The homeless aren't going to be moving into Jefferson Terrace, after all.
The Seattle Housing Authority said last week that it is abandoning a plan to let a shelter and mental health provider, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, manage the 17-story building on First Hill and provide housing for the chronically homeless -- a proposal that low-income residents of Jefferson Terrace were vocal in opposing ("Seattle Housing high-rise slated for homeless," Nov. 5-11, 2008).
In a news release issued Feb. 3, the agency says that the cost to remodel the 289-unit building for DESC's use would be $12 million -- more money than SHA gets in a year from the Seattle Housing Levy. But the housing authority says it's still proceeding with a part of the conversion proposal that calls for converting one floor of Jefferson Terrace to a Health Department medical respite program that would provide about 30 temporary beds for homeless people to recuperate or heal after they have left the hospital.
The residents in those 21 units would still have to move, something the housing authority has promised to pay for. In the news release, housing authority director Tom Tierney also leaves the door open to developing a whole new building for the homeless on unused land at the same site as Jefferson Terrace. "It may sound surprising," Tierney says in the statement, "but a new building may be more financially feasible."