Breaking Ground

The Downtown Emergency Service Center started construction last Thursday on its newest supportive housing project at 415 10th Ave., to be completed in 2007.

King County Executive Ron Sims and Mayor Greg Nickels were on hand to break ground on the 75-unit building, located just south of Seattle University, which will house and provide 24-hour services to the homeless and mentally ill. Tenants will be drawn largely from the 600 men and women already enrolled in DESC’s mental health program, of whom 125 are currently homeless.

Unlike a pending DESC project in the Rainier Valley also meant for the mentally ill, 415 10th didn’t generate much community opposition, moving quickly from concept to construction. The idea was introduced in 2003, when King County made the proposal its number-one priority in its yearly funding application to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. So far, it’s the only project in the country to make use of both HUD funds, which can be used exclusively for housing, and Medicaid, which may also go towards services — a model that DESC hopes to replicate on future projects.

And this one isn’t cheap. Construction will cost $15 million, with an additional $750,000 for operations annually, working out to $10,000 per tenant per year. Although new funding sources like Medicaid are encouraging, says DESC’s director of development Nicole Macri, King County’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness requires 1,000 new units to be built per year. Right now, only 200 units are becoming available per year, and funding organizations are $650 million short of being able to cover the rest of the bill.

“The gap is huge, so huge, so those are just drops in the bucket of what we really need,” says Macri. “If we build housing at this rate, we’re just never going to catch up.”

Macri notes that the 10-Year Plan’s governing board is beginning to get serious about making up the shortfall. Meanwhile, 3,300 people use DESC shelters every year and may have to compete for spots in the new building after it’s completed next year.

By LYDIA DePILLIS

For losing suit, plaintiff may pay

After asking for an award of hundreds of thousands of dollars, a man who sued a local nonprofit that assists the poor and homeless may end up indebted with the defendant’s legal costs.

Kenneth Jennings, a former tenant of the Low Income Housing Institute’s Arion Court Apartments near downtown, alleges the building managers ignored his pleas for rectification and knowingly created an unsafe living environment.

In a summary judgment awarded earlier this month, however, Judge Lauren Inveen sided with LIHI. So LIHI has asked the court to make Jennings pay for the cost of legal representation and court filings.

Jennings filed the suit six months after he voluntarily terminated his tenancy because he decided it was safer to be homeless and live in his van instead of in his room at the Arion.

In court documents, he contends that LIHI housed and employed a level-two sex offender, giving him keys to individual units and the building’s shared bathrooms, including the women’s. He also complained that LIHI housed a drunk, pyromaniac, non-English-speaking illegal immigrant who disabled his smoke alarm and lit fires in his room before passing out.

According to the documents, Jennings cited a time when thick smoke filled the building and no alarm sounded. He wrote that several of the tenants were concerned for their safety because the fire department didn’t show up until after someone called them.

LIHI provided the court with documentation that the alarm was recently tested and worked the day in question. According to their version of the incident, the man disabled his smoke alarm and passed out with something burning on the stove, which eventually triggered the building’s system and alerted the fire department. They also told the court they issued him a three-day eviction notice within days.

In regards to the sex offender, who still lives there, they say they gave him “keys to the basement for access to cleaning and painting supplies.” When tenants move out, they say, the building managers give him the keys to the unit so he can clean and paint it.

The amount of money LIHI spent on lawyers and court fees in its defense totaled more than $19,000. According to Sharon Lee, the executive director, that money will come out of the Arion’s operating budget.

“He’s hurting the very people he thinks he’s trying help,” Lee says.