For the second time in two weeks, a person has died at the base of the Harvard Court Apartments building. A large contingent of police cruisers and emergency units converged on the building around 12:54 AM this morning after a 911 call came in from a nearby restaurant reporting that somebody had found the victim in a parking lot. Police said that the person was dead at the scene in an apparent suicide.
Two weeks ago on the morning of February 20 around 7:47 AM, a man was found dead near the multi-story apartment building in what police said was also a suicide.
Harvard Court at 610 Harvard Ave E is operated by the Seattle Housing Authority and is a low-income housing provider. We have left phone and e-mail messages with the Seattle Housing Authority about steps being taken to address these recent incidents and will update this post when we hear back.
This death also marks the third suicide in the last five weeks in the area. Less than two blocks away, another man took his life in late January.
CHS respects the sensitivity of covering suicide and believes it is an important community issue to include in our news reporting. We attempt to cover these stories by sharing the facts in a responsible manner that provides information about what is happening on the streets and in the community around you. Here are two resources to help those in need: National suicide-prevention hotline: 800-SUICIDE. Local Crisis Clinic: (206) 461-3222.
Seattle Housing Authority provides long-term rental housing and rental assistance to more than 26,000 people with low incomes. The question seems more appropriate for DSHS.
The building in question is many floors high, and contains a fragile population. I’d hope that they were preventing people from reaching the roof and jumping off AND that the windows don’t allow people to jump out. However with 2 suicides in 2 weeks clearly something isn’t working.
If we have a right to bear arms, we also presumably have a right to suicide. However, jumping off a tall building is inherently hazardous to others. I believe that at least one responder to the World Trade Center on 9-11 was killed by a falling person. Also note the millions that we’re about to spend to try and curtail Aurora Bridge suicides.
SHA might make the building less depressing, to start. I’ve never been in, but the rec room and lobby visible from the street are cold-war institutional, as is that sad “lawn” in front.
As an architect of affordable housing, I agree that the highrise for subsidized housing is a horrible idea for many reasons and thankfully they are not being built anymore because most everyone agrees. I do have to take issue with your “fragile population” choice of words. Characterizing poor people as “fragile” is so condescending!
And I also take issue with your analogy of this suicide with someone dying because of the World Trade Center attacks. Seriously? You think people jumping off the World Trade Center is the same as suicide?
Why the rise in suicides? Hint hint. We’re in the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression and Obama and Congress are dead set on more war, bank bailouts, and freezing domestic spending. Some people are rightly desperate and they have no other options. One year into his term, Barack “Change” Obama has shit on all the people who voted for him and seems more interested in carrying out Bush’s third term rather than radically change things for the better, as the majority of voters in this country voted for him to do. Official unemployment remains at 10% (unofficial unemployment is about 17%, around 30% in the black community reaching as high as 50% in some cities). Schools are crumbling and the legislature insists on cutting funding rather than taxing the wealthy who pay into the system the least, but receive the most benefit. Today we are seeing the repercussions of thirty years of trickle-down economics. They didn’t work for Reagan and they won’t work for Obama.
And I also take issue with your analogy of this suicide with someone dying because of the World Trade Center attacks. Seriously? You think people jumping off the World Trade Center is the same as suicide?
It’s not an analogy! It’s an example of an unintended consequence of jumping off a building (killing someone below): one that we should try and prevent.
PS: apologies about use of “fragile”: I don’t what today’s PC word is. Some of the residents have issues other than poverty (such as mental health issues) – what word would you recommend?
common sense is right-on here: DSHS needs to step in and provide the prevention/intervention WAY before the SHA is expected to.
Suicide is a personal choice and one that cannot flawlessly be presumed to be a matter of mental illness. However, in the cases where it is, DSHS and Adult Protective Services should be the line of defense rather than an organization made to help keep urban economic diversity possible and homelessness down. The last thing that the stretched-thin workers and especially the clients of Housing need is for Housing to become a Nanny-state rather than a resource.
Also: Some suicide methods are actually provided for in law.
( http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011277544_d )
A Counterintuitive Approach to Suicidology
Provides a New Pathway Out of Suicide:
An Enlightened Evening of Informal Conversation
Many suicidal persons, who admit to years of counseling, hospitalizations, and medication say they will feel better for a while but then feel twice as suicidal the next time they are in crisis. What this indicates is that an underlying problem keeps changing form, but never changes.
Please join suicidologist, Fredric Matteson, and others for an enlightened evening of informal conversation about this important issue as he shares what he has learned about this underlying problem from working with over 16,000 suicidal inpatients, over the past two decades.
SUICIDE IS NOT ABOUT KILLING YOURSELF: Going Deeper Into the Suicidal Experience with The Suicidal Person;
A Counterintuitive Approach to Suicidology
October 12, 2010 · 7:00pm
Bainbridge Island Commons
370 Brien Drive Southeast,
Bainbridge Island, Washington
FEATURED SPEAKERS:
Fredric Matteson – Founder & Director of CCT
James Hayes & Jason Moran – CCT Associates
Moderators:
Linda Wolf – Artist, Author & Founder/ED of award winning nonprofit organizations, Daughters-Sisters Project, and Teen Talking Circles.
Brian C. Riedesel, Ph.D., B.C.E.T.S. – Counseling Psychologist based at the American School of Professional Psychology, Associate Professor at Argosy University Seattle and the University of Utah.
“There has never been a therapy specifically for suicide, until today.”
David Olive, Ph.D.
Lead Psychologist,
National Health Service of England
“The truly remarkable discovery that Fredric matteson has made is that the suicidal person is struggling in what he terms a bifurcated state. The importance of Matteson’s discovery for gaining a deeper insight into the lived experience of suicidality cannot be overstated.”
Daniel Deardorff
Author of ‘The Other Within’
The Genius of Deformity In Myth, Culure & Psyche
###
If you would like more information about this event please visit http://www.contextualconceptualtherapy.com, or to schedule an interview with Fredric Matteson, please email [email protected]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A Counterintuitive Approach to Suicidology
Provides a New Pathway Out of Suicide:
An Enlightened Evening of Informal Conversation
Many suicidal persons, who admit to years of counseling, hospitalizations, and medication say they will feel better for a while but then feel twice as suicidal the next time they are in crisis. What this indicates is that an underlying problem keeps changing form, but never changes.
Please join suicidologist, Fredric Matteson, and others for an enlightened evening of informal conversation about this important issue as he shares what he has learned about this underlying problem from working with over 16,000 suicidal inpatients, over the past two decades.
SUICIDE IS NOT ABOUT KILLING YOURSELF: Going Deeper Into the Suicidal Experience with The Suicidal Person;
A Counterintuitive Approach to Suicidology
October 12, 2010 · 7:00pm
Bainbridge Island Commons
370 Brien Drive Southeast,
Bainbridge Island, Washington
FEATURED SPEAKERS:
Fredric Matteson – Founder & Director of CCT
James Hayes & Jason Moran – CCT Associates
Moderators:
Linda Wolf – Artist, Author & Founder/ED of award winning nonprofit organizations, Daughters-Sisters Project, and Teen Talking Circles.
Brian C. Riedesel, Ph.D., B.C.E.T.S. – Counseling Psychologist based at the American School of Professional Psychology, Associate Professor at Argosy University Seattle and the University of Utah.
“There has never been a therapy specifically for suicide, until today.”
David Olive, Ph.D.
Lead Psychologist,
National Health Service of England
“The truly remarkable discovery that Fredric Matteson has made is that the suicidal person is struggling in what he terms a bifurcated state. The importance of Matteson’s discovery for gaining a deeper insight into the lived experience of suicidality cannot be overstated.”
Daniel Deardorff
Author of ‘The Other Within’
The Genius of Deformity In Myth, Culure & Psyche
###
If you would like more information about this event please visit http://www.contextualconceptualtherapy.com, or to schedule an interview with Fredric Matteson, please email [email protected]
Contextual-Conceptual Therapy LLC Guiding the Suicidal Person Using Maps, Models, & Metaphors
[email protected] | http://www.contextualconceptualtherapy.com
P.O. Box 10243 | Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
I’m a Harvard Court resident and…
http://www.dailyepiphanyrecords.com/poems