Construction of LIHI's Southend Tiny House Village at 9101 MLK Way S., Seattle is complete. LIHI is still working out the funding for village operations. An open house will be held in early May.
We'd like to share with you excerpts from articles and letters written by former Seattle Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat, and Sound Foundations NW Director Barb Oliver.
Sally Bagshaw:
"This past Friday, I received an email from a business group in Rainier Valley, fed up with tents and garbage in their neighborhood. The group says they have seen no coordinated effort to offer people a better option than life in tents on the streets
....
Yet, in the midst of all this inaction, there’s a partial solution. It’s an unoccupied 40-unit tiny home village in the south end on Martin Luther King Way, right across from the Rainier Beach Light Rail station. It’s all dressed up and ready to serve, but it has not been opened.
Available temporary housing? Yes. In South Seattle, where the need is great? Yes. An entirely empty village ready to go? Yes. But it is vacant. Why?
...
Mayor Harrell? KCRHA director Marc Dones? You hold the keys. Open up those doors!"
Danny Westneat:
"What happened is that the Low Income Housing Institute built the village because the city had at one time pledged to fund it, and the City Council was supportive. But then control switched from the city to the new Regional Homelessness Authority. Last month, that group denied operating funding to the project.
It did this though construction was nearly finished at the time."
Barb Oliver:
"It is now 5:30 am. I have been up since 3 am thinking about this.
The Southend Village of transitional tiny homes has been ready for residents since early April. The only thing that is stopping residents from living in the village is having KCRHA fund the village.
Let’s look at how that village came to be. First, supporters raised all the money needed to build these tiny homes. Volunteers from Sound Foundations NW came together: hundreds of us for hundreds of hours, lovingly building walls, tilting up homes, laying floors and roof, and painting and caulking each and every home.
These tiny homes now lay barren, empty, while people who but for the grace of God go us lay in doorways, on park benches, in the rain and cold, surrounded by garbage, feces and rats. They are unsafe 24/7. They are scared every day. They are hungry every day. They are wet and cold most of the time.
Statistically, nationwide the transition from homelessness to permanent housing is less than 20%. The rate from shelters to permanent housing is a mere 4%. The transition rate for LIHI’s tiny home transitional villages is 56%, over double the national average. The LIHI model is one of the most successful in the nation.
Every day that Southend Village is closed, 40 people are still on the streets. If you look at this long term, according to LIHI’s statistics, the average number of days spent in a tiny home is 114 days. That means that three people transition in and out of each tiny home every year. The longer we delay opening the village, the less likely that three people transition in and out of every home. If we delay long enough, that means maybe two people transition instead of three. That means that not only 40 people are still on the streets: actually, it’s more like 80 people.
Isn’t homeless relief about helping people? Actual people?
It’s still raining outside.
Barb"
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