South Seattle May Get Homeless Camp For 100 People
South Seattle may have a new, 100-person homeless camp soon.
The Low Income Housing Institute, or LIHI, filed a permit with the city to open a camp with tiny houses and tents.
The property is on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, south of the Othello light-rail station.
LIHI director Sharon Lee says eventually they want to build affordable apartments on the lot -- but for now, they just want to get people off the streets.
"We decided that it was much safer to have people live in a tent city, or in tiny houses, a community of tiny houses, where they are protected and safe,” Lee said. “That there are also strict rules around no alcohol, no drugs, no violence."
It's a model Lee has worked with before – the Low Income Housing Institute ran its own homeless camp a few years ago.
Last summer Seattle Mayor Ed Murray identified three neighborhoods for new homeless camps: Ballard, Interbay and SODO. The third will be in South Seattle, though, not SODO.
That location was ruled out because it' so close to power lines that metal items like pots and pans would have been banned.
LIHI is holding a community meeting on the proposal at the New Holly Gathering Hall at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
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Paige Browning
Newscaster
Paige hosts midday newscasts and monitors news of significance to the Puget Sound region. She hopped over Washington’s mountains to join KUOW, after hosting news and reporting at Spokane Public Radio since 2011. She began her start in radio while a journalism student at University of Montana, by sharing stories with KUFM. Paige was raised in the mountains and rivers around Spokane. In her spare time she cheers on the Mariners in the summer, and hopes for snow in the winter.
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