LETTER TO THE EDITOR: ‘DESC Bloomside is a welcome part of our community’

1. I would recommend that anyone who wants to know the truth about DESC take the time to speak to our Burien police officers. Many of the officers have spent a lot of their time at DESC. Please get your facts straight rather than feeding readers untruths.

   1. It is a fact that individuals arriving at DESC Bloomside are often struggling with severe mental health issues, chronic substance use disorder, and a long history of trauma. Many of us are lucky to not have had the everyday issues that they DESC clients have, and are lucky to have the resources to face everyday things.
      It requires police and emergency services involvement, especially in the initial transition period. However, research on Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), the model DESC uses, consistently shows that the net gain is positive. This means that housing people first reduces the overall cost to taxpayers by decreasing their reliance on expensive services like ER visits, jail, and even more repeat police encounters over time. PSH (what DESC does) is designed to address public safety by helping the people they serve.

      1. We need a new organization that’s not DESC. I don’t think anyone in Burien would want to see the homeless problem not be fixed or helped. The problem is the organization that’s in charge of doing it. That’s what a large amount of Burien residents have expressed and some Burien city council members…

         This isn’t about the existence of homelessness, it’s about the program/organization that’s currently in place to prevent, help, and rehabilitate the homeless. (DESC)

      2. It’s undeniable that many individuals arriving at DESC Bloomside face severe challenges: mental health issues, substance use, and trauma. But acknowledging their struggles doesn’t automatically validate that a Housing First or Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) model, without accountability structures, is the optimal solution for public safety or long-term recovery.

         Yes, PSH may reduce some costs in emergency services and jail over time, but it does not eliminate risk inside the housing environment. Multiple reports from shelters show that drug use, overdoses, and incidents of violence do occur regularly within these settings when rules are minimally enforced. Without clear behavioral expectations, the very populations PSH seeks to protect can inadvertently place themselves and others at risk. Harm reduction is important, but it is reactive, not preventive. Simply providing a roof does not guarantee stability or rehabilitation; it may only delay the consequences of ongoing risky behavior.

         Furthermore, cost-savings arguments can obscure the human cost to staff and other residents. Police and emergency involvement may decrease over time, but when individuals are housed without accountability, the first months or years, can still be resource-intensive, stressful, and even unsafe. Programs that incorporate structured treatment, sobriety expectations, and graduated support may cost more upfront but often achieve better long-term outcomes in safety, stability, and recovery, while also protecting other tenants.

         In short, housing alone does not automatically equate to safety or positive outcomes. Effective solutions require a balance between support, accountability, and access to treatment, not just placing vulnerable individuals under one roof.

2. What this letter doesn’t mention is the cost to society when DESC doesn’t offer a safe environment for those looking to improve themselves, having a roof without a safe and drug free housing situation is not helping anyone. The lack of support offered and the well documented instances of rampant drug use and dealing within and around DESC makes it an extremely difficult for anyone who wishes to get clean to actually succeed. If any of the individuals who signed want to really help someone they should demand treatment, instead of just assisting the slow and condoned downfall of anyone in DESC that’s surrounded by rampant drug use, and help clean up the trash outside it while you’re at it.

   1. Demanding a treatment first approach has a high failure rate and is not supported by decades of evidence. DESC employs the Housing First model because it recognizes that housing is healthcare. A person cannot successfully engage in treatment, manage their mental health, or find sobriety when they are focused purely on survival, sleeping in a doorway, or struggling to maintain personal safety. Housing provides the stability—the address, the safety, the case manager—that makes voluntary treatment and recovery finally possible.
      DESC clients, like all residents of Burien, are accountable to the law, and individuals absolutely have the right to press charges for illegal behavior when appropriate.

      https://archives.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/spring-summer-23/highlight2.html

      1. No one disputes that stable housing is essential of course, a person can’t focus on recovery while sleeping on concrete. But to claim that the Treatment First model has a “high failure rate” ignores the fact that many so-called failures came from underfunded, fragmented, and poorly coordinated systems, not from the concept of treatment-based readiness itself. When done right, with case management, structured accountability, and integrated services, treatment-oriented programs have shown lasting recovery outcomes that Housing First alone doesn’t always achieve. A blend of both might be the better outcome..

         Housing is a foundation, not a cure. Giving someone four walls doesn’t automatically resolve addiction, trauma, or unemployment. Too often, Housing First, becomes “Housing Only,” with limited follow-up, minimal behavioral expectations, and revolving-door tenancy. That may stabilize numbers on paper, but it doesn’t always translate into long-term independence or community safety.

         Yes, DESC clients are accountable to the law but that accountability often stops there. The public concern isn’t about denying housing; