Roughly 100 folks gathered exterior Seattle Metropolis Corridor Tuesday afternoon to protest the deliberate development of a homeless shelter within the metropolis’s SODO neighborhood.

In March, King County introduced its plan to protect the present 270-person Salvation Military shelter in SODO with added capability for 150 extra folks.

The shelter’s development is one part of a number of inside the county’s plan to leverage funding made obtainable by way of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Finally, King County has set a objective for itself to accommodate 500 homeless people all through Seattle’s downtown and SODO neighborhoods.

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The present SODO shelter at 1033 Sixth Ave. S operates beneath a lease that’s set to run out in November. The expanded shelter will construct 150 beds as a part of a micro modular unit growth, also referred to as tiny properties, in keeping with the Every day Journal of Commerce (DJC).

In Might, the King County Council authorised a five-year lease on the property owned by developer City Visions. The SODO shelter plans will likely be revised throughout a group planning session scheduled for Sept. 28, additionally in keeping with the DJC.

A lot of Tuesday’s protestors spoke in entrance of the Metropolis Council, citing concern that the deliberate shelter is just too near the town’s Worldwide District, made up of Chinatown, Little Saigon, and Japantown.

“I’ve been residing in Chinatown and doing enterprise there for 30 years. I’m horrified to study that the federal government goes to place collectively a problematic shelter or campsite very near Chinatown,” one speaker stated.

“CID is a particular group distinctive. 70% to 80% of the residents are seniors and so they don’t communicate English after which they can’t talk with the homeless, and they’re afraid of them.”

Enterprise proprietor and Pals of Seattle Chinatown-Worldwide District member Tanya Woo stated the county’s transfer mirrors different historic choices made by native authorities about predominantly Asian neighborhoods.

“This was authorised again in Might, and we’re simply listening to about it this month … We’re most disillusioned within the lack of transparency, lack of outreach, and engagement with the group,” Woo stated. “It follows the historical past of pressured insurance policies onto our group, which we had no enter in.”

She added, “The truth that they by no means consulted the group, they by no means reached out to us, there was no engagement or outreach is systemic racism. I really feel like they’re benefiting from our Asian politeness.”

This comes after a tough two-and-a-half years for the Chinatown-Worldwide District, together with a nationwide development of hate crimes towards Asian-Individuals and the pandemic’s affect on small companies.

“Our group is struggling. The anti-Asian hate, pandemic racism … we simply actually need to heal and recover from all that previous trauma,” Woo stated. “And having this mission sprung on us with none warning — it appears like a betrayal.”

Woo emphasised that the group members don’t have anything towards people who find themselves unhoused, however somewhat are nervous concerning the criminals who could be interested in the world in the event that they know concerning the shelter.

“The unhoused are usually not the issue,” Woo stated. “It’s the individuals who prey on them — the drug sellers.”

Woo stated there has already been a serious improve in violent crime within the space — and it has fully modified the texture of the neighborhood.

“Seniors are fearful at evening. I bear in mind pre-pandemic you can exit to Hing Hay Park at midnight and there could be seniors sitting there listening to Chinese language opera. Now, you’d by no means see that,” Woo stated.

Longtime Chinatown resident Jay Yanamura agreed.

“We hear gunshots on a regular basis,” he stated. “We do have break-ins — we’ve had many burglaries in our constructing. The condominium that I dwell in has numerous older, Asian octogenarians and so they’re afraid to exit.”

Yanamura stated he and his spouse have seen a definitive uptick in crime on their every day walks — particularly crimes dedicated towards small companies.

“One of many shops we go to, the woman who runs it’s 70 or 80 years previous, and she or he runs down the road after the shoplifters who are available in day by day and steal from her … that’s the sort of crime we see day by day,” he stated.

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