The discovery precipitated “a crisis in confidence” in the day center’s operations, says Compass Center programs manager MJ Kiser. The Compass Center assumed management of the Family and Adult Service Center on Third Avenue last month. Kiser says three of the day center’s workers were either using the place to dispense illicit substances, including crack, or allowing it to take place. All three have been fired.

“Folks” — including clients of the center, one of only seven in the downtown area open to homeless adults — “were coming to the terminated staff, looking for money or drugs,” she says.

Kiser doesn’t know whether charges were filed, and incident reports from the Police Department were unavailable at press time. Kiser characterizes the transactions as “small time dealing. But it’s a big deal if it’s happening inside a social service agency.”

While the center is expected to reopen at the beginning of March, it’s put extra pressure on the nearby hygiene facility, the Urban Rest Stop, says Rest Stop coordinator Ronni Gilboa.

“We were really taken by surprise” by the number of new patrons coming in Mon., Feb. 5, to use the showers, restrooms, or laundry services at the Denny Triangle facility. And since the Urban Rest Stop doesn’t have the room or other activities for guests, people have to move on quickly. “We’re not a lounge,” says Gilboa. “We don’t have a TV, a coffee pot.”

Without the day center, “What are their options? The Rest Stop, the library, or they get thrown in jail. People are finding themselves without this service very abruptly.”

Day center space for the homeless is in short supply; a 2002 report said that the city’s 19 day and hygiene centers were operating at about 18 percent over capacity. And while the City of Seattle spent $3 million last year to open Connections, a new daytime service center in Pioneer Square, Connections’ services are not available to anyone who drops in.

Kiser says she regrets the sudden closure’s impact on the center’s users. She says the Compass Center is using this interlude to paint over the tacky 1970s paint job and put in a few windows. A night shelter and payee services are still operating out of the storefront.

The drug trade, she says, was kind of an open secret.

“Reactions on the street [to the closure] were not one of surprise.” Once the place closed, “Clients would say ‘Oh, so you caught on.’”

Drug trafficking inside is always a pitfall for a drop-in center, says Kiser, since they “are very hard [to run], to welcome people inside and also keep out the unwanted element.” When the center reopens, a formal registration process will be in place to ensure that clients provide their names when they come in.

Library spokesperson Andra Addison says the 100 or so people who used to spend time at the center are welcome at the Central Library, so long as they use it as a library — for example, to research employment options. She hasn’t observed more people who look homeless using the place as a de facto day shelter. “If any of those people want to come to the library and use our services the way they’re intended,” she says, “they are welcome.”