The average resident of the Harvard Court Apartments lives on about $13,000 a year — and is not considering suicide. In a discussion with CHS following two suicides in two weeks at the low income housing tower at 610 Harvard Ave E, Virginia Felton, director of strategic planning and communications for Seattle Housing Authority, said her agency doesn’t believe Harvard Court’s residents should be treated differently than residents in any apartment building. “Our approach is as a landlord,” Felton told CHS. “We’re not trying to ‘suicide proof’ our building.”
Felton said that SHA did have staff from Aging and Disability Services available to help and talk with any residents that needed support.
Felton confirmed that the two recent deaths were both Harvard Court residents. Contrary to the information we received from the Seattle Fire Department, the first death was a woman, Felton said. This weekend’s death was a man who lived in the tower.
To put the recent deaths in perspective, Felton said that while suicides have happened at the 80-apartment building in the past she and the Harvard Court building manager could remember fewer than five in the last ten years or so. “This is pretty unusual,” Felton said.
SHA provides services to about 27,000 people. Some of those people, it turns out, have mental health issues. Some are thinking about suicide. Some decided to end their lives. For Felton, it’s a matter of making buildings like Harvard Court a good place to live. “Should we make it so windows don’t open?” Felton asked. “For those residents that don’t have mental health as an issue, that’s not a solution.”
No, but you should make the openings too narrow to fall/jump out of.
That would also prevent small children (visitors, maybe) from falling out, as they seem to do regularly (as you’ll note in the local news section of the Seattle Times). Not often, but one is too many when it is so easily preventable.
Where is the mystery?
Building needs MUCH better social services on site.
are you serious? i think you guys might be a tad out of touch. i live in project based housing on the hill and its practically saved my life. theres mental cases in my building and theres plenty of mental health services available for them. i feel very lucky that low income housing is available for us at all, im not about to start blaming sha for the laws of gravity, elevated surfaces, or lifes existential conundrums. maybe sha should also explain the meaning of life and cover the city in cotton candy.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2008/11/28/aurora_
Even made the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-aurora-
Andrew – you’re comparing a freeway bridge to an apartment complex, not a valid comparison IMO.
and re: window size – I’m not going to blame SHA for not designing their apartments like mental hospitals.