Youth shelter moves into old frat house in Seattle

Roots Young Adult Shelter will move from University Temple United Methodist Church near the Ave in the University District to a eight-room house nearby.

Arthur Padilla, interim executive director of Roots, says moving into the the old Alpha Epsilon Pi house will open up a lot more space.

In the old space, young people slept on mats in the church gym.

"In the new space, everybody gets a space, so most likely will have their own bed," Padilla said. "They'll be able to stay there for as long as they need to before they get permanent housing."

The new shelter will be open 24/7, so people staying there have a place to store their possessions during the day.

Padilla says he hopes to build relationships with the neighboring fraternities and sororities.

Over 200 University of Washington students each year volunteer at the shelter now, Padilla said, making up most of their volunteers. With this move, he hopes to bolster that relationship.

"We're really hoping that it can be a community engagement opportunity for everybody," he said.

Padilla said Roots has reached out to nearby fraternities and sororities informing them of the change. But a student living directly across the street in a non-Greek house said they had not heard anything about the new shelter or received any notice.

Overall though, Padilla said the response has been mostly warm.

"Most of the emails I've received are about 'how do I help and what can we do and this is exciting,'" he said. "It's not the response I expected, honestly."

The new shelter, which serves about 45 people, is set to open in spring.