SEATTLE — A North Seattle neighborhood is in a stew over a food pantry meant to help the poor. Neighbors cried foul and the city ordered it shut down.
Victoria Shutts’ food pantry has been at the corner of 35th and Northeast 110th Avenue for about two years and one neighbor says she is just trying to help.
But many of her other neighbors don’t see it that way. They say the little food pantry is not just feeding the poor. They contend it is attracting people who litter, do drugs, and cause other problems, making this neighborhood unsafe for children.
“Seattle is kind of breaking my heart right now,” said Shutts.
Indeed, it is her heart that Victoria Shutts has put into this stand she calls Shuttsie’s Love Community Pantry.
“A hundred percent,” Shutts said. “Not a day goes by where we’re not throwing around love you’s and giving each other hugs.”
And some of her neighbors share her desire to help those in need.
“Hummus, apples, and one man’s deodorant,” said Violet, a young neighbor, showing off her shopping bag. “Me and both my Moms, we like donating to this place because we like being able to help the people that might need the food.”
However, another neighbor sees it differently.
“Just the litter,” he said, not wanting to show his face. “I actually, I pick it up.”
Other neighbors are much more vehement online.
“And this isn’t the worst of them,” said Shutts.
She read from an article about her plight in the homeless newspaper, ‘Real Change.’
“Offering free cans of Narcan,” one neighbor said in the article. “It puts all of us at risk.”
The complaints reached the Department of Construction and Inspections.
“We have conducted an inspection and the inspector has noted the following code violation,” Shutts read from the complaint. “Remove unauthorized structure or setback from required yard. And then I got another order that here, from the brick wall to here is technically city property.”
All of it forced her to stop helping those who need it most.
“Meantime, while we all sort out the red tape, we’ve let them down again,” Shutts said.
It has left her allies on the street upset, too.
“Like ‘come on bro,’” said Nicholas Hughes, who recently got housing. “She’s offering that. And she’s doing that out of the kindness of her heart. Give her some respect.”
Members of the Seattle City Council may have thrown her a lifeline. Just Tuesday, they approved legislation that would “reduce regulatory barriers to help equitable development projects succeed.”
The Department of Construction and Inspections tells KIRO 7 it is studying the new law to figure out if it applies to this food pantry.
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