Real Change News | Shelter’s new space hits snag

September 24, 2008
Vol: 15 No: 40

Community & Editorial

Shelter’s new space hits snag

by: Cydney Gillis , Staff Reporter

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After months of searching for space, the folks at Safe Haven thought they’d landed a gem Sept. 12 when they signed a deal with Seattle Goodwill to move their 30-person shelter into a building on the charity’s property at South Dearborn Street and Rainier Avenue South. But the city dragged its feet, says Wayne Smith, a program worker with SHARE, the shelter’s nonprofit operator, holding up the move — and potentially forcing Safe Haven back out to the streets where it first started.

By Sept. 25, the shelter has to leave its current site at St. James Cathedral, which needs the space for the winter overflow it will start providing downtown shelters on Oct. 1. Safe Haven made a temporary move to the church on June 30 after losing its space at the old Immigration and Naturalization Service building, which the federal government sold to a private developer earlier this year.

With the deadline looming, Smith says SHARE approached Goodwill about a building that houses its community learning center. The charity agreed to let Safe Haven use the building’s second floor if it got the necessary land use and occupation permits, which were applied for Sept. 2 with a request for a rush. Two weeks later — and only after enlisting the help of City Councilmember Tim Burgess, Smith says — the city’s planning department told Safe Haven that the building’s elevator and the stairwell need work that could easily go past the shelter’s moving deadline.

Smith says that leaves the homeless men and women of Safe Haven in the position of sleeping under a bridge at a time when the city is actively clearing homeless camps (with a standoff expected this week over “Nickelsville,” a camp of 150 tents put up Sept. 22 to protest the mayor’s policy). Smith says the group is also considering moving into the space and hoping the city looks the other way while it makes needed repairs such as building a stairwell firewall.

“The only thing we know is we’re moving out of St. James on the 25th,” Smith says. One way or another, he adds, “we’re headed to Goodwill.”

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