Category: General

My name is Elaine Nelson, and I’m the 2007 ENA Board President.  I’ve lived on Frederick near Lions Park for five years, and volunteered with the ENA as webmaster for the last few years.  Last week I decided I’d start posting some regular notes about things going on in the neighborhood and with the neighborhood association.  I’ll try to keep it interesting and frequent.

Today’s note….

Early this morning I rode around in a truck with Lee and Ron from Public Works.  We stopped every few blocks along the edge of the neighborhood, yellow lights blinking and me with my cameraphone, setting the final locations for the neighborhood welcome signs.

If you came to the picnic, then you’ve seen the signs.  Otherwise, just visualize the logo on a white, slightly reflective sign with rounded corners. Those signs are going up at visible entry points to the neighborhood, with help from a City matching grant.

It turns out that mostly we can put them up on existing poles, pretty much all light poles.  (Which is sort of annoying, because we bought posts & set them in cement last year, and we’re only going to need a couple, with a few more for backup!) They should have great visibility, too.

We dropped one of the locations: that entrance point at 7th & Boulevard is just too complicated already! But in general, everything’s looking good. The board is reviewing the location information now, and we should be able to hand off to the city by early next week at the latest. (I need to get the pictures from my Windows Mobile phone onto my Macbook, though, which I haven’t done yet and am sort of dreading.)  There’ll be an opportunity to see at least one of the signs installed and get pics, and then every time you drive into the neighborhood — at least along the busiest routes — you’ll be greeted by a lovely Eastside sign.

The study and comment information can be found at the City of Olympia Web site:
http://www.olympiawa.gov/cityservices/par/parkprojects/

Comments on the draft are due by July 7.

An update from ENA president Jody Suhrbier:

Hello again everyone,

I hope to have this be my last blanket email about the temporary changes taking place at Bread & Roses, so as not to inundate you with email. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions, and as always, feel free to use the forum on our website, www.eastside-olympia.org, to share thoughts with neighbors, on this and other topics.

As you know from my message from May 16th, Bread & Roses has decided, with Thurston County Housing Authority input, to move 8 of 32 men from the current Devoe street shelter to the women’s shelter on 8th. This will last until approximately December of this year, depending on how quickly the new Devoe street shelter is completed.

The driving force behind this change is 1) Bread & Roses was originally told that all men at the old shelter could stay until the new facility was built; it was just recently that they found this not to be true, and 2) women are slightly easier to place into alternative housing than men, using federal tenant rent vouchers, available at the county level.

Comments received from neighbors in the last week have varied from strongly supporting Bread & Roses mission, and their place as one of our neighbors, to wanting more information about the situation, to wanting the ENA to step in and block this change.

Information that I have obtained from Bread & Roses administrator, Selena Kilmoyer since my last message includes:

• the 8 men staying at the 8th Ave. shelter have been screened; there are no drug users or sexual predators.

• 4 are on Social Security disability, and 4 are day laborers, when work is available.

• Selena has successfully implemented a “no visitors” policy at the existing men’s shelter, and will do the same with the men on 8th Ave.

• Selena is requesting the City of Olympia police department to do “run-throughs” of this portion of the neighborhood more frequently than they currently do, to help ensure further safety for surrounding neighbors.

I have also learned, from a City of Olympia housing specialist, information that is available for public viewing relating to Bread & Roses conditional use permit issued in 1988. At that time, a permit was issued that allowed B&R to have women and children only at the shelter. As of two years ago, families were placed elsewhere, and only single women were housed there.

Fair housing laws have changed since 1988, and there is the possibility that such laws barring discrimination on several issues, including sex, would override the conditional use permit, though a legal opinion has not been sought by the city.

That’s about it. Again, please let me know if you have further questions.

Jody M. Suhrbier
Board President
Eastside Neighborhood Association
[email protected]

Jody Suhrbier, the association president, recently sent this email to her list of regular contacts:

This evening, I received a phone call from Selena Kilmoyer, administrator at Bread & Roses, who operates the shelter on 8th Ave. Some temporary changes are coming to this location, and I suspect some of you will want to know about them.

Bread & Roses also operates a men’s shelter on Devoe St., which is being replaced by a larger facility. It was originally thought that the men in this shelter could stay in the old unit while the new one was being built. They have recently found out that this will not be possible. Selena met with members of the Transitional Housing Authority to identify the best solution to the situation last week, and together they decided the
following:

-the women currently housed at the 8th Ave. women’s shelter (duplex) will be
moved into apartments ASAP.

-8 men will be moved from Devoe street to the 8th Ave. shelter as soon as
next week.

Selena assures me that the 8 men will be screened to be the safest men of the group, though we didn’t get into detail about this.

These changes are temporary and expected to last until December of 2006.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know, and I can compile them and speak again with Selena in a few days.

See the contact page for Jody’s email address and phone number.  You can also discuss this topic on the ENA forum.