(WSB photos by Torin Record-Sand)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
In a West Seattle-rooted SODO factory, where volunteers build tiny houses to shelter unhoused people, Mayor Katie Wilson declared that volunteerism will help alleviate the homelessness crisis.
She announced an “all hands on deck” volunteerism campaign along with three pieces of legislation she’s sending to the City Council during a briefing at The Hope Factory, which got its start as a tiny-house-building operation under a canopy on the grounds of Camp Second Chance, the tiny-house village in southeast West Seattle.
LIHI, which operates Camp Second Chance and will soon operate the Glassyard Commons RVs-and-tiny-houses site – also in West Seattle – also oversees The Hope Factory.
The cacophony of hammers and saws paused for about an hour so that Mayor Wilson and a roster of speakers involved with the homelessness response and related services – including LIHI leader Sharon Lee – could speak to the media crews they’d invited (us included). It was billed as “a major step forward in the citywide effort to rapidly expand shelter and bring people inside by opening 1,000 new units of shelter and emergency housing with supportive services this year. Lee and The Hope Factory’s Steve Roberts set the stage with more about the volunteer work there:
Then the mayor took the mic for her announcements:
She noted that though the city declared homelessness to be an emergency back in 2015, “the rates of unsheltered homelessness are off the charts” and in her view, Seattle hasn’t been acting like it’s an emergency. That means more shelter beds are imperative because, she said, there are twice as many unhoused people as shelter beds. So the legislation she’s sending the council will:
-Authorize the city Finance and Administrative Services Department to sign leases for sites
-Will raise the capacity limit on how many people “successful shelters” can host
-Redirect $4.8 million from “underutilized” city setasides
As for the volunteerism campaign, you can sign up here and indicate ways you might be able to help.
Wilson was followed by District 1 City Councilmember Rob Saka, who noted that this district bears a disproportionate share of RV residents so he’s glad the forthcoming Glassyard Commons site will have some set-aside space for vehicle dwellers from this district:
Overall, he seemed supportive of the mayor’s plan, declaring, “This is what progress looks like.”
Many of the other speakers basically made the case that the respective services they offer are successful too – Fé LopezGaetke, co-executive director from Purpose. Dignity. Action, which focuses on outreach among other things, said people need their situations to be stabilized before they can further advance/recover:
LopezGaetke was followed by a longtime community volunteer, Grace Stiller, who has been involved with Camp Second Chance since before it became a sanctioned tiny-house village. Her ongoing involvement includes participation in its Community Advisory Committee (which meets online monthly):
We’ll add video of the other speakers later. You can read more details on the mayor’s announcements on the city website. She did not hang around for questions after the speaker lineup was done; we asked her spokesperson why, and he explained, “She had a long-scheduled meeting at City Hall to hear from front-line workers who work at the Unified Care Team.” He also said, “We’re planning to schedule a longer briefing to dig into the details in the next week or two.”
Meantime, tomorrow night is the meeting about Glassyard Commons, 5:30 pm at 755 S. Homer in Georgetown. Though that sitr was mentioned a few times, today’s briefing did not get specific about other locations where more shelter capacity might be added if the mayor’s legislation is approved.