Published on May 21, 2021
Last November, the Seattle City Council earmarked $100,000 intended to quickly set up dozens of new hand-washing facilities around the city — a resource to meet the desperate needs of more than 3,700 unsheltered people in Seattle after the pandemic closed access to running water at businesses and other public spaces. Five months later, as shelters are bottlenecked and thousands of people living outdoors still struggle to practice basic hygiene, those sinks are still nowhere to be found.
The original budget item was inspired by a street-sink model developed by the Clean Hands Collective, a coalition of University of Washington professors, architects, the homeless advocacy group Real Change and a middle-school student who runs a handwashing-advocacy campaign.With their model, the collective estimated that $100,000 would pay for 63 sinks across the city. But without city funds, the project will disappear, said Real Change advocacy director Tiffani McCoy (who sits on Project Homeless’ advisory board).
Continue reading at The Seattle Times.
Originally written by Sydney Brownstone for The Seattle Times.