List of locations narrows down for Bellevue men's shelter
Bellevue officials narrowed down where to place a homeless men’s shelter at a meeting Monday night. There were three potential locations: the Eastgate Public Health Center, a site in the Wilburton neighborhood, and an operations maintenance facility (OMF East) owned by Sound Transit.
Bellevue Mayor John Stokes said they decided to drop the Wilburton site.
“The next step is continuing to move forward with the planning work on the Eastgate facility,” Stokes said. “In the meantime we’re taking a look at [OMF East] to see if that’s feasible. And then how that might work into what our goals are.”
Steve Roberts is with Congregations for the Homeless. He’s the project manager for the shelter’s permanent location and said the two given choices are fairly the same but spoke on their differences.
“The Eastgate site has a little bit more transportation,” Roberts said. “The OMF East is a lot more expensive.”
Does Roberts have a preference?
“The sooner we can get a site, the sooner we can begin to get more people off the street and out of homelessness into housing,” he said. “So that’s my only concern is that without a clear decision, it makes it a little harder to move forward.”
Bellevue City Council members will be the ones making the call on the site’s final destination.
They’re scheduled to meet again on June 26.
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Angela Nhi Nguyen
Reporter
Angela describes KUOW as her "radio womb." She started out in the station's youth program, RadioActive, and has continued to tell stories over the airwaves ever since. She currently is a mentor for RadioActive and also serves as a general assignment news reporter. Over the years, Angela has received awards for her work including a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, two PRNDIs, and a Korva Coleman Excellence Award. She was also part of NPR's Next Generation Radio Project. Angela worked at Northwest Public Radio for three years as an announcer/assistant producer for the local All Things Considered. She was a freelance reporter for Northwest News Network and even made it onto the national newscast a couple times as a teenager. She has one year left at Washington State University. Angela loves telling anecjokes (anecdotes with cheesy twists) and petting her cats that she's furry allergic to.
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