1. The city’s Unified Care Team, which removes homeless encampments and informs their displaced residents about open shelter beds, “extended a total of 1,830 offers of shelter” between July and September 2023, converting 587 of those offers into “referrals” to specific shelters, according to a report released earlier this month. Of those referrals, according to the report, only 209 people, or just over 11 percent of the people who received shelter “offers,” actually showed up at a shelter and stayed for at least one night. (This number, the report notes, could be a slight undercount due to incomplete data.)
This means that almost nine in ten people the UCT contacted prior to encampment sweeps did not end up in any form of shelter—a decline from the UCT’s previous report, which showed a 15 percent shelter enrollment rate. The UCT (which includes the Human Services Department’s team of outreach workers) does not make contact with everyone at an encampment, so the official numbers don’t include people who move elsewhere before a sweep or don’t engage with city workers for other reasons, such as a lack of outreach or because they know they don’t want to move into congregate shelter.
The city’s “One Seattle Homelessness Action Plan” website includes the UCT’s offer and referral numbers, but not the much lower number of people who actually ended up in shelter.
The numbers show some geographic differences, and includes some of the reasons people gave for declining the UCT’s offers of shelter. The highest shelter acceptance and enrollment rates were in Northwest Seattle, and the lowest were in West Seattle and the center city, which includes downtown and Capitol Hill. In West Seattle, just 4 percent of people who received shelter offers ended up going to shelter (largely because only 11 percent accepted these offers), while just 8 percent ended up in shelter in central Seattle. Mayor Bruce Harrell has focused a huge amount of attention on “reopening” downtown Seattle, which has included swiftly removing encampments or tents that pop up in the area.
When asked why they didn’t accept a shelter offer, most people told the UCT they didn’t want the specific bed they were being offered. Often, the data indicates, this was because they were only offered an “enhanced shelter bed”—a term that encompasses group shelters that are open 24 hours and offer services—rather than permanent housing or a spot in a tiny house village. Others said they wanted to stay with their partners, family members, or pets; didn’t want to relinquish the car or RV where they were living; or didn’t find the shelter location acceptable. The UCT does not offer transportation to shelter, which may be far away from the communities where unsheltered people live.
The UCT is required to produce quarterly reports on their work under a statement of legislative intent imposed by the City Council in 2022. The council imposed a similar requirement for next year as part of its 2024 budget.
2. As Josh reported in his column last week, Seattle doesn’t have a program to activate or site corner retail in residential areas—yet.
According to Office of Planning Construction and Development director Nathan Torgelson, OPCD is “considering allowing corner stores in [neighborhood residential] zones as part of the Comprehensive Plan Update process.” Torgelson is referring to the city’s Environmental Impact Statement Scoping Report, released last November, which outlined potential policy and zoning changes that should be studied in advance of considering alternatives for Seattle’s 2024 Comprehensive Plan update. The comp plan is a document that guides future growth across the city over a 20-year time span; the plan undergoes a “major” update every eight years.
On its final pages, the 29-page scoping document says that in order to “support City goals such as allowing more people to walk or bike to everyday needs,” the city could consider “Allowing more flexibility for commercial uses such as more retail on arterial streets, home businesses, and corner stores in certain areas” and “Combining the multifamily and mixed-use/commercial designations on the Comprehensive Plan’s Future Land Use Map categories to reflect that commercial space may be reasonable in a wider variety of areas.”
As we’ve reported, the release date for the EIS has been pushed back repeatedly, so there’s no word yet about any substantive corner store proposal.
As Josh noted, Spokane’s planning department identified 95 spaces, including in residential areas, that could be converted to retail. This fall, Vancouver, BC’s planning department surveyed the public in a proactive corner store push to “gather feedback on how residents feel about corner stores and potential opportunities for expanding uses, locations, and building types.”
—Erica C. Barnett, Josh Feit
Corner store canard is a way for city to appear doing something but not really. All corner lots should be apartments. The crisis is housing not a place to pick up an energy drink once a week and watch it close a few months later.
Don’t really understand the thinking that these would fail. They seem to be much beloved in the few places where such things are grandfathered in here in Seattle and surrounding areas.
@AJoy: Indeed. Distraction with this corner store nonsense. Only a fool would open one, everyone gets stuff delivered and the biggest “corner store” 7-11, are closing locations left and right.
Focus on housing for people not goods.
Lots of places, lots of the time, corner commercial has apartments above. (It could even be a sensible requirement in Seattle.)
I’d prefer a small grocery on the street level of my 42 unit building to a massage parlor. As for the comment about “Corner stores selling overpriced junk food are not an asset to the community,” there is — or should be — a difference between a small neighborhood grocery and a gas station/convenience store. Whether there is or not will vary by the location and clientele. Let’s not give up on the idea before we try it, even though that is the Seattle way.
What ‘you’d prefer’ is irrelevant – the owner of that corner properly is going open (or lease to) whatever kind of business generates the most profit (or can pay the highest rent).
The zoning wouldn’t be limited to small grocery stores because that’s what you’d prefer. It’s just as likely to be the massage parlor you fear, or a smoke shop, or a quick-e-mart that sells mostly 40s and Lotto tickets and no fresh produce.
Yeah, those homeless got get their malt liquor and glass pipes some somewhere. Careful what you wish for.
All corner lots citywide should allow apartments outright. Stores on corner lots allowed on any street that has a bus running on it. Get this report out already, the delays are ridiculous.
Planning Department is delaying the report so citizens have less time to complain and weigh in. Planning does this because their plan will be feeble & weak and will cater to the developers that own them.
Get ready to be disappointed and watch for Planing to say, “we just have to adopt this, there is not enough time to change it”. Outrageous.
Corner stores selling overpriced junk food are not an asset to the community.
But local small businesses who rely on word of mouth and loyal customers to buy unique items and experiences are, and forcing them by law to compete with big chains for commercial space on arterials means we will have many fewer of them than we otherwise would. We should give ’em a shot on every corner everywhere.
@BSK How would such zoning solve for the threat to local brick and mortars in neighborhoods? Break ins/crime is a problem, as much as the cost of commercial rent. If there are empty storefronts in dense/walkable neighborhoods, why would they fare any better in further flung suburban ones?
Also not sure how you would keep out the chain stores.
In the middle of a housing crisis? We need more residential in Seattle, not commerce.
@HMMM: Big chains don’t want small spaces with few (or no) commercial amenities that aren’t on arterials – it’s not how their business model works.