Permits are in place and construction about to begin on a 4-story complex to house homeless men and women with serious mental illness and/or addictions at 2202 15thAvenue West, according to Bill Hobson, director of the Downtown Emergency Services Center.
Currently a parking lot next to Seattle Pump and Equipment Co. and across the street from The Little Gym, the 97-unit building is the 11th such structure owned and operated by DESC. Construction is scheduled to start this month.
Although plans are not widely known, Director Hobson says all City of Seattle policy guidelines were followed. They consisted of written notification to all properties within 500 feet of the building; communications with the Magnolia and Interbay neighborhood associations, including the Queen Anne Community Council; and public meetings at the Queen Anne Lutheran Church and Seattle Center Armory.
Hobson says only four people attended the meeting at the armory.
?DESC goes beyond what we are required to do for neighborhood notification,? he tells Magnolia Voice.
Additionally, the Seattle Department of Planning and Development does not require a Design Review process for projects in this part of Interbay, he says.
Hobson goes out of his way to allay any fears about residents? danger to the surrounding community.
?The overwhelming numbers of people who have disorders never commit a violent act,? he assures. ?Over 95% of sexual assault over children is perpetrated by a family member or close friend. There is no association between pedophilia and mental disorder.?
When asked about the particular addictions of residents to powerful drugs, Hobson added insight. ?It tends to be alcohol, occasionally crack,? he points out. ?Alcohol is what they can afford. Heroin is an expensive addiction.?
He goes on to explain, ?There are people who will have serious mental disorders. They will all be engaged in treatment relationships. There are 21 full time employees assigned. There will be someone on duty 24-hours a day, seven-days-a-week.?
Neighbors will receive a telephone number with an invitation to call with any problem that might relate to the facility. DESC tracks and logs all calls.
?Eighty-eight percent of the phone calls we receive don?t have anything to do with the residents of the building,? Hobson reveals.
DESC operates over 800 units of housing in Seattle.
Obtain more information from their website?or call them at 206-515-1525.
Rendering courtesy DESC
Welcome!
I have volunteered at DESC functions for many years and am always amazed at the dedication, professionalism and humanity their organization offers some of the most vulnerable members of our community. This facility expands their ability to serve more people and prevent the harm, expense and futility that comes
from criminalizing mental illness. Welcome to Interbay and best of luck in this new program!
No one wishes to criminalize the mentally ill, unfortunately, many commit crimes, which requires their incarceration. I believe this has the potential to help the mildly mentally ill, but for many I see daily living on the street, that have “serious mental disorders” (quote from interview above) have no “right” to be amongst us, they should simply be warehoused in a mental institution, not only to protect the public at large, but protect them as well, from self abuse and victimization from criminals and other mentally ill.
“Warehoused”. Do you even listen to yourself? These are PEOPLE, not canned goods. Honestly, educate yourself a bit more about mental illness and addiction, for all our sakes.
DESC works hard to get people off the street and into more stable, productive lives. Many of these people have suffered more than you could imagine. Many are veterans who’ve seen things no person should. Some just got the short end of the genetic lottery stick, with brains that don’t function normally. Their lives are often lonely and hellish. Imagine your worst day ever, and that is as good as it gets for them. Stable housing is the first step to recovery.
As for their “right to be amongst us”, I’d rather have them amongst us than certain individuals who are mentally typical but completely self-serving and lacking in compassion. Your and my preferences don’t matter, however. The Constitution governs our rights.
The “many who commit crimes” are typically untreated. There are few options out there for the chronically mentally ill, so they end up being untreated until they commit crimes and end up in jails and prisons. Programs like this give them the treatment they need, and I personally applaud them. We need more of this, not less.
The Supreme Court forced us to stop warehousing people in mental institutions 50 years ago. It was cruel, and.. Oh. Wait. We’re talking about people here. Not palettes of rocks.
Maybe Mintymocha can open his/her home to them. Would you like that Mintymocha?
While I don’t have the professional training or administrative ability to run a program, I volunteer with those who do. I am not afraid to work with people who seem to frighten you, especially those screened by responsible organizations like DESC. Their clients ride in my car to doctor appointments and I host them in an overnight shelter located here in Magnolia. Programs that provide “harm reduction” for their clients also reduce the harm healthier community members like yourself might experience from people who already live near you but have no treatment.
how do we stop this. don’t want these fucking crazy drug addict child raping losers anywhere near my house. i’ll burn this place down myself if I have to.
If you’re truly a “dad”, then I feel very sorry for your children, if that’s your prejudiced attitude toward people of mental illness.
By the way, if there ever is a problem there, you’ve just made yourself Suspect Number One. Nice going there, dad.
Move then …
You scare me a lot more than they do.
So there’s a sex club and a couple halfway houses in the same general vicinity as this apartment building, yet now you have a problem?
Typical that the city waits to inform it’s tax payers until it is too late to do anything about this. I don’t want to live near or ride the bus with a bunch of crazies! There are too many of them already. Don’t we have prisons or other places that we can put them?
I read about this a couple of weeks ago in the Magnolia News. There was a meeting and only a handful of folks showed up. This is a good organization, they have rules and play by the book, and have been good neighbors in other areas of the city. Education is key … maybe you could do some volunteer work there since you have some concerns. May God bless you …
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? If they would rather die, said DSK, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
I feel sorry for the Little Gym. Whatever you feel about the project, if that business is for parents and children then people will tend to not want to be around there. Kind of like the poster who doesn’t want to ride the bus near that stop. It is a NIMBY mentality…. and the place has to be built somewhere…. but I would avoid going near it too, truth be told, though I support the good work done there.
does it REALLY, in fact, HAVE to be built somewhere? the continued sprawl of these homeless facilities to ballard, now interbay, will certainly not help these communities at all. the “residents” will be shipped from downtown, etc and forced into these neighborhoods.
I wonder why they used to live? Sadly mental illness doesn’t care if you are poor, middle class or wealthy – it impacts across the board (1 in 100 are schizophrenic) so I hope that people in the neighborhood volunteer and help people reach recovery
I am telling you did anybody else than me see the sexy lady in a very short yellow skirt sitting out side of Starbucks this morning around 11:30ish. She knew she was putting on a show! Every guy was checking her out there.
She is hoping you proposition her. Go ahead…you will be the next one her boyfriend roughs up at her place.
So grateful that agencies like DESC are working hard to help our fellow citizens in need. We used to lock people away in mental institutions, hardly the hallmark of a civilized society. I welcome our new neighbors and wish them the best.