Combating homelessness: DESC plans new housing facility in Interbay
Interbay is set to receive more housing to help serve the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Daniel Malone, executive director for Downtown Emergency Service Center, shared the organization’s plans to open a new permanent supportive housing facility on 15th Avenue West in Interbay at the Queen Anne Community Council meeting Oct. 12.
DESC is a homelessness service organization focused on serving adults experiencing homelessness, particularly people with more complicated conditions, such as mental illness and substance abuse disorders. In addition to running and operating shelters, DESC is a behavioral health organization licensed to provide mental health and substance abuse services as part of the work it does, Malone said.
“Supportive housing … is far and away the most researched intervention for chronic homelessness and the one that has the best outcomes for people in exiting homelessness,” Malone said.
DESC already has considerable background providing services in the Queen Anne and Interbay neighborhoods, Malone said.
For many years, it operated an overnight shelter on the grounds of Sacred Heart Church in Uptown by the Seattle Center. More recently, DESC ran an overnight shelter for men in lower Queen Anne on property owned by Seattle City Light on Roy Street.
DESC also opened a 100-unit supportive housing facility called Interbay Place on the Queen side of 15th and Boston, Malone said.
That facility is similar to what DESC is pursuing further north on 15th Avenue West, Malone said.
Architects have begun design on the new facility at 2626 15th Ave. W., across from the golf course. When finished it will feature 105 studio units on the upper floors, and a reception desk, consult rooms, in-house medical office, lounge area, conference rooms and commercial kitchen and dining area on the ground floor.
“These are relatively small studio apartments that are furnished but fully equipped with a small kitchen and a bathroom,” Malone said, adding that the units are about 350 square feet and meant to house one person.
Tenant services offered to residents include case management or support services on-site; meals and transportation assistance; community events or groups on-site; accessible building design; medical outreach; help with chores.
“So, the purpose of this kind of housing is to help people who have, you know, really significant challenges in their lives obtain and retain housing, because what we find is that people are house-able — typically, when people move into their housing they remain in it for the long term, and their lives get much, much better,” Malone said. “They end up with better health outcomes, they end up happier, they end up finding different says to connect with the life of the community after often very lengthy and traumatic life experiences.”
Malone said the facility would feature secure entries and a reception desk that will be staffed 24 hours a day throughout the year. Visitors will be required to check in at the front desk.
“We do have a significant focus on our role as a neighbor in the neighborhoods in which we have buildings, and that includes a focus on safety, so we want to make sure tenants are safe in their buildings and their apartments,” Malone said, adding tenants are required to sign an expectations agreement with their leases.
Malone said DESC began designing the facility in May and applied for funding in September. The organization has already met with surrounding residents during a neighborhood community meeting and will host another in November.
As well, DESC hopes to close on the project in November and secure public funding awards in December. Malone said architects will submit a building permit in March of 2023, with construction beginning in August 2023.
“Typically, construction is taking 16 months or something like that, so we wouldn’t anticipate opening this building for tenants until the latter part of 2024 or early part of 2025,” Malone said.
When opened, the facility is intended to provide long-term or permanent housing for tenants.
“Many people stay, either until the end of their lives or they need a higher level of care,” Malone said. “The average age of people in our housing is early to mid-50s, and one unfortunate reality of long periods of time on the streets is that people have pretty significantly shortened life expectancy,” Malone said. “And so a number of people are known to have a life expectancy in the early 60s, and so we do see a lot of end-of-life kind of issues even among people who aren’t very old, and so that is one of the reason we focus on bring some healthcare resources and other support for people into our buildings oftentimes, because the mainstream long-term care system doesn’t accommodate them super-well, sometimes.”
Malone said DESC would be interested in establishing a good-neighbor agreement with the Queen Anne Community Council, a common practice between organizations such as DESC and neighbors, as well as showing the plans for the facility, as they develop, with the QACC Land Use Review Committee.
For more information on DESC, visit www.desc.org. Contact community engagement coordinator Anne Williamson, awilliamson@desc.org, with questions.