He credited former executive director Colleen Echohawk with leading an expansion that now involves 75-80 employees and a budget of $17 million (Echohawk is also a former board member of KUOW).īelgarde said leaders like Echohawk highlighted the stark disparity in Seattle’s homeless population: Indigenous people make up 1% of the city’s population but 15% of those who are homeless and an even larger share of those chronically homeless. It's a remarkable ramp-up for a nonprofit that Belgarde said had 10 employees and a budget of $600,000 when he joined it seven years ago. And the Chief Seattle Club will open a café with an Indigenous-inspired menu, which can eventually offer workforce training.
The new apartment building in Pioneer Square will house adults, mostly in studios but there are some units intended for two people, that could allow adult couples or siblings or caregivers to live together.īelgarde said there’s still much more to come at that location: the Seattle Indian Health Board will host a health clinic and pharmacy on the ground floor. But other touches, like timers to turn off the stove burners, are meant to provide safety for what Belgarde calls a “high-acuity” population – people dealing with health and substance use challenges.īelgarde said the Chief Seattle Club has other housing projects in the pipeline including 120 units in Lake City, family and studio housing on the North Seattle College campus, and 63 units of senior housing in Fremont. The building is replete with original artwork, including the façade that depicts canoes traversing the beauty of the Northwest. “So we knew that we need more, we need something permanent, so our members that are suffering can get into a place of safety, in this case ‘?al?al.’ And then start bringing them that healing, bringing in that cultural component, that spiritual component.” Belgarde said it’s hard for people to recover from trauma in a day-center setting. They started with Eagle Village, a modular housing project in Sodo, in 2019. “We’ve known we wanted to get into housing for a very long time," said Derrick Belgarde, executive director of the Chief Seattle Club. The building adjoins the Chief Seattle Club’s day center, which for years has offered caseworkers and services to Indigenous people. An average rent is about $250, subsidized with private and government funding. It will ultimately house up to 96 people, most of them Native Americans and Alaska Natives who have been experiencing homelessness. That’s the word for “home” in the Lushootseed language.
The 80-unit apartment building is named "?al?al," (roughly pronounced “ All All” in English).
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