In the early morning hours of Friday, Jan. 24, hundreds of King County residents gathered at dozens of meeting points throughout the County to walk their carefully assigned areas and count the people they saw on the streets, sleeping on benches, huddled in makeshift shelters or camping in cars. It was the annual One Night Count of homeless persons, coordinated by the Seattle-King County Coalition on Homelessness, with funding support from the Committee to End Homelessness (CEH). On that night, a total of 3,113 people were counted outdoors without safe and secure shelter. That is an increase from the previous year. The count is a federal requirement and is conducted across the country in late January. A count of people in shelter and transitional housing is also conducted on the same night, with a report due in about a month.

Taking part in the street count was CEH Director Mark Putnam, who counted on a team in South King County and then traveled to Seattle headquarters to meet with reporters. Speaking after the count, Mark said, “Tonight is an indicator of both the needs of the homeless in our community but also the compassion of the community. We serve more than 9,000 households a year in our shelter and transitional housing programs, and we need to do more to meet the needs of those still living outside.”

(Photo: Linda Greenway, Janice Hougen and Debbi Knowles finalize the tally.)

Janice Hougen, Homeless Housing Planner with the Department of Community and Human Services’ (DCHS) Housing and Community Development Program, was a team leader in what was her 15th year of participation. Asked the importance of the count, Janice said it helps to build understanding in the community about homelessness and particularly for the hundreds of volunteers, makes homelessness feel more “real” when they see for themselves that people are sleeping outdoors on a cold January night. “Homelessness becomes more a call to action when you see it for yourself,” said Janice.

Janice and Mark were joined by staff from DCHS including Steve Andryszewski, Cindy Bergh, Gretchen Bruce, Steve Collins, Greg Ferland, Dan Floyd, Marquis Frank, Linda Greenway, Sherry Hamilton, Jon Hoskins, Valerie Kendall, Debbi Knowles, Pat Lemus, Adrienne Quinn, Chan Saelee, Janet Salm, Triina Tennelo and Amanda Thompkins.

“I do it year after year because it gives me the chance to pause from my day-to-day life and for just a few hours, get a sense of what it might be like to be out on the street at night with no place to go,” said Janice. “It is humbling. It is sad. But ultimately, it reinforces for me why this work is so important and reinvigorates me to keep working with our community to end homelessness.”

Want to know more about the count or maybe participate next year? Speak to Janice Hougen or Cindy Bergh or any of the staff who participated in the count this year.

Reprinted from DCHS’s Touching Base newsletter.

After Beth Gunn’s bicycle was stolen, she was astonished to see it heading toward her on the street—in the bike rack on the front of a D-Line bus. She stopped the bus and told the driver that her stolen bike was in his rack. That driver was Matt Leber (AKA VeloBusDriver), a fellow bike commuter and bike-transit blogger.

While they spoke, a couple of passengers left the bus through the rear doors. When Leber asked the remaining passengers who owned the bike on the front of the bus, no one answered. After Gunn provided a copy of her police report and a photo of her bike, a Metro supervisor allowed her to claim her property. For the full story of this happy reunion, see the Seattle Bike Blog.

Beth Gunn, left, celebrates the return of her stolen bike with Matt Leber (photo courtesy of Seattle Bike Blog).

When Stanley Caberto (left) gets a work order to fix equipment, the first question he asks is “What’s causing this equipment to break down?” – because he knows from experience that he can do more than just replace a part – he can find a permanent fix.

While it’s the treatment plants that often get the most attention, Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) has dozens of offsite facilities that need the same operations and maintenance that the plants do – including 25 regulator stations, 47 pump stations, and over 40 combined sewer outfalls and CSO treatment facilities. Offsite maintenance mechanics help keep everything running – including some pumps and process equipment that have been around since the system was formed in the 1960s – which often means creative solutions.

“These guys can’t just go down to Home Depot to get parts,” notes John Bowen, lead industrial machinist / mechanic.

Stanley installing a gear guard around the red fins on a pump.

Mechanics like Stanley often invent and machine parts they need to complete a job. Plus, because their work sites are spread out all over the system, they have to manage their time and priorities well – and often create solutions that can be done by one back and two hands.

A few of Stanley’s innovative designs:

• Made of lightweight but strong aluminum – and just big enough to fit through the door, the “Carbon Launcher” is a hopper device that funnels the carbon needed for odor control into the vessels – eliminating the need for a crane, as well as the dust that the carbon delivery dumping used to create.
• An alignment tool that can be used by one mechanic to align a heavy motor and pump within a 1000th of an inch – moving them incrementally in any direction for adjustments.
• Plexiglass gear guards and fins on pump bearings at Lake Ballinger Pump Station use the spinning motion of the shafts themselves to funnel air and cool the equipment like the blades on a fan. This “self-cooling” improvement has resulted in far fewer equipment shutdowns – which means a lot of time saved for operators.

Stanley’s work is certainly appreciated by his coworkers, who are happy that his good work is being highlighted, but also nervous that other work groups would try to recruit him away.

As for Stanley, he likes where he works. “I like that I’m not working in one place all day, the freedom I’m given to come up with solutions, and the people are like family.”