This text was produced for ProPublica’s Native Reporting Community in partnership with KUOW public radio. Join Dispatches to get our tales in your inbox each week.
Reporting Highlights
- Utilizing a Lodge as a Shelter: Seattle leased the Civic Lodge as shelter house, and a nonprofit used the Civic and different buildings to position homeless individuals coming off town’s troubled Third Avenue.
- Placements Halted: After filling the city-funded rooms, the nonprofit was instructed to allow them to empty out — at the same time as town signed a $2.7 million lease extension.
- Main Want: Of an estimated 5,000 shelter beds in Seattle metropolis boundaries and on close by Vashon Island, a mean of three% had been free every night time final 12 months.
These highlights had been written by the reporters and editors who labored on this story.
When Brenna Poppe moved into the Civic Lodge off the damp streets of Seattle in late 2022, she cried with pleasure. Throughout her subsequent 12 months on the city-sponsored homeless shelter, she’d meet different visitors who felt the identical approach — overwhelmed by the sudden realization that tonight, they’d stay awake exterior.
The Civic bought quieter final 12 months, nonetheless. Rooms round her, their doorways nonetheless painted vivid yellow from when the resort was a boutique property, began to empty out. A “deafening silence” crept in, she recalled.
The 53-room resort was transformed to a shelter within the early days of the pandemic, and town of Seattle stored it going. After Poppe’s first 12 months there, town in February 2024 signed a $2.7 million lease extension to proceed utilizing rooms on the Civic and different buildings as shelter house by way of the top of the 12 months. And but, regardless of committing to pay the lease, town stopped sending individuals there.
Current residents moved on to everlasting housing or elsewhere and nobody took their place. Dozens of rooms went unfilled.
By December, Seattle taxpayers had been paying a hefty $4,200 a month per empty room — at a time when 1000’s of Seattleites had been and not using a roof over their heads.
Metropolis officers described their choice to go away the rooms vacant as merely a “pause” whereas they evaluated what to do about an anticipated finances deficit.
One-time federal funding was going away and, if town finally succeeded in securing long-term funding, officers wished to discover a cheaper location than the Civic. They stated the uncertainty pressured them to each maintain onto the Civic and cease putting individuals there, to keep away from later sending purchasers again to the road.
However inside information reveal extra difficult motives. Concurrently town was halting placements, it rejected a transfer to a less expensive shelter location, which the principle advocate of the plan stated would maintain this system working with out interruption. A high official within the workplace of Mayor Bruce Harrell, explaining the choice in personal, voiced animosity towards the nonprofit chief who pitched the brand new location and signaled an finish to metropolis assist for the chief’s program.
Whatever the rationale, the end result of town’s choice was that for almost a 12 months, Seattle paid for simply as many rooms as earlier than but helped fewer and fewer individuals off the road with them.
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Megan Farmer/KUOW
Placements resumed this 12 months, in a brand new location, after a 16-month hole.
Many West Coast cities are struggling, as Seattle has, with an increase in homelessness lately. Earlier than referrals had been halted, the trouble that positioned individuals on the Civic had already moved hard-to-reach homeless individuals from the road to a shelter house and, in lots of instances, then on to long-term housing and stability.
Seattle’s choice to maintain {dollars} flowing to an effort it had suspended comes as cities akin to Los Angeles are going through criticism for failing to precisely observe outcomes of their huge outlays on homelessness.
Permitting vacancies to develop at city-leased shelter house additionally appears to be at odds with a dedication by Harrell, whose 2022 plan to handle homelessness promised efforts to “higher observe shelter capability and guarantee beds don’t go unfilled.”
(A spokesperson for Harrell responded that it’s essential to notice city-funded shelters had 2,850 models in all final 12 months, 87% of which had been full on any given night time. Town declined a request to interview Harrell.)
Poppe, who lived on the Civic by way of 2024, considered its empty rooms as a squandered alternative, and he or she instructed the shelter workers as a lot.
“A number of occasions,” Poppe stated, “I spoke to workers about this egregious quantity of open rooms.”
The Blade
On any given day in a bit of Third Avenue between Pike and Pine streets often known as The Blade, dysfunction is commonplace. Some persons are screaming on the air, their pants falling off their frail frames. Others are sleeping, huddled in doorways to maintain heat and secure. This human struggling stands in distinction with neighboring symbols of Seattle’s affluence: Pike Place Market, Benaroya Corridor and the downtown buying district are inside a five-minute stroll.
A walk-up-only McDonald’s on the nook has been dubbed “McStabby’s,” referencing violent crimes which have taken place close by over time.
In 2022, nonprofits and downtown companies got here up with a plan that may finally contain the Civic Lodge.
The Third Avenue Mission was designed to cut back the violence and open drug use by way of intensive outreach and the deescalation of conflicts between individuals on the road. However housing was additionally on the minds of the organizers.
Many believed in a modified model of the “housing-first” strategy, which is based on the concept any points individuals battle with on the streets are finest addressed in the event that they first discover shelter, with no necessities for sobriety. Regardless of Seattle’s scarcity of shelter beds and reasonably priced everlasting housing, the nonprofit leaders concerned with Third Avenue hoped to assist a minimum of some purchasers transfer indoors.
The idea appeared to line up with the priorities of Harrell, who on his marketing campaign web site the 12 months earlier than had promised “an accountable, formidable plan with transparency and benchmarks to increase and supply housing and providers on demand to each unsheltered neighbor.”
Third Avenue Mission organizers set to work after Harrell took workplace, with important funding from town.
“Security ambassadors” had been step one. They might reverse overdoses and intervene when scuffles broke out, but in addition develop relationships with individuals on the street after which join them with shelter and providers.
“The toughest factor that we do is seeing individuals within the dire straits that they dwell in day by day,” stated Stephenie Wheeler-Smith, CEO of the corporate that hires the ambassadors, We Ship Care. “This isn’t simple work. Individuals don’t wish to come out and contact these individuals or take a look at them or see their wounds or assist them get well being care.”
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Megan Farmer/KUOW
Importantly, security ambassadors wouldn’t simply transfer individuals alongside. Additionally they might be a primary level of contact on a path to everlasting housing.
As one component of their $2.1 million contract with town, the security ambassadors referred homeless individuals on Third Avenue to housing and emergency shelter suppliers. The primary one they’d use was a nonprofit-led program known as CoLEAD, which had a $4.6 million contract with town in 2023 that included putting individuals in short-term lodging and offering assist providers they wanted.
The following step was the Civic Lodge. Metropolis officers signed a $1.1 million six-month lease with the Civic’s house owners for its 53 visitor rooms. CoLEAD would additionally let Third Avenue purchasers use rooms in any of the opposite shelters it managed, and on the similar time this system would ship purchasers from different referral sources to the Civic.
In contrast to with another shelters, these purchasers didn’t must cease utilizing medicine or alcohol, and so they had entry to their very own house, which was ideally suited for individuals who might have struggled at conventional shelters.
The plan bought outcomes.
By November 2023, city-funded rooms on the Civic and different buildings had been packed.
Marco Brydolf-Horwitz, who studied CoLEAD for almost two years as a part of a doctoral program, stated he noticed individuals remodeled by the steadiness of short-term lodging.
“You’ll be able to’t do a lot when persons are on the road,” he stated. “As soon as persons are inside, then you may work out what stage of housing assets are wanted.”
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Megan Farmer/KUOW
The Halt
For all of the success tales, the issue with the Civic was value. The county had snapped it up as a brief measure in the course of the frenzy of the pandemic, and town inherited it. After the preliminary lease, lease had risen to the equal of $2.6 million a 12 months in 2023.
On Jan. 2, 2024, Lisa Daugaard, one of many nonprofit leaders managing the Third Avenue Mission, pitched town on a less expensive various: an residence constructing in North Seattle with 11 extra rooms town might use for $1 million much less.
Town’s obligations with the Civic had ended when its lease expired the month earlier than. Daugaard might get town’s purchasers moved by February. Daugaard merely wanted some assurance town would maintain backing the mission as a result of she was contemplating a three-year lease on the brand new location.
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Obtained by KUOW
A couple of weeks later, Daugaard had her reply: Cease putting Third Avenue purchasers in city-funded beds, cycle present ones into everlasting housing and “ramp down” the Civic Lodge shelter. It was couched as a “pause” in placements by way of CoLEAD, information present.
In emails to Daugaard — and, in a minimum of one case, internally — metropolis officers cited uncertainty created by a looming finances deficit as one of many foremost causes for the brand new marching orders. They reiterated this rationalization, together with an anticipated loss in one-time funding, in interviews and emails with KUOW and ProPublica.
The mayor’s press secretary, Callie Craighead, stated town was “dedicated to sustaining shelter investments” however had “no approach to supply such affirmation” to Daugaard till town developed its subsequent finances. She stated the North Seattle residence constructing was additionally not move-in prepared on the time. Extending the lease on the Civic was a stopgap to keep away from sending purchasers again to homelessness.
Chief Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington described the halt in referrals as a approach of “winding down” operations on the Civic in anticipation of a transfer to a brand new spot, a “finest apply” amongst social providers managers.
However a chat message from Washington to a colleague, launched to KUOW and ProPublica final week by way of a public information request, spells out extra causes for turning down Daugaard’s proposal. It says, partially: “as a result of I need her out of the homelessness enterprise. She shouldn’t be good at it.”
Washington acknowledged within the message, incorrectly, that the proposed North Seattle location was one other resort, “which isn’t low cost” and concluded, “This implies we’d be leasing inns eternally.”
She additionally asserted that CoLEAD had a excessive fee of returns to homelessness and a low fee of placements in everlasting housing.
Knowledge supplied by the mayor’s workplace and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority reveals in any other case. The 12 months earlier than, CoLEAD moved a far greater share of its purchasers from its city-funded beds into everlasting housing than emergency shelter operators as an entire: 65%, in contrast with 26%.
Contacted by KUOW and ProPublica final week, Washington stated she’d recognized Daugaard for 10 years and that “I’ve nothing however respect for her work.” She stated of her chat message about ending CoLEAD’s position within the metropolis’s response to homelessness: “Discussions are completely different than selections.” She famous that town’s relationship with CoLEAD continues right this moment.
Daugaard declined to touch upon Washington’s personal message naming her. The nonprofit that employs Daugaard and oversees CoLEAD issued a press release defending this system’s observe document at putting individuals in everlasting housing as “distinctive.”
The mayor’s proposed finances for subsequent 12 months helps packages that observe CoLEAD’s strategy, the assertion stated, “and we vastly respect that, in the long run, the Metropolis has backed this mannequin which has confirmed to serve the pursuits of Seattle neighborhoods and chronically unsheltered people alike.”
As of February 2024, the North Seattle plan was formally off the desk. Town prolonged its lease with the Civic.
Officers dedicated to spending $225,000 a month for 53 rooms by way of 12 months’s finish — regardless of having simply instructed nonprofit shelter managers to make sure these rooms emptied out.
The Fallout
The disruption to the stream of purchasers off Third Avenue and into the city-funded rooms progressively grew to become noticeable.
The type of shelter that the Civic Lodge supplied — particular person rooms that got here with providers akin to assist in accessing well being care — is a beneficial useful resource, particularly on the subject of individuals who could also be fighting psychological sickness or habit, like lots of these on Third Avenue. Conventional shelters lack privateness and private house.
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Civic Lodge through TripAdvisor
With the ending of placements on the Civic and city-funded rooms in different CoLEAD shelters, security ambassadors who had been paid to quell the violence on Third Avenue turned to different shelter organizations. Nevertheless it wasn’t sufficient to totally offset the lack of CoLEAD’s buildings.
KUOW and ProPublica examined knowledge from We Ship Look after placements to organizations that present shelter or housing, together with the nonprofit that operates CoLEAD. The quantity went from 47 in 2023 to 30 in 2024.
In the meantime, 35 rooms on the Civic and different shelters that CoLEAD managed sat empty as of December 2024.
Among the many individuals who would have stated sure to one of many rooms town had left unused was Tiffany Fields, who on the time was struggling to remain secure open air.
“It ain’t no joke,” Fields stated of life on the road. “It’s not enjoyable. It’s not for play.”
Fields slept at downtown bus stops, usually gathering with teams or pretending to have a firearm in her coat to remain secure. She spoke to herself out loud when she felt in danger within the hopes that feigning psychological sickness would ward others off.
“I’ve seen quite a lot of bizarre issues,” Fields stated. “They have an inclination to prey on ladies by themselves, however I understand how to carry my very own.”
