The following is a message from the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods:
City staff and Friends of Little Saigon met to check-in on the response plan in addressing community concerns about the Navigation Center.
The City is committed to working with Friends of Little Saigon to implement a community-driven plan to show clear commitment of how the Seattle Navigation Center will address neighborhood concerns. This includes an implementation and monitoring plan on programmatic and operational elements of the Navigation Center, and assessing impacts on community regarding health, safety and economy and identifying best communication protocols. This also means better understanding how the city can better support community driven efforts in the neighborhood in conjunction with the city’s own plans. There was consensus at the meeting that there is a need to do some additional work before presenting this to the neighborhood.
As a result, we have canceled the 4/24 Public Meeting.
I understand that there are many questions outside this effort that needs to be addressed, particularly around sanitation, encampments and housing for folks coming out of the Navigation Center. In addition, DON is working with HSD to provide more information around the site selection process and the usage of the Racial Equity Toolkit. If you have any questions about these elements, or anything else on how the Navigation Center will operate, please contact Jess Chow at City of Seattle Human Services Department (HSD) at [email protected].
In the meantime, Friends of Little Saigon would love to welcome you to attend a series of meetings that they are hosting on this topic. You can find a full schedule of meetings here, as well as a compilation of past meeting minutes.
