Seattle's Chinatown-International District gets its own public safety ambassadors

Seattle’s Chinatown-International district will become the city's next neighborhood to use a public ambassador program to address safety concerns.

Starting June 1, the C-ID Ambassadors Program will train volunteers to help residents and business owners build a safer neighborhood through de-escalation services.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the launch of the initiative Wednesday at Hing Hay Park.

"We know for too long that we've had conditions that are intolerable," Harrell said. "People are struggling with health issues, addictions."

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The launch of the program follows years of outcry from business owners and residents of the Chinatown-International District about a high concentration of drug use and crime in the neighborhood. Harrell compared overcoming those issues to pushing a boulder up a hill.

"We think we're making considerable progress," Harrell said.

According to Georgette Bhathena, the chief programs officer at The Asian American Foundation, a 2024 study commissioned by the nonprofit found that 54% of Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders said that public safety was either a "major problem" or "somewhat of a problem" in Seattle.

To address public safety concerns, investment is required at a local level, Bhathena said. That's pushed the national foundation to join Amazon and the City of Seattle in a combined $1 million investment over the next two years to fund the ambassadors program.

"The C-ID ambassadors will walk and watch over neighborhood blocks to ensure that they are safer, cleaner, and cared for," Bhathena said. "We believe that working together with coalitions like this one, we can strengthen neighborhoods."

The C-ID Ambassadors Program is modeled after similar programs that are running through partnerships with the Downtown Seattle Association and the Ballard Alliance.

Yenvy Pham is a James Beard Award-nominated restaurateur. She owns two businesses in the CID, Phở Bắc Súp Shop and the coffee shop Hello Em.

She said the hope of the ambassador program is to "reconnect" members of the neighborhood, and to have a "human-to-human connection" as the neighborhood navigates traumatic situations.

"Maybe two weeks ago, someone [overdosed] in front of Súp Shop," Pham said. "And this guy was laying there, and everyone was just walking past him."

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Later, as Pham watched the security footage, she noticed how "easy" it was for people to walk by and ignore the man.

In Pham's eyes, the aim of the ambassador program is to "engage" and "actually care for each other and see if everyone's doing okay."

Eradicating homelessness and drug use is "not going to happen," according to Pham, but the program is a step in getting people the services they need.