After showing up with a mob of 25 people in the lobby in front of the mayor’s office without appointment, homeless advocacy group Seattle Housing And Resource Effort (SHARE) finally met with Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn today at City Hall. The group has been pleading for a meeting since January.
After McGinn briefly greeted the group, mayor’s chief of staff Julie McCoy and director of policy and affairs Ethan Raup agreed to sit down with the mob, says SHARE spokeswoman Revel Smith. “It was an affable 40 minute meeting, but there is no indication, yet, of what the city is going to do,” Smith said.
SHARE told city officials that they needed emergency funds to cover a $50,000 deficit which would take care of debts, buy bus tickets for homeless people to travel to and from shelters, and maintain 11 of the shelters that had been slated for closure.
“For the past two years we have been in a crisis,” Thomas said. “We have been cropping and saving and depending on donations. We are running a $17,000 deficit on bus tickets alone.” Thomas said that although the talks had been positive, the mayor’s staff had indicated that they were not in a position to make any decisions.
SHARE, which contracts with the City of Seattle to provide bus tickets and services for the homeless, announced Saturday that it will be forced to close 11 of its 15 shelters Thursday due to a lack of city funds. Four hundred people will be out on the streets without a place to sleep at night if that happens. SHARE member Jerry Thomas said that the group had originally gone to the Municipal Tower to meet with the new Director of Human Services Dannette Smith, but was informed that she was away for two weeks on personal leave. Smith’s assistant told the group to talk to the mayor for emergency funds.
McGinn spokesperson Aaron Pickus avoided any meaningful comment, saying that the mayor’s office “is considering next steps to best serve the homeless community in Seattle.”
Meh.
Ship em off to Broadmoor or Mercer Island.
Let SHARE close the shelters, then cough up the cash so that a better organized, less crazy group can reopen and run them.
or they could just crash at your place, Sean
@2, if there is karma in this world, may you be one of the thousands who struggle to survive on the streets of Seattle.
Wow, really? An actual mob?
Where do those darn bus tickets go to? Check on Craigslist any day of the week.
SHARE needs to shut down and the city needs to give that 300K to somebody who will run it right and not use homeless people as pawns.
$45 worth of bus tickets ($1.50 per ticket total of 30 tickets) for sale for $20. That’s more than 50% off your bus ride and there is no expiration date…..Cash only please. Thank you.
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/for/18…
Julie McCoy?? “Your Cruise Director” for Seattle’s ship of state? I LOVE that!
He met them way more meaningfully than that time I met Hilary Clinton, waving as her motorcade drove past.
@4 How is wanting more efficient and less corrupt administration of shelters somehow warranting of bad ‘karma’?
Disliking SHARE =/= being anti-homeless. In fact the bullshit way they foster that impression is one of the big reasons people don’t like them.
Fuck SHARE, the homeless deserve better.
Howabout if we fund half of the bus tickets… the ones going to the shelters?
greyhound bus tickets?
Wow, Riya, nice usage of the perjorative noun. In case the Stranger doesn’t have any dictionaries around, here’s the Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: 1mob
Pronunciation: ˈmäb
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin mobile vulgus vacillating crowd
Date: 1688
1 : a large or disorderly crowd; especially : one bent on riotous or destructive action
2 : the lower classes of a community : masses, rabble
3 chiefly Australian : a flock, drove, or herd of animals
4 : a criminal set : gang; especially often capitalized : mafia 1
5 chiefly British : a group of people : crowd
synonyms see crowd
— mob·bish ˈmä-bish adjective
Giffy, are you going to give those deserving homeless people “better”? Will you negotiate with churches for shelter? Will you negotiate with the City for bus tickets? Will you provide shelter and pay for bus tickets yourself? Will you do ANYTHING except make nasty comments about SHARE? No? Didn’t think so.
@4: Jesus, dude, that’s a terrible thing to wish on someone. How did you get to be so evil?
Sarah – the city HAS negotiated with SHARE – they offered them an advance against their allotment for bus tickets. The churches HAVE offered them a place for Nickelsville to go – repeatedly. They turn down the help to created a media/PR push.
SHARE is a bad organization and the stranger should cover them with a heaping spoonful of salt, not just a grain. They prefer to manufacture an issue so that they can play the victim—they seem to care little about the people that they’re supposed to serve.
You can say all you want but at 2.53 a bed night, SHARE is the cheapest provider in town…you want a better organized service provider? be ready to spit up to $24.69 a night per individual (Compass Center) or 17,66 to pay for one individual for one night (DESC)
DEAL WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!
you don t like SHARE and self management, you’d better be prepared to pay the poverty pimps…and btw, SHARE has no executive director making a six figure salary staff makes minimum wage or works for housing!
So maybe SHARE is a terrible organization but if you want someone else to take over (and they tried to do it way back, no one was willing to work for that cheap) be ready to shed your $$
OK guys here is the cost by organization to keep a homeless person of the street for one night
(it is called Bed Night)
SHARE: $2.53 per night
ST MARTIN DE PORRES: $.5.23 per night
COMPASS CENTER MEN”S SHELER: $11.74 per night
SALVATION ARMY GETHERSMANE MEN”S SHELTER: $ 14.36 per night
COMPASS CENTER FIRST METHODIST CHURCH: $15.49 per night
DESC or better known as Doesn’t Everyone Smoke Crack: $17.66 per night
SACRED HEART: $22.90 per night
COMPASS CENTER HAMMONF HOUSE FOR WOMEN: 24.69 per night
Popular Employers
Salary Range
Habitat For Humanity $40,000 – $73,788
YMCA $49,132 – $81,792
American Red Cross $38,598 – $77,419
Boys and Girls Clubs of America $30,359 – $62,349
United Way $40,695 – $82,639
SHARE Staff Salary: 1200 a month!
Here is a link to Employment opportunities for a major shelter provider…lots of positions pays $30 and up an hour…http://www.desc.org/jobs.html
so how is SHARE a bad organization?
@17-20,
None of your statistics demonstrate why SHARE refuses to operate within its means and not pull stunts like this. If they closed one shelter a year ago, where would they be? Why do they insist on waiting until they’re in a crisis and have to close almost all of their shelters?
And your DESC link @20 shows that most positions pay $10-$15 an hour. The only position that earns $30 an hour is the “Major Gifts Officer.” Even the nurses don’t make more than $21/hour.
Do you also care to demonstrate those various organizations’ successes or failures in helping the homeless get off the street permanently, or is that going to be another one of your lies of omission?
the bus tickets being sold on craigs list is just the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the abuses by the people who are suppose to be looking after the homeless. the desc (and yes everyone there smokes crack even lisa the program director) steals peoples belongings and then sells them in their thrift shop and they even stole a laptop from a homeless man who had definite mental disablilities. what everyone should be focusing on is how to get the corrupt individuals who run these places out and some good people in.