Tag Archives: Downtown Emergency Service Center

News

Burien City Council Votes to Delay Homeless Housing Proposal

by Erica C. Barnett

(This article was previously published at PubliCola and has been reprinted with permission.)

The Burien City Council voted narrowly last week to delay a Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) development that would provide 95 units of permanent supportive housing, including at least 25 units for disabled veterans.

The proposal is part of Burien’s 2019 Affordable Housing Demonstration Program, which grants zoning variances to projects that serve people at various income levels; DESC applied to build housing for people between 0% and 30% of area median income, the lowest income level included in the pilot.

The Burien Planning Commission approved the project unanimously in April, but councilmembers raised objections after some residents complained that the project would harm downtown businesses and bring homeless people from other areas (like Seattle) into Burien.

Continue reading Burien City Council Votes to Delay Homeless Housing Proposal →
Features

A Hard Year for Those Without Shelter: Death Rates Rose and Pressures Increased for the Homeless During the Pandemic

by Ashley Archibald

In a video posted to YouTube, a woman in a blue surgical mask stands in the corner of a walled-off yard, a puffy, slate gray jacket zipped against the cold. To her right is a table draped with a white cloth holding 19 votive candle holders. Slowly, deliberately, the woman reads a list of names.

“Azhane Mitchell.”

“Charles Lingenfelter.”

“Christopher Mann.”

In the silence following each name, a man lights a candle.

Continue reading A Hard Year for Those Without Shelter: Death Rates Rose and Pressures Increased for the Homeless During the Pandemic →
News

Anti-Homeless Shelter Bill Moves Forward in Renton

by Erica C. Barnett

(This article was originally published on PubliCola and has been reprinted with permission.) 

The Renton City Council will take final action next week on legislation that would require the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) to kick out about half the population of its shelter in the Renton Red Lion at the end of May and evict the remaining shelter residents by the end of 2021. PubliCola covered the Council’s initial discussion of the proposal last month.

Continue reading Anti-Homeless Shelter Bill Moves Forward in Renton →