Real Change moving from Belltown to Pioneer Square

I have contacted Real Change and we have a meeting + tour planned. After talking with friends and coworkers, I realize that when I posted this a week or so ago, that I framed the conversation in the wrong way. I think Real Change is an incredible organization and they do great things for the region’s homeless. Pioneer Square is also a model community for how they deal with homelessness and the low income population. Even though we have under 2,500 residents, we have a history of great relationships with the shelters and human services located here. What it really comes down to is that homelessness is a city-wide issue, not a neighborhood issue, and there are a few factors that lead many of the services to locate in Pioneer Square (history, the free ride zone, etc.) What I’m doing now is working on a dialogue with Real Change, with the Homeless Intervention Director for the City’s Human Services Dept, and other organizations to talk about broadening the support for the homeless community and not sending the message to the homeless/low income that they should only feel comfortable in one or two neighborhoods. This is a long update, but I wanted to add it to this post in case anyone comes back to read it, but I’m not quite ready for a new post yet.

Every now and then, I do a search for “Pioneer Square” on twitter to see what people are talking about and if there’s something new going on that I may not have heard about. A few weeks ago, I came across this announcement on Real Change’s twitter page:

To be honest – I was shocked. I know some people feel like they have a few too many human services in their neighborhood, but there’s no doubt that Pioneer Square has the highest concentration. When the Pioneer Square neighborhood plan was being worked on, one of the issues that was stressed was that there should be a moratorium on new human services moving in or current human services expanding.

Just to be very clear — I am supportive of many of the human services in our neighborhood. This isn’t about whether a human service is good or bad or if you love them or hate them — it’s about the fact that if you have a concentration of services in one neighborhood, it sends the message that that’s the only place they should feel comfortable being. Not in other “nicer” neighborhoods, but yes, you are welcome in Pioneer Square.

I called Real Change to find out more information about the move because I couldn’t find anything on their blog or website or twitter. Real Change was very open and willing to talk about it. Apparently they are supposed to open May 24th in their new location on Main between 1st + Western. When I asked them if they were worried about potential objections from the neighborhood, they said that the Landlord was satisfied with the measures and precautions they take.

Which isn’t really an answer.

In an email, however, they gave the reasons for their move:

“In my conversations with donors, businesses and community leaders, people are excited for our move to the area.“

Not sure what people they’ve been talking to — no one seems to have known about it until it showed up on twitter. That means that they haven’t even reached out to the Pioneer Square Board, or other leaders in the community.

“Our relocation to Pioneer Square serves several objectives to us, to the community as a whole and to our vendors.  Moving outside of the Downtown area, as many non-profits have done, is not practical for our vendors or our community.  Pioneer Square is affordable and in need of vibrant businesses and organizations like ours.  We aim to be good neighbors, as we have been for 15 years in Belltown.”

I understand why they want to stay downtown, however, we are very aware and open regarding the problems that we’re having with homelessness and drug dealing down here — similar to Belltown, but we have it more concentrated. Bringing their vendors down here is going to expose them to the drug dealers that target the population of people who utilize the existing services in the area. One Real Change vendor even recently said that she was nervous about coming to Pioneer Square to pick up her papers and wasn’t sure if she would continue with the program.

Continuing in the email, they then stated how they would help the neighborhood:

What we bring to Pioneer Square is a staff of 12 employees and 4 full-time interns, as well as many volunteers and donors, who will be in the area daily- buying lunch, buying parking, shopping on their lunch breaks and bringing their families and friends into the area.

Not to be overly cynical, but 16 staffers don’t really outweigh the queuing of 400 vendors that is going to take place [as I mentioned above — setting up yet another target for the drug dealers], or the fact that it’s contributing to Pioneer Square becoming a one stop shop for most of Seattle’s homeless.

Morning queue at Lazarus Day Center + known location of heavy drug and alcohol usage and fighting

Because of the decision of Elliott Bay Book Co to move at the end of this month, our neighborhood has received a lot of attention. We have a revitalization committee led by OED, and a lot of people working on activating the neighborhood, as well as articles and TV features.

There are a lot of people working really hard on this neighborhood right now and no matter how good Real Change is for homelessness, it just feels like taking a step in the wrong direction.

If Real Change really wants to be a good neighbor and to be a part of the neighborhood, it would have been nice if they had done some outreach and met with PSCA and other Pioneer Square business owners and residents to talk about how their move would affect Pioneer Square, and even how being located in our neighborhood could affect the vendors in their program.

I’m very supportive of what they’re doing for homelessness and I would just hope they would be equally supportive of what we’re trying to do for our neighborhood. I would also hope that the landlords who are leasing out spaces would be mindful of how each tenant can help/hurt Pioneer Square.