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Seattle homeless shelter capacity to increase 25 percent

The bill, which Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan signed Friday, will serve 500 additional people each night through increased shelter beds and affordable housing.
Beds at Compass, a new low-barrier homeless shelter, at First Presbyterian.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan signed legislation Friday to increase bridge housing and shelter capacity by 25 percent over the next 90 days.

“When people have access to shelter, they’re more likely to take advantage of services like behavioral health, hygiene services, and employment support, and then move to permanent housing,” Durkan said in a statement. “We all have to contribute to solutions to this crisis.”

Durkan’s legislation, which City Council unanimously passed Monday, will help serve 500 additional people each night.

RELATED: Seattle doesn’t have ‘remotely’ enough affordable housing, homeless woman says

The funding will create 233 new shelter beds at places such as the navigation center, 75 new spaces at Haddon Hall apartments in Belltown, and 100 beds at City Hall. It will also go towards the existing Whitter Heights Women’s Village and the new tiny home villages in South Lake Union and at 18th Avenue and Yesler Way.

Seattle currently has 2,032 shelter spaces, which are 93 percent full each night, according to Durkan’s office.

When Durkan announced the plan in May, she made it clear she believes the money was an effective use of taxpayer dollars.

“We need more humane, more safe spaces for people to live and be so we don't have tents on our streets, garbage on our thoroughfares,” Durkan said in May.

The legislation comes a week after City Council repealed a controversial employee head tax that would have raised about $47 million for homeless and housing services.

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