A 2023 College of Washington research of the Third Avenue Mission discovered that of the 980 individuals contacted by We Ship Care’s security ambassadors by way of October 2023, 90% had been unhoused.
“From a human perspective, individuals wish to be inside and so they wish to be sheltered,” stated Wheeler-Smith, chief of the outreach efforts to attach individuals on Third Avenue with providers. “And sadly, we don’t have quite a lot of locations to ship individuals to be sheltered, interval.”
Daugaard, whose group works alongside Wheeler-Smith’s security ambassadors, stated it was demoralizing for the outreach staff to maintain speaking to individuals on Third Avenue about their struggles with restricted probabilities to basically change the trail they’re on.
Shedding the rooms that the Civic supplied meant that “all they’re doing is type of protecting a lid on the extent of dysfunction and its affect on different individuals,” Daugaard stated.
(The College of Washington report, primarily based on time spent on the road with the security ambassadors, described reversed overdoses and defused conflicts.)
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Megan Farmer/KUOW
Of the estimated 5,000 shelter beds accessible in Seattle’s metropolis limits and on close by Vashon Island throughout early 2024, solely 3% had been free, in keeping with an annual point-in-time depend. One other 4,600 individuals lived with out shelter on the time.
Rachel Fyall, affiliate professor on the College of Washington Evans Faculty of Public Coverage & Governance, stated the price of not housing individuals consists of emergency room care, jail cells and police on the road.
“Philosophically,” Fyall stated, “any room that’s unused is just too many rooms.”
However when organizers know a shelter is prone to shut quickly, does it then make sense to go away rooms unused so newcomers received’t must relocate shortly after they arrive?
Noah Fay, senior director of housing packages at one other nonprofit that runs homeless shelters, stated the will to keep away from disruptions for residents needs to be balanced in opposition to the will to maintain beds full when unmet demand in Seattle is big.
He stated his group just lately ready for a shelter shutdown by halting referrals two months forward of time. Town did so 11 months earlier than its lease ended.
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Megan Farmer/KUOW
“Pause” Lifted
In July, Fields was strolling by way of the Third Avenue space.
A security ambassador known as out to her and stated Fields’ caseworker had been on the lookout for her. The caseworker had excellent news. She was getting shelter.
“I stated, ‘Are you kidding?’” Fields recalled. “‘Please inform me it’s not a sick joke.’”
Town had just lately ended the “pause” on putting CoLEAD purchasers in short-term shelters.
The brand new venue was the North Seattle residence constructing Daugaard had proposed greater than a 12 months earlier. The nonprofit working CoLEAD named it the Turina James.
Washington instructed KUOW and ProPublica CoLEAD had “considerably improved” its document of transferring individuals to everlasting housing because the pause, proving it was choice. (Knowledge present CoLEAD’s success fee with city-funded purchasers declined from 65% in 2023 to 56% final 12 months, whereas its success for all purchasers improved marginally, from 69% in 2023 to 71% final 12 months. Town didn’t handle the obvious discrepancy.)
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Illustration by Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Supply picture: courtesy of Tiffany Fields.
Fields’ consumption was achieved over the telephone, and an Uber was despatched to select her up and take her to her new short-term dwelling. When she arrived, she stated, she was welcomed with open arms. She was given items and a key.
“God, he works in mysterious methods,” Fields stated. “Typically while you name on him, he might not come proper then and there, however when he does come, when he does present up, he reveals out.”
Fields stated she’s felt rather more secure since making it indoors.
“I’m comfortable. I’m in a really, very, excellent place,” Fields stated. “So I can, you already know, get my life again on observe, get my life again so as.”
Others on Third Avenue are nonetheless ready for housing. However the paths accessible to them look a lot completely different now, even with referrals resuming, than they did in 2022 and 2023. When making placements on the Turina James, in contrast to on the Civic and different CoLEAD shelters, town is now not emphasizing Third Avenue purchasers however as an alternative individuals from Seattle’s Chinatown-Worldwide District.
Brenna Poppe, the lady who lived within the Civic because it emptied out, was nonetheless sleeping indoors as of July. She was staying on the North Seattle property, nonetheless grateful to have a roof over her head.
Round her, the rooms had been beginning to replenish.
