The Capitol Hill business owner turned candidate for mayor fighting a Belmont Ave supportive housing project from the Downtown Emergency Service Center has already cast herself as a Republican.
Now we’ll see if Rachael Savage is also an environmentalist.
Washington’s Department of Ecology may be wandering into a neighborhood hornet’s nest as it begins the public process on the Stewart House Cleanup Site under its affordable housing grant program.
The DESC and the department are entering into an agreement on a state funded cleanup of the site where decades of waste from oil furnaces has accumulated.
The Belmont Ave properties home to a trio of former transitional housing buildings from Pioneer Human Services were acquired in a $6.5 million deal last year as the DESC made plans for a new 120-unit apartment building with onsite services for its residents on the block.
A 30-day public comment period on the cleanup agreement ends at midnight on May 6th.
“Many communities in Washington are facing a housing crunch, but one Ecology program is helping to ease the shortage,” the state’s announcement of public comment window reads. “Our Affordable Housing Cleanup Grant Program provides grants to developers to help clean up contaminated sites. In return, the developers redevelop the property, with at least 40% of the square footage slated for affordable housing for at least 30 years.”
The documents from the agreement are posted here.
“The properties have historically been the site of apartment buildings heated by oil furnaces. Soil at the cleanup site has been contaminated by petroleum products that leaked out of underground storage tanks,” the state says. “The extent of the contamination will be studied during the future remedial investigation phase.”
The state grant process around the projects has been streamlined by the legislature. In 2022, the permanent program was established to provide the grants for planning and cleanup of contaminated sites intended for affordable development.
But the process adds another wrinkle to the DESC’s plans in the neighborhood. CHS broke the news on the project this fall as the organization confirmed its planning for “a new Permanent Supportive Housing project” on the parcels it purchased over the summer.
King County’s program to fund the projects says permanent supportive housing is housing “for a household that is homeless on entry, where the individual or a household member has a condition of disability, such as mental illness, substance abuse, chronic health issues, or other conditions that create multiple and serious ongoing barriers to housing stability.”
City permitting is already approved to demolish the vacant buildings to make way for the new 120-unit DESC permanent supportive housing project. An August fire mostly destroyed one of the buildings waiting to be torn down.
Belmont DESC will serve people earning 30% and 50% of Area Median Income who are experiencing chronic homelessness. DESC says its tenants usually earn about 9% to 12% of AMI. The Belmont building will feature only studio units and is being designed for single adult residents.
Opposition to the project includes residents and building owners who say the area is already overburdened by the challenges around halfway houses and housing programs for at-risk populations.
Broadway business owner and Republican candidate for mayor Rachael Savage made opposition to the plan an early foundation of her “Savage Citizens” campaign. “Capitol Hill already has over three hundred people housed in multiple buildings that operate on this model variously called Housing First, Permanent Supportive Housing or Low Barrier Housing,” Savage said “Our streets are in chaos. We have done enough.”
Environmental appeals have become a regular aspect of the long delays faced by development projects around Seattle and, especially, in the city’s largest, most important decisions. CHS reported here as appeals including cases representing Madison Valley, Mount Baker, Hawthorne Hills, and “73 remaining Southern resident killer whales” have gummed up Seattle’s efforts to meet state zoning requirements and arrive at a new 20-year growth plan for the city.
The Department of Ecology program, meanwhile, has already been at work in Seattle where a grant-boosted cleanup cleared the way for The Maddux, an affordable project from the Mt. Baker Housing organization just off Rainier.
In 2018, the state awarded Mt. Baker Housing $400,000 to start assessing the cleanup project. The legislature later awarded another $6.2 million to finish the project. The cleanup began in June 2020 and took five months to complete. The corner had previously been home to a dry cleaner and gas station.
An initial state report on the Stewart House site was completed in 2018. “The presence and/or condition of groundwater has not yet been assessed at the site,” the state’s updated reporting reads.
The Department of Ecology is holding a hybrid in-person and virtual “open house” on the project on April 15th. Documents are available online here or in-person from the Capitol Hill library branch.
You can learn more about the proposed cleanup project and providing public comment on the agreement here.
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This entire thing is based on the premise is that the people in supportive housing are the ones committing crimes and putting the streets “in chaos” as she says. Does anyone have any evidence backing that up, though…?
Check out 911 calls/crime rates around these buildings.
Not all are problematic, but many are. And no one should be subjected to live next to one of these while they are allowed to have severe negative impact on the neighborhood.
You are one vicarious bystander experience from demanding ghettos.
“I thought I paid good money to escape the reality of societal neglect” is so American and explains so much
Like Pride Place? Tons of emergency calls. several murders within’ 1/2 a block. Not to mention drug busts. Since it became SODA? Things have changed dramatically. For example. Seattle Central College. That brick pedestal sign on the SE corner has not been tagged in weeks. The weekends have been tougher to tie down of course. But still levels better.
Pride place is LGBTQ senior housing run by community roots. That population is different than the targeted group of people who would be housed at Stewart Place which is people who are exiting homelessness or have a disability including substance abuse. One only needs to look at the buildings DESC runs with all the problems they bring due to DESC’s failure to enforce rules, and the resulting 911 calls and compare that to Community Roots buildings which are managed better to see this comparison is like comparing apples to oranges.
Lol
Are you suggesting that people who emerge from “chronic homelessness”, aka the most drug addicted are not the same people who are the foundation of the 2020-2025 open air drug market all along Broadway. That moving 4-500 new severely addicted people within blocks of Broadway in 2021 has had no effect? Yes, we have evidence. Like the rest of the neighborhood residents we have our eyes, and we have documented activity. There are also 18X the number of 911 calls to these PSH buildings documented over the years. The evidence is in on Housing First and it’s a failure. That is why we are seeing the orgs start to try to distance themselves right now.
Once again for all you haters, know that the members of our campaign team are recovering addicts who have helped thousands to end their addictions. We are compassionate and empathetic. The way the city is handling the addiction epidemic is a disaster for Capitol Hill(and many other neighborhoods). We can do better and we can do it with proven methods that use to exist in these very same buildings on Belmont!
Joe@savagecitizens
Yikes dude, sorry, no, not joining your cult
Calling people “haters” while simultaneously calling yourself “compassionate and empathetic” is wild. Might want to reflect on what your values really are, Joe.
Spent years reflecting on my values and I am crystal clear that the government paying addicts to live in the neighborhood and destroy the businesses and the decency of the people is immoral and causes suffering and harm to everyone involved. The moral responsibility is to protect the citizens and businesses from the addicts crime and destruction. This is the first function of government.
“Yes, we have evidence. Like the rest of the neighborhood residents we have our eyes, and we have documented activity.”
That’s creepy.Your version of “Seattle is Dying” is a bad knockoff. It’s all very self serving. Do you not understand that the actual residents are not complaining? Just the people who do not live here mostly. Money is #1.
Nothing creepy for the lifelong residents and business owners to stand up to the destruction of the city. None of this is “self serving” it’s all a giant theft of my time and energy. All we want is to live our lives and not have our hard work stolen by the city not providing basic level of safety. We are the “actual residents” and we disagree with your naive socialist take. If you want to live with fentanyl and meth addicts everywhere I would say you are in the minority.
“stand up to the destruction of the city”
okay…nothing has been destroyed nor will be.
“socialist take” really? just toss that grenade in there as a buzzword. Nobody wants to “live with addicts everywhere”. Literally not a single person. But you ram that into the discussion as well. It’s very self serving behaviors.
In the end? Savage is MAGA. 100% for MAGA. Here on Capitol Hill. But it is in no way self serving.
What a load of crap.
Nothing has been destroyed? What do you call all the broken windows, graffiti, cars broken into for addicts to steal for drug money, businesses and homes burglarized? If that is not destruction then you do not have very good eyes. Sure not all of that is due to homeless drug addicts or the mentally ill but some if not most is. There are often incidents of deranged individuals breaking windows and damaging property for no reason.
Because they are. Take a walk in the neighborhood any time, any day, there is your evidence that is not needed at this pint Do you even live in Capitol Hill? This is a stupid comment. You must be born and raised in Seattle and say it doesn’t rain here a lot. Just a the occasional mist. Maybe you are one of them with a free phone.
“free phone”?
Why all the dog whistles with you MAGA types?
LOL, dumb, so dumb!
I’m afraid I lack the magic spectacles you apparently possess, which allow you to know at a glance which of the people around you live in supportive housing. I must therefore defer to actual research: are you aware of any that you might refer me to? – or is it possible that all of this is just a projection of your own assumptions?
Where is your research backing up your view that housing first is so successful in getting people off the street and into treatment so they can get off drugs or get mental health treatment so they can function in society?
Yikes, dude! Really sad place to attention seek, lol. Go back to your meeting.
They are clueless how they come off. It’s not them. Nor ever is. Like Trump. A solution for everything.
Defend paying drug addicts to live in apartments and run the streets of the neighborhood using drugs and stealing. Defend the deaths of the addicts. Defend the closing of the businesses and the destruction of the tax base that provides actual services. Keep going…
nobody is defending that. you are making up stuff. Then basing your entire argument on it. Repeatedly.
Thanks for the heads up and we urge everyone to comment online and in person to hold the DESC to properly cleaning up this site. Links to documentation: https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/cleanupsearch/site/14787#site-documents
Did I just read that the state gave $6.2mm for a similar cleanup of another site? How in the heck is that taxpayer responsibility? Why are we not also suing the old landowner to get some of that money back?
Looking into the cost. If the cleanup cost is 2 million that will bring the cost per unit into the $375,000 per unit range. Then there are the many permanent added costs to the city and the neighborhood. Could end up a very high cost per unit.
You can read more about it here. Chevron was “voluntarily” doing some cleanup under the states Model Toxics Control Act prior to the arrangements with the housing development but it was a slow back and forth between lawyers, regulators, and inspectors that was also likely costing the state lots of money too.
https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/cleanupsearch/site/13054
I’m all for better environmental regulations, but that is a bigger story than this $6.2 million drop in the bucket.
because polluters always skate free.
Didn’t this building catch on fire last summer?
Rachel Savage is such a disingenuous loser…as if anyone truly believes exploring permanent supportive housing in that location is somehow worse than just allowing the unhoused to continue existing on the streets, living in squalor while we just walk by…
If putting these people into houses means no more piles of trash left over on our sidewalks and in vacant lots, and no more accidental fires from burning refuse to stay warm or cook food, then obviously putting these people in housing is an ecological win. Most houses in this city had oil heat at one point, and decommissioning and cleanup of those systems is routine…why is this seen by her as remarkable and/or worthy of blocking the homeless from getting placed in housing?
If this woman cared about the environment she’d be an environmentalist not a crypto-fascist woowoo crystal grifter lol…get real.
She’s a litany of false equivalencies.
No, Rachael Savage is a straightforward, clear spoken winner. We are not making any ecological arguments. Our campaign is proposing the option that works. The option that Capitol Hill had in the late 80’s and 90’s. Offer detox and voluntary residential treatment on demand available to all. Arrest people who are committing crimes. Charge them with crimes. Convict them of crimes. Divert the non-violent into long term residential treatment with the goal of abstinence and re-joining society. Offer the housing on Belmont to people who complete abstinence based treatment on a 24 month basis for training and school. This is the option that Capitol Hill and the whole city had and it worked to get tens of thousands free from drugs and alcohol without wrecking the city. Capitol Hill use to be one of the best neighborhoods to get clean in the country. Now it’s a deadly open air drug market. Name calling doesn’t work. We need real solutions.
I have lived in Seattle my whole life. Your version of law enforcement no longer exists for good reason. Wanting to MAGA everything into the ground is senseless.
Do you live here or elsewhere? Is it a business utopia what you really want. Where it’s always business first. Under the banner of “helping”?
“disingenuous”
chHill is correct. The “capitol Hill is dying” campaign propaganda was transparent. the over acting. the complete lack of acknowledgment of current improvements. The facts say it is so. We are coming back slowly but surely. Business first agendas are just that.
The residents here do not overreact. We live here 24/7. Saying Savage can do better is pretty disingenuous. The community is healing. Changes are working and being implemented all the time.
That video she made did her no favors.
“Savage said “Our streets are in chaos. We have done enough.””
She was for using ALL of Jumpstart in the budget for hers and others to exploit for their benefits and nobody else.
Savage MAGA , kicking people in their souls. Shaming them while simply sitting on a bench at the cap hill light rail station, asking people high on fenty in a fold if they need help is a cheap stunt. Your prejudices and greed come out of your mouth in unison with others here who are disappointed well monied bougie bungalows and Airbnb revenue generators are not the choice then moving the other established ones too. The ignorant hate won’t stop though. Grifters gotta grift.
Savage, you care so much, you want to “defund the homeless” and give the cops enormous raises our budget can’t afford w/o some kind of…wait for it…REVENUE STREAM! Because “we” have done enough! These new projects are going to destroy everything like Godzilla through Tokyo. Nevermind it’s gotten a lot better and getting better all the time.
How can you be anything in a leadership position if your precious aura can not protect you. And CERTAINLY two grown men as escorts was not enough security. That MAGA money is sweet though right?
We see you and hear you loud and clear. You despise us. Expect us to respect you and begrudgingly stay in a place you truly loath. Other than to blame others for your many obvious shortcomings as a human being.
You have shown us all time and again you can not lead and should get out of the way.It’s a shame that Savage has her attitude. You tell us all what you think about people down on their luck. They are a waste of time that does nothing to pad profits. Any money we spend will be MAGA slushy petty change drawer.
No. We have all the empathy in the world for the addicts and the mentally ill. They deserve better than a non-profit making money off their misery and helping them kill themselves. Our campaign is the only campaign working to end the cruelty. We hold the politicians and the non-profits responsible for the misery.
you ever been homeless? empathy is hard to come by. You have to have some experiences to rely on. being terrified to go into the light rail station with 2 grown men is truly pathetic. How can you lead if that ids the case? It’s all phoney performance art. It’s all very calculated. That shines through. Self serving.
why are non profits dropping the ball? have any examples? or agency names possibly? I do not understand it. Is their fraud or mismanagement?
I worked in client-facing mental health services for a number of years and one of the first concepts they teach you (in regards to empathy training) is to stop referring to people as “addicts” and “mentally ill”, and referring to them as people first, who are suffering from these illnesses. Your language, as someone supposedly so involved with improvement, is punitive, dogmatic, and resentful. This is a societal problem that we have created through wealth inequality running rampant.
Addressing a mental health and homelessness crisis with such an insane and myopic crime prevention focus is like trying to put out a fire that just broke out by grabbing a pan and starting to bake 1 billion pancakes in an effort to eventually smother the quickly growing fire with them…complete nonsense!!! All data showing the effectiveness of broken windows policing in combating these 2nd and 3rd order issues stemming our nation’s vast income inequality has demonstrated that the violence and arrests just make people slide further into despair and isolation.
I know you’re not this dense, Joe…which leads me to believe you have ulterior motives…
It’s absolutely painful to have to explain to people that America is such a self hating nation it would do all sorts of ineffective and brutal shortcuts to avoid violating their broken societal moral/ethical compass.
👏 this here ☝🏽
No, you don’t “have all the empathy in the world”, because if you did, you’d have other language than “addicts” and “the mentally ill” to describe your community while running for public office. Also, this is one of the main reasons y’all have isolated yourselves from those who used to support y’all. Crap dharma and understanding, it’s a joke, preach this while actioning against community folk with bear mace. You didn’t get your wishes with Noah and Refuge Recovery and shut down meetings at your space in Capitol Hill immediately, because y’all cause harm, whining about privileged nonsense. Neither of you are clinicians, and I don’t care how long in recovery either of you have; lived experience alone doesn’t guarantee a correct analysis of the needs of a community- Full stop. These are humans; please stop trying to teach bogus dharma and settle yourselves with your intolerance and hatred.
You’re literally running on nothing different than what council is trying to push; only you’re trying to package your brand as something different. Sure, the non-profit world is a mess at times; y’all might know this well. Feared for your life over a person experiencing homelessness, really? Some of us do this work everyday while you preach knowledge of the current drug trends and circumstances. Have either of you ever used fentanyl, or tried to understand why prohibition doesn’t work and only drives drug trends like the ones we are currently experiencing?
You both have become wildly unpopular across meditation communities because your approach is fake. Also, Rachel’s proposed ship em out of town to treatment-farm type approaches is trash, always has been; do you two need an accurate history lesson of narco-farms, stemming from almost 100 years ago? You both keep preaching this “knowledge” and having of the answers, yet didn’t mind posting up in Cal Anderson to hold meditations during the organized protest; was it just white enough, or something else comfort-related? Fair share of violence and substance use there, why leave that part out while using bear mace on community members; perhaps they’ll press charges and end this little charade for you both. I remember you kicking someone out of the meditation space on 10th when they came downstairs to the practice, nothing harmful done, yet they didn’t smell “ok” enough so YOU asked them to leave. No inclusivity in y’all’s arena. I’ve got kids that take that same light rail Rachel was scared to go down into with that Republican rep from eastern WA, nothing like fear mongering to make a point. Oh yeah, be fearless and forgiving every October for y’all’s “radical” practice 🙄
Please tell me how about your empathy and solutions? Again, you can’t even refer to your own community members as people. Your campaign is a laughing matter, and is rooted in cruelty; celebrating RFK and his nonsensical BS. Again, lived experience alone doesn’t guarantee you or your phony dharma teaching partner having a correct analysis of the needs of a community. You two are outdated and exhausting, and everyone worth their salt in behavioral health and dharma and meditation communities knows this.
I used to run the ongoing maintenance of these buildings. The heating system was old water/steam radiant heaters based on a boiler at each property fired by electric alone. Maybe in the 1920s they were oil fired, but that went away decades ago. I don’t even know how it could be converted, and I have literally looked at these old boilers. Both PHS and the buyer are full of shit.