released<\/a> its annual homeless assessment report on Friday. Findings show that homelessness is at its highest reported level since the department began surveying in 2007. The number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 12% between 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIndigenous people continue to be \u201coverrepresented\u201d in the data, according to HUD. They had the largest percentage increase of people experiencing sheltered homelessness, rising 18% in one year. They make up about 3% of the 653,104 people tallied in the study as experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in King County, where Seattle is located, the situation is especially dire. Anne Martens, senior director of communications at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, said between 9% and 15% of the homeless population identifies as Native or Indigenous. Demographically, they constitute only 1% of the total population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a clear need to increase capacity and culturally-relevant services for Native\/Indigenous people experiencing homelessness \u2014 that depends on funding, and on finding locations that will welcome shelter, housing, and supportive services,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Martens added that only 84 out of the county\u2019s 5,369 shelter beds are culturally specific to Native people. Belgarde explained that culturally specific shelters are essential because of many Indigenous people\u2019s mistrust in \u201cnon-Native systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen Natives find themselves in an urban city, they\u2019re not going to reach out to the mainstream providers because there\u2019s a mistrust. There\u2019s a feeling that they\u2019d be safer not accepting that help,\u201d Belgarde said. \u201cIt takes a Native face to encourage another Native person to want to come indoors, and that\u2019s what we provide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chief Seattle Club specializes in addressing the disproportionately high number of single adults who experience homelessness chronically in the Indigenous community due to disenfranchisement, substance abuse and mental illness. The nonprofit manages permanent supportive housing units and shelters \u2014 including Raven Village, consisting of 22 tiny homes, and Eagle Village, housing 35 people at a time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both shelters filled up at \u201clightning speed,\u201d according to Belgarde.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, Eagle Village is set to close at the end of March 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chase Gallagher, director of communications for the office of King County Executive Dow Constantine, said that King County Metro intends to use the property as parking for its fleet of nonrevenue vehicles. King County Metro is the government department responsible for public transportation in Seattle and King County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shelter was built on King County Metro property in 2019 with a special-use permit that was extended twice to coincide with the opening of Sacred Medicine House, a new permanent housing building with 120 units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Belgarde said, there is a threat of Eagle Village residents being pushed back to the streets because of construction delays on the project, as well as the slow process of leasing compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way to stop people from going straight to the streets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chief Seattle Club \u201cdefinitely\u201d plans to ask for another extension to avoid this outcome, Belgarde said. He hopes that King County Metro can find an alternative to allow Eagle Village to remain until the organization can secure another shelter location: \u201cIf they\u2019re looking for a parking lot, there are plenty of blank spots all around the area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the organization manages other permanent housing projects, Belgarde emphasized the importance of Eagle Village because the shelter programming keeps people engaged with case managers, allows room checks and teaches necessary skills and community values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that people who enter permanent housing units \u201cfresh off the street\u201d are more likely to become homeless again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you put somebody who has been chronically homeless for years straight into a lease, they are more likely to fail or have issues because they don\u2019t have certain life skills, such as tenant skills,\u201d he said. \u201cHaving the chance to work with people, show them love and compassion, and build that community grounds them and gets them ready to be in a permanent unit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gallagher said that King County is looking into other avenues to assist with securing an extension to the looming expiration in March 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"King County Metro intends to use its Eagle Village property for parking after a special-use permit expires. Homelessness in the U.S. is at a record high, according to new data released by the federal government this week. And as in previous years, Indigenous people are overrepresented among Americans experiencing homelessness. Members of Chief Seattle Club, a nonprofit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5780],"tags":[8186,10444,1491,2699,6911,5351],"class_list":["post-21522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-livehood","tag-aboriginal","tag-america-2","tag-homeless","tag-number","tag-seattle","tag-shelter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21524,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21522\/revisions\/21524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}