Seattle Mayor signs new law that will bring 500 new shelter beds to Seattle

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan signed a bill Friday, that will add shelter space for more than 500 people who are homeless in Seattle.

About 100 of those new beds will be in tiny house villages.

The mayor is hoping all 500 of the new shelter spaces will be ready to go within 90 days and you'll notice fewer people on the streets.

“It is now signed into law. We will move forward, thank you, everybody!” Durkan said after signing the bill.

The bill will increase Seattle’s shelter capacity by 25 percent.

“I think that when we have these shelters coming online, people are going to see a change because we have places now for people to go,” Durkan said.

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The project will add about 500 beds and cost $6.3 million. Right now, it's funded through one-time money that came from the sale of city property.

The plan adds three tiny house villages – one in Whittier Heights that’s complete and ready for residents to move into, one in the Central District, and one in South Lake Union.

Another one of the shelter expansion plans turns the main lobby of City Hall into a nightly shelter. It will give 120 more people a place to sleep every night.

KIRO7 asked the mayor during the press conference if the city has any plans to address the 60 percent of people contacted by the navigation team who decline services.

“Those numbers aren't quite right,” Durkan said. “Our experience is not that the majority of people are turning down safe places to live. Our experience is we don't have that safe alternative to offer them,” she said.

But a 2017 navigation team report says, only 36 percent of the people contacted accepted a referral to a safer living alternative. And team members recently told KIRO7 that number has stayed fairly consistent – ranging between 35 and 38 percent.

The Low Income Housing Authority (LiHi) said there are many reasons why people decline services.

“People who turn down a shelter, they don't want to stay in a space with other people, they're worried about bed bugs, they're worried about getting their belongings stolen,” said Sharon Lee, the executive director of LiHi.

She says some shelters also don't accept couples, pets, or men with kids - and that Mayor Durkan's plan to add more tiny houses will help get more people off the street.

“The last two years, we moved over 300 people from tiny houses into long term permeant housing.

Their whole prospect has improved tremendously because they're in a tiny home," Lee said.
Funding for 500 new beds next year was supposed to come from head tax money, but the policy was overturned. The mayor's office now says the funding will be figured out through the city council's budget process.

There will be a meeting next week on when the South Lake Union (at 8th and Aloha) will open and whether it will be “low-barrier,” or whether people will be allowed to use drugs on site.

Cox Media Group