The Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) is looking for a mid-summer opening for King County’s planned, and unsuccessfully fought, Crisis Solutions Center in Jackson Place. The 16th and Lane facility is intended to serve as a place for people having a mental crisis to get the help they need instead of placing additional burden on the county’s hospital and incarceration systems.
“A lot of people are being taken to the ER or jail by default because a more appropriate resource is not available,” Bill Hobson, Director of the DESC, told CDNews last year. Hobson, a Jackson Place resident himself, was trying to reassure his worried neighbors that the facility would not be a danger or detriment to the neighborhood.
Rather, Hobson said the new center is intended to be a “more therapeutic place for [the clients] to be in.”
But a group of neighbors saw the Crisis Solutions Center as a backdoor way of building a detention facility in an area where such facilities are not legally allowed. The group filed lawsuits to stop the Center, but the judged ruled against them. The deadline to file an appeal has passed, and renovation work on the facility is underway.
In the meantime, King County Councilmember Larry Gossett lead an effort to facilitate creation of a Good Neighbor Agreement between concerned neighbors and the new Center. That agreement (posted below) calls for the creation of an advisory committee to weigh in on Center decisions from here on out. The advisory committee will meet at least every six months after the facility opens.
I had the joy of witnessing the activity at 1905 Jackson last Friday – “Corp Money Management”. Basically drug freaks of all sorts go there to collect a small disbersment and the Corp people skim off excess money that would have been instantly wasted by the crackheads. The block is lined by pimps and drug dealers waiting for various individuals exiting the facility with vouchers and cash. The vouchers are traded for drugs. Also lost prostitutes are rounded up and returned to there owners. It is a truly frightening scene. Drunks stumbling up the surrounding blocks in to the center and stumbling gack out. Whole bus loads spilling onto the street heading in to Corp and then spending the day milling about the Jackson Place Neighborhood.
These are the people that are invited to our neighborhood. They are not wanted downtown so send them to the CD or up to Aurora where the less affluent neighborhoods don’t have the political clout and cash to do anything about it.
Let’s see how well DESC can control the inevitable parasites waiting to collect their ho’s and debters. Good luck to the folks on Lane street. Enjoy the pimmps.
Thanks for post. I saw that last week and was wondering what was going on. I guess I am finally a NIMBY and think this sucks.
“They are not wanted downtown….”
Do you ever even get downtown? Have you ever SEEN the DESC? Believe me, downtown gets more than their share of freaks, thanks to DESC, UGM, Lazarus center, etc.
Just as in the CD, Pioneer Square will never be a nice neighborhood until they move all the county’s social services out of there. Maybe it made sense to locate all of it there in the 70’s, but not now.
OK, Point taken, but, that is the reason they are shuffling the slobbering goobs to the CD. What we need is to stop feeding them. The are like seagulls and pigeons. It feels good to throw french fries to them and watch them sqauble. But it isn’t good for them and it isn’t good for the city. Seaguls an pigeons crapping all over the place. Flying in from far away and staying as permanent residents. And so many people are feeding the pigeons that rat populations are also exploding. Rats are now prowling the streets in daylight ravaging out from the ramshackle restaraunts and into peoples homes. Same with the derelict population. A fraction of them are people we can help. We need to sort that out, not just throw free pants, blankets, and spagettie at them.
That Corp Management place is the worst thing in the CD. Uhgg. How much money are they able to pilfer from the drug addicts and government? Do they pay taxes?
As the article mentions, this isn’t a replacement for the Downtown Emergency Services, it’s for those having a mental crisis. Too often they end up at Harborview when really, they just need some counseling…not health staff that could be dealing with medical emergencies. Nothing in the article says anything about handouts or anything else your “slobbering” post refers to.
I think the post was about the slobbering goobs on Jackson street. Nobody will be bussing in drunks and crack heads to the the DESC location. We should have only 10-45 admittances there on a daily basis. They probably will not be visibly slobbering or roaming the streets very often.
The concern over preditors waiting for the release of individuals is justified. The comunity can help by keeping an eye out for loiterers, as we always should. I would expect no impact if we are engaged.
That said – can we do something about the horror occuring on Jackson? The middle school kids have to push their way past crowds of drunks and crack heads on the sidewalks at in the 1900 block of Jackson. When school gets out there must be 100 or so kids walking west on Jackson. I encourage you all to take a look and see if you think Corp Money Management is a good neighbor or providing a valid benefit to anyone. I think not. Let’s tell them to clean up or move out.
DESC says there will be no similar activity on Lane and we trust that based on the lack of problems at their other locations.
What are slobbering goobs?