knowledge of the effectiveness of the halfway house model. The halfway house model does have similar abstinence, and work or school requirements. None of this will be required at the DESC building. Very different.
I feel that locating these much-needed apartments here is a bad idea – it does not do enough to disrupt decades-old ingrained patterns of usage/behavior. Old habits die hard, and they die harder when recovering addicts are put in the same places where they were at their worst when they were ‘in their disease’. Better to locate this facility elsewhere and give it’s inhabitants a fighting chance with a fresh(er) start.
I get where you’re coming from, but, “I support more housing but not where you’re suggesting it” is still the most classic NIMBY response imaginable. What location do you think is going to magically solve things?
It doesn’t matter, Gem! Just not IMBY, shush shush already
I suggest First Hill or north Beacon Hill. Places closer to facilities like Pac Med, Harborview, KC Public Health, government buildings and any public resources within walkable distance as well as locations where social workers can easily park.
This is great, keep it growing, we need so much more of this and other types of affordable housing!
As someone who lives near a DESC building… you don’t want to live anywhere near these. As others have stated, DESC and LIHI buildings contribute many problems to the surrounding area. The one near me was SFD’s #1 response address several years in a row. They built two more off Aurora and 87th, diff ‘hood than Capitol Hill, but the police and SFD are there all the time. The folks inside are easy pickings for the drug dealers and they attract their friends from the former life on the street.
As someone who lives near another DESC “supportive” housing building, I can say it is terrible. Most of what DESC tells neighbors is bullshit, and the buildings become a magnet for drug users, drug dealers, and all sorts of unsavory behaviors. Add daily EMT and dozens of false fire alarms every month, screaming and yelling 24 hours a day, loud music from residents 24/7, and poor building maintenance, and DESC definitely changes the neighborhood substantially for the worse. Buildings are supposed to be secure, so friends/dealers/buyers of residents just yell up to windows 24/7. Building management will lie to and ignore pleas from neighbors to help stop poor behaviors from residents, so get used to it. At this point I’ve been promised a return phone call for a couple years. Never happened. Anyone living close should start planning to move asap.
You have described the building across the alley from my apartment. Multiple fire alarms every week; EMT’s and sometimes SPD at least twice EVERY day. Drug users on the sidewalk yelling up to residents up above at all times of the day and night. A gigantic stew pot of human misery and sadness, all gussied up in a shiny new building with a staff that communicates to the outside world via loud speaker. “This is private property. Move your car or you will be towed.”
I’m moving when my lease is up, as have most of the people in my apartment building. 10 units on my floor and 7 are vacant. This in on lower First Hill.
“convicted in 2021 “of second-degree assault for hitting a sleeping passenger in the head with a hammer onboard a Metro bus,””
I remember that! Wow, There’s no flippin’ way you can put someone like that in with 150 residents all with issues as well. It is prolly overwhelming him and his patients is thin. Reactions extreme to match the extreme situation. Peoples disabilities et ilk fueling others disabilities. Mental health especially.
JMO…The housing and services have to go somewhere. Period. So let’s not argue the “where” because we are beggars, not choosers at this moment in time. AKA CRISIS/EPIDEMIC. Big time. Also? A special place for people like that who need space and constant monitoring from afar.
My solution would be requiring either more personnel to micromanage conflicts. Or more robust security. Or both.
It’s only a matter of time someone waltz’s in with a pew pew and dusts the site managers, case workers ect. Mental health is not dangerous. Yes, people with issues do the worst damage. But thankfully it’s a nano minority. Most the violence is the ‘normal’ gangs etc. The world has no violent mental health issues to speak of. But gang violence is universal.
Meth psychosis is real and it’s becoming more prevalent due to the new formula of meth and co-addictions with fentanyl.
These harm reduction, housing first projects are a massive failure. They are essentially just brick and mortar drug encampments, which brings the same level of crime, disorder, gang violence, domestic violence and overdose deaths as an encampment in the park. We need to focus on mandatory treatment first. Housing second.
Wrong! Look at the data
The reason is jurisdiction. Other cities surrounding Seattle don’t want their homeless population in their cities, so they literally taxi, bus, Uber them to downtown Seattle, then point fingers about how bad it is here. Where would you like homeless folks to go other than in housing units built for them? The 300 units pale in comparison to the total number of units for traditional renters.