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Seattle has a shortage of housing. But all over town, houses stand vacant. Either they’re in foreclosure, or they’re waiting to be torn down for...
SEP 21, 2017
Seattle has a shortage of housing. But all over town, houses stand vacant. Either they’re in foreclosure, or they’re waiting to be torn down for development. Some people think vacant homes are an underused resource.
One man steals them. Greg said the first time he snuck into an vacant house, it seemed like an easy decision. He was homeless, sleeping on couches and in cars and parks, and he was tired of it. A janitor by trade, he could not afford a house in Seattle.
Greg’s been doing it for a couple years now. He moves from place to place. And now, he helps other homeless people to do the same. These aren’t people just looking for a place to shoot up in the back room, though those people squat too. Greg and his followers take care of the places they stay. “If you’re going to do this correctly, you’ve got to be the best tenant ever," he said. "You’ve got to be a better tenant than you were under a landlord. Seriously.”
And you have to keep your mouth shut. “There might be people in your family you cannot tell that you’re doing this," he said. Telling the wrong person could bring in the police and the social workers. Greg doesn’t want that.
Florist Mary Wesley’s story serves as a microcosm of the shifting demographics and challenging landscape for Black business owners in the Central District.
Jan. 6, 2020
By Naomi Ishisaka
Seattle Times columnist
In the early 1980s, Mary Wesley began to dream about early retirement from Boeing and her future goals. It didn’t come to her at first, but then the idea struck: flowers. “I just love flowers,” Wesley said. “It’s nature. The scent of flowers is heavenly. It’s so uplifting. We make so many people happy.”
Since 1984, Wesley has owned Flowers Just 4 U, one of the only Black-owned flower shops in the region. She and her flowers have been there for births, weddings and funerals for generations of Central District families. As the neighborhood changed, so did her clientele, but Wesley kept on, a mainstay on the corner of 23rd and Jackson for 28 years, her bright flowers and signs cheerfully calling out to passersby on the busy intersection. Yet Wesley’s story serves as a microcosm of the shifting demographics and challenging landscape for Black business owners in the Central District.
In 2014, the first bloom began to come off the rose for Wesley. Her longtime customer, Southwest Mortuary — one of the last Black-owned funeral homes — was purchased by Bonney-Watson, which led to a decline in her funeral flower business. The second hit came in 2015, when a city construction project disrupted traffic on 23rd Avenue and created so much chaos Wesley said she lost tens of thousands of dollars in business over nearly two years. While the city eventually gave her $25,000 (from federal dollars) to mitigate the lost business, the damage had already been done. After that project finished, Wesley got another blow — her building was going to be razed to create new apartments. She would have to move.
In April 2018, her shop was relocated with help from the apartment developer to a smaller location on the corner of 23rd and Cherry, across from the Garfield Community Center. With little parking or foot traffic, her business struggled. After many setbacks, she got behind on rent and in November her landlord gave her a 14-day eviction notice. As news of Wesley’s potential eviction spread, the business development arm of Africatown Seattle jumped into action. They set up a GoFundMe in mid-December to raise $10,000 to cover $6,000 in back rent and utilities and get her back in the black.
The community responded in a huge way. Within a week, the campaign blew past its target, raising twice the goal and is now at $26,000 and counting. Wesley couldn’t believe it. “I almost fainted,” she said, about getting the news. “I could not believe this could be happening to me. That was one of the most precious things that ever happened in my whole life.” But while it is tempting and gratifying to make this just another heartwarming story of good holiday deeds, it’s important to talk about the underlying conditions that led Wesley’s business to the brink. K. Wyking Garrett, the president of Africatown Community Land Trust, said Wesley’s situation speaks to larger problems and needs.
Garrett and Africatown want to see a targeted fund for small, historically disenfranchised businesses to access capital to better weather the storms. Technical and marketing assistance could also be provided to support small Black-owned businesses.
Over generations, governments and institutions created the wealth gap, excluded Black-owned businesses from opportunities and practiced outright discrimination, and private entities are making those inequities worse today through a rising cost of living and fighting higher taxes. The legacy of generational wealth inequality has led to a median family wealth today for white people of $171,000, in contrast to $17,600 for Black people, according to The New York Times. Institutions that created the problem should invest in the solutions to fix it.
Old Location
Cherry & 23rd