EVEN THOUGH homeless people can brush their teeth and take showers at the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) in Pioneer Square, the place smells like sweat.

At least 100 down-and-out people spent last Wednesday afternoon at the Third Avenue service center playing Uno and Solitaire with smudged cards, snoring loudly with winter hats pulled over their eyes, or grumbling to themselves in Spanish.

The DESC is both a shelter and a housing referral organization for these shaky folks who don't look happy when they smile. The 21-year-old center leases space in the Morrison Hotel. Its staff estimates that more than 8,000 individuals use the shelter's day and night programs each year. The people DESC serves are rejects from other shelters, says Bill Hobson, who heads the center. They are mostly homeless adults with drug addictions and mental illnesses, and the DESC is where they can go for help.

The center is a success, and has won awards and widespread praise. Unfortunately, it could be closed down within the next five years. Indeed, the DESC's landlord, the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA), has a plan to kick the DESC out of the Morrison.

In addition to leasing out the bottom floors of the 91-year-old Morrison to DESC, SHA also runs its own program for transient people on the building's upper floors. The 205 SHA-owned-and-run apartments are notorious for sexual assaults and drug overdoses ["Morrison Helltel," Trisha Ready, Aug 12, 1999 and "Shame on SHA," Trisha Ready, Jan 13, 2000]. More than half the reported crimes that took place last year on Third Avenue between James and Yesler (a busy area that includes a bus stop and a park) were connected with the Morrison.

So, SHA is trying to make major changes. The agency has a plan in the works to address safety problems and boost the upstairs housing program. This seems like good news given the disconcerting crime rate, which compounds the vulnerability of the residents.

"The goal is to have a stable population," says SHA spokesperson Virginia Felton. "It's not a good place for recovering addicts and alcoholics."

Felton says SHA is trying to break up the concentration of needy people at the Morrison. Actually, SHA's plan calls for moving all of the neediest people out of the Pioneer Square building. This includes getting rid of the DESC. That's a strange move. In fact, eliminating the separately run down stairs program seems downright counterproductive, since the plan is supposed to deal with the issues upstairs.

The DESC's Hobson says SHA is using his organization as a scapegoat. "SHA is blaming the DESC for some mismanagement at this building," he says. "We have not created the problems upstairs."

He's right. According to Rick Hooper of Seattle's housing office, city representatives and others involved in making the Morrison safer want to specifically "focus on the [SHA] apartments."

The DESC has also crafted a plan for the building. Hobson's group proposes to stay where it is. The center wants to take over the whole building, arguing that the DESC is better equipped than SHA to handle the drug-dependent and mentally ill people who live in the Morrison apartments.

The center makes a good case. The DESC, which runs three Seattle buildings that house the formerly homeless, has a good management record. For instance, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development recognized the DESC for having the state's lowest tenant turnover rate, a meaningful success indicator when you're talking about a transient population. In addition to winning awards, politicians like King County Executive Ron Sims and well-known local philanthropists like Dorothy Bullitt tout the DESC's performance.

Right now, the proposals are in the hands of a 30-member task force, which convened last August at SHA's behest to figure out how to fix the Morrison. Task-force members, including representatives from the city, DESC, SHA, and the Pioneer Square neighborhood, are reviewing the proposals submitted by SHA, DESC, and three other groups. They aim to give SHA and the city their guidance by the end of this year or early next year.

Task-force members want the shelter to stay. But that isn't stopping SHA from trying to push the DESC out.

allie@thestranger.com