The City of Seattle and the Africatown Land Trust will hold a series of public meetings to help shape The Community Home at Keiro, a new 24×7 shelter on the Central District property of the former care center at 17th and Yesler.

An announcement from the city says the facility is planned to open next month.

The Community Home at Keiro will be a 125 bed non-congregate enhanced shelter in the Central District at the Keiro building:

This project will serve single adults and will be the first shelter project operated by Africatown. The program will be a 24/7, enhanced shelter that will offer culturally responsive services, case management, housing navigation services, and behavioral health support.

CHS reported here in the summer of 2020 on Africatown’s efforts to halt a “predatory” development of the property. The Keiro Rehabilitation and Care Center, a nursing home largely serving the Japanese-American community, was sold to Shelter Holdings in 2019. According to Northwest Asian Weekly, the real estate company planned to turn it into a mixed-use building with ground floor retail space, and market-rate housing. Shelter Holdings agreed to temporarily use the property as a homeless shelter and CHS. Mary’s Place had plans to occupy the space as a shelter on a two-year lease but stepped aside for the Africatown project.

“ACLT will provide a safe and respectful space for people to stabilize, access health, recreation, education, employment, and housing resources and participate in co-creating a community hub that promotes brilliance and creativity,” an announcement about the project reads. “Guests will be involved in an ongoing process with community to grow in understanding and respect for the history of the Central Area community, including the Keiro facility and Japanese culture, the experience of Indigenous Duwamish people and the ways in which other groups came to subsequently occupy this community.”

The city and ACLT have also announced a series of community meetings “to engage with community to provide more detail, address questions, solicit ideas and suggestions and build relationships” as well as an open house at the facility in October:

We invite community members to join us in codesigning our strategy for success in a three-part series (encouraged to attend all sessions):

 

Introduction: Thursday, September 16, 2021                        6-8 PM

 

Considerations: Thursday, September 23, 2021                    6-8 PM

 

Tactics and Solutions: Thursday, September 30, 2021          6-8 PM

 

Open House Thursday, October 14, 2021, at Community Home at Keiro

1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

 

To Register: https://bit.ly/3E5j7B5

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE

Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🖤