Comments

1
This is great news. I'd like to see a less discrete set of options for low/no income housing, at least in the short term until we get our homelessness under control.

It seems like we have 3 levels: full-service subsidized rooms complete with kitchens and bathroooms that might be the same as you'd get if you paid rent, 12-hour homeless shelters, and the Jungle. Even in the open market you only get 2 levels, now that sub-standard housing is illegal.

What if we had cheaper shared spaces? We could build many more for the same money. Of course to do that we'd have to
2
make such housing legal.
3
@2: cage hotels, too. as many options as possible to get as many off the street as possible.
4
Will they be allowed to get higher than the bajeezus in there? If not, it won't be used.
5
@4: there are probably 75 homeless people that aren't drug addicts or chronic alcoholics.
6
Well, if anything's going to drive you to drink, sleeping on the street will.
7
How will they choose 75 out of 5000?
9
The 1981 levy created 1,297 units of housing. The 1986 levy created 1,818 units. The 1995 levy created 2,632 units. The 2002 levy created 2,459 units. The 2009 levy created 1,850 units. We've actually housed these 2,800 homeless folks several times over, but they keep coming and coming. We keep passing more levies, and we're doubling the next levy, but all anyone does is complain that we're not doing enough. Maybe look back on some of the successes every once in awhile? Some of us spend an enormous amount of time and energy on this problem and we sure do get tired of listening to a bunch of whiners complaining that Seattle does nothing for the homeless. (Ditto transit, by the way. If we pass a $50 billion package this fall you can guarantee that within weeks the Stranger will be bitching about how Seattle doesn't do anything for transit.)
10
Here's a thought: Why not model homeless housing on bathhouses (minus the steam rooms, blaring disco music, and porn rooms)? Small rooms with a bed and a locker, and common rest room facilities. If you check in once a day, you get to keep your room, and you can't be disruptively drunk or otherwise messed up.
11
pack a warehouse full of beds, give it equal day room to dorm space and put it on the free rental market with not strings attached like curfews. So like the navigation center but just $200-$300 per month with permanent residency and no free for all access to every street traveler . Space to sleep, sit during the day, clean oneself, cook, store food/ baggage is essential but PRIVACY IS NOT. Privacy is not sustainable, either way you work it, it is just not. Options need to be on the table, and fundamentally everything out there which is not a prison (aka mission) is different versions of the same ; privacy.
12
...and if it don't make money it will inevitably degenerate into an enslavement based charity. For profit in a capitalist market = autonomy for residents. It is why you pay your rent and why landlords leave you alone after that- assuming you follow basic rules, and that is the thing that missions or other charity/ government based programs don't seem to get; you can have staff on board and rules in place and still not restrict peoples autonomy. Departitionedhousing.com

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