Supportive housing planned for site near St. Peter Hospital where RVs are camped
Last October, a stretch of Ensign Road in Olympia was the scene of a tense standoff between city officials and people living in RVs, dozens of whom were parked along the street that snakes its way past greenery and wetlands toward the largest hospital in Thurston County.
Concerns from ambulance drivers trying to navigate past debris made their way to Providence Health, and to the city of Olympia, which ordered the RV residents to leave, an ultimatum that was called off because of the governor’s moratorium on evictions.
Now, Providence has a new plan for the 46-acre site: supportive housing for chronically homeless seniors.
The idea emerged from a community health assessment that Providence does each year, according to spokesperson Angela Maki.
“It wasn’t a shock to us that homelessness came up as one of the highest priorities in our community,” she said.
According to materials presented to Olympia’s Home Fund Advisory Board last Wednesday, Providence seeks to construct a four-story building with 70-80 studio apartments and eight more units for people in “recuperative care.”
It wouldn’t be the first project of its kind: Providence, through its housing wing, operates more than a dozen supportive housing buildings, mostly for seniors, in Centralia, Chehalis, Seattle, Portland, and other West Coast cities.
“This project is still in the very early investigative stage,” Maki said. “There is still years’ worth of work to even get to the point where we are breaking ground.”
Providence owns the land, which is zoned RM-18 (Residential Multifamily 18 units per acre) and bound by Martin Way to the south, Ensign Road to the west, and state-designated class one wetlands to the north and east.
The ecology of the area may present challenges, so the project is not a sure thing. Environmental testing is underway to determine if the site is viable to build on.
The tentative timeline is to spend 2022 securing funding; construction could begin as soon as spring or summer of 2023. Maki said she is not aware of any other property owned by Providence where housing could be built, so if this doesn’t work out, it would be back to square one.
With regard to the RV campers, who number about 50, Maki described it as “not an ideal situation for them or us,” but said that progress is being made under the joint city-county “scattered-site” plan.
“We’re really hopeful that the work that they’re doing will help guide a lot of the folks that are living on Ensign Road into services long before this project comes to fruition,” Maki said.
This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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