It is estimated that over 40,000 people (10 times the seating capacity of the Renton Memorial Stadium) are homeless in King County. Of these 40,000, the majority are concentrated, not at the fringes of society, but in the densely populated urban centers. Our city of Renton, the neighboring Rainier Beach area, and the adjacent Skyway Hill host high shanty town populations outside of the infamous ‘Seattle Jungle’ and surrounding metropolitan areas. In our city, there are three main camps that the homeless have constructed: the camp in the fields under the powerlines off the side of Renton Avenue moving west up to Skyway, the largest and most constructed camp off to the sides of the Cedar River trail (shoveled over two months during the winter of 2022, there are stairs carved into the clay and tents populating the high ridges above and obstructing the municipal trail system that connects the La Rosa Meadows backyard to the trail), and lastly, there are dotted areas off of the Boeing train tracks that have been set up and quickly abandoned at the behest of cleanup groups.
Efforts were made by King County officials to start a homeless initiative and help people off the streets by leasing an extended stay at an inn hotel called “The Red Lion,” located off of Rainer and Grady Way S. It was leased to the county for $32 million dollars and housed over 200 homeless people when it opened in January. It was home to many through the rough months of the COVID-19 lockdown. Then it went up in flames. A man was arrested for arson and the homeless were moved to another extended-stay hotel down the road for a flat rate of $28 million, where they are now.
Astute readers may have noticed that The Red Lion Hotel seems to be derelict and abandoned as of now. Owing to the county’s extended lease of the property, taxpayers are still paying 330k a month for an empty hotel that only hosts private security guards and no residents. At the end of the day, King County has used $55 million and a change of taxpayer dollars and is still locked into payments and repairs for an abandoned building that has no current plans for reacquisition.
(Picture of the Red Lion Hotel in Renton, which is currently fenced off from entry.)
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