Eastlake Drinks
Looks like the Grey Lady has finally caught up with all the attention {#, #} Metblogs has given 1811 Eastlake, the long-term housing for hard-core “unsympathetic” alcoholic homeless people in Samantha‘s neighborhood. Unlike traditional treatment or housing programs, alcoholics are allowed to drink in their rooms and are not required to attend treatment or therapy. Still, the cost of this kind of housing is apparently cheaper than repeated trips to the emergency room.
Interesting tidbits from the New York Times‘ coverage:
-Residents have more serious health problems than anticipated, and four have already passed away in the year the apartments have been open.
-The Bush administration thinks the experiment is “glorious.” Insert political joke here.
-Paramedics average 20 visits a month to the building.
-33% of the residents are Native American. That seems rather high, but I don’t know much about the ethnic makeup of Seattle’s homeless population in general.
Two things:
1. the picture that accompanies this post is not actually anywhere near the project, due to a strange addressing error in MS Live, Local, GoogleMaps, etc. The building is located at the corner of Denny and Eastlake, essentially under the Denny Overpass.
2. While it is true that in traditional treatment programs, people are not allowed to drink in their rooms, this is simply an apartment building. People who live in apartment buildings (subsidized or not) are “allowed” to drink in their rooms.
1) Man, the poor condo owners in whatever building we put in that bulls-eye just saw their property values drop.
2) I agree the rhetoric surrounding the “allowed to drink but only in their rooms” is a bit confused — at least in the early Seattle Times and P-I coverage I’ve read. For one, how would the minimal staff ever police drinking anywhere else? Follow each resident into the Zoo? I don’t know if the idea was that creating a disturbance on the street or nearby parks would be grounds for eviction or something like that…
Well, the building on the right is a gym and the Hutch’s HVTN program and a coffee shop. So their property values are safe.
I believe that the terms of living there are indeed that you will be kicked out if you created any sort of disturbance outside of your room. Not sure if that’s still how it works or, for that matter, if it works at all.
WTF does HVTN stand for, out of curiosity?
HIV Trials Network.
1. You gonna remove that picture, then?
2. Any disturbance is grouds for eviction. DESC’s rules can be viewed in pdf format at http://www.desc.org