The Gardner House and Allen Family Center, a one-stop service hub and permanent housing solution for families leaving homelessness, kicked off their three-day Virtual Grand Opening on June 24. Community members are invited to virtual tours, a Q & A with muralist Kenji Hamai Stoll, and a Meet the Families segment, culminating in a virtual block party on Facebook at noon on Friday, June 26, featuring Seattle Seahawks DJ Supa Sam.
Rainier Beach is the new gentrification ground zero. I have a front row seat. I recently celebrated my seventh anniversary of being a homeowner. I have watched my neighbors get foreclosed on and pushed out. I have watched the house flipping teams come through and trim up the yards, slap up new fences, and paint over bright color with the neutral blues and grays white people seem to prefer. When I walk through my neighborhood now, it’s a lot less like the vibrant diverse place I chose to live in and a lot more like Pleasantville.
The Liberty Bank Building holds the history and the future of the Central District within its walls, a building that stood on the corner of 24th Avenue and Union Street for 50 years. The site where this new building stands once hosted the first Black-owned bank west of the Mississippi, which opened in 1968, and witnessed years of gentrification in this historically Black neighborhood.
