They really needed help, so I introduced myself, convinced some people to go to bed, and jumped in.
The organizers were skilled and inclusive, but we were pedaling fast in deep water. Donations were pouring in. New people were always showing up and the cops could come at any moment.
It's a long story with rich characters. I learned more about life, people and jail that few weeks than any school could offer in years. Two years later, I was working for SHARE (Seattle Housing and Resource Effort). The Pacific was still empty, waiting to be renovated, so we negotiated a lease with Plymouth Housing Group, the new owners, for a self-run shelter.
The summer of '94, I was back at the Pacific Hotel, supporting people in running their own place. I heard a lot of stories, helplessly watched the drama of tragic lives, and became part of their street-shocked family, from behind the slender walls of the rummy cards I frequently held in my hand. People who lived there that summer still talk about the Pacific Hotel. There was a sweetness, a softening of the calluses. There was something there that made people who knew better call it home.
Dizzy and sniffling from a bad cold, I went to the grand opening, thinking, "Today will hold a rare recognition for people who work in the trenches. A concrete win for the homeless, developed by the Hortons, who at least this time, heard the Whos. We are here. We are here. "
It was really quite a feat what the Seattle community did with that building. Under Plymouth's development, the building has a mix of 112 one-bedroom and studio apartments, providing subsidized housing for a refreshing variety of people with different needs. 20% of its units are set aside so that NW AIDS Foundation, Seattle Mental Health, Veteran's Administration and Harborview Mental Health can make direct client referrals.
It's an 8.5 million dollar, carefully crafted, complicated deal, with major funding coming from HUD, SAFECO, Boeing and the government. Go Plymouth Housing.
The opening was one of those moments in history when, despite conflicts of interest and ideological differences, a wide spectrum of people did something really damned good. The radicals and homeless people demonstrated their plight with enough force to make it an issue.
Plymouth stepped in to make a buy and the two groups used their widely different tactics over 6 months to persuade Luke Helms, the top guy at SeaFirst Bank, to sell. The project picked up contributors with money and connections and here we are. Take out one player and all we would have at 4th & Marion is a luxury hotel.
So when I got to the Open House, I was shocked to find myself underdressed, eating shrimp and feeling really out of place. I wanted to leave, but figured I came all that way, I might as well watch the ceremony. SHARE was mistakenly given credit for Homestead's deeds and only funders were given awards.
Unexpectedly, Jim Page, a local musician, backed up on harmonica by Joe Martin, a long-time housing activist and social worker, played the Ballad of the Pacific Hotel to nervous laughter and shuffling feet. It was an awkward moment that was highlighted by the Reverend's previous mention that "No one has done this by themselves. Let us be thankful for the names that we don't know."
Things broke up pretty fast after that, and I hung around to talk to some Homestead members who had crept in at the back. A lot has changed in three years.
People who used to be into civil disobedience to create housing are now busy keeping won projects open. The city has displayed a zero tolerance of civil disobedience with immediate arrests, one SWAT team and a bit of police brutality. The radical end of the spectrum has almost disappeared, leaving an unbalanced scale in the fight to end homelessness.
It's a perfect reflection of national politics. The progressive groups and even some moderates get treated with the same severity as the former radicals, who used to serve as cushions, serving as our conscience while allowing the progressives to get more allies from the establishment.
In this increasingly competitive and unfeeling world, we need to take the challenge of empowerment and diversity-celebrating philosophies to heart in order to survive. We need to learn to appreciate conflict without estrangement and embrace our differences as our teachers.
We need to use our tenuous relationships with the bigger powers to teach respect of diversity by striving to be an example-and we should respect the ones that make a big stink, when many of us, with our jobs at risk, cannot. And, with the astronomical rise of homelessness, some of us need to rejoin forces and get back to kicking butt.