Community members in Seattle’s Chinatown say they were left out of conversations to expand a homeless shelter in the area.
According to KING 5, the county council made plans to expand the shelter in SODO, the International District and Pioneer Square back in May. The new shelter will provide housing for 500 people. It will have an RV space and a sobering center.
Chinatown residents held a meeting to discuss the homeless shelter on Friday. Community member Matt Chan said that the government did not consult community members about the homeless shelter.
“The government is supposed to help people, not do things to people,” Chan said, according to KING 5. “They’re deciding what’s best for our community with cursory community engagement, and that’s just dead wrong.”
Residents in Chinatowns throughout the country have been pushing back against city plans they feel put their neighbhoords at a disadvantage. In Spring 2022, residents in New York City’s Chinatown fought plans to construct a large jail in the area.
But Chan wants to make it clear that the frustrations are with the city’s neglect of Chinatown, not with the unhoused.
“It’s not the unhoused that are causing the problem. It’s a contributing factor to how the city is neglecting this neighborhood,” he told KING 5.
One community member felt that the placement of the expanded shelter was racist.
“There are empty lots and empty buildings in white neighborhoods, and the fact that you do not schedule it is racist. Absolutely flat out racist,” they said, according to KING 5.
It is unclear if the city council will revisit plans in light of the recent meeting.
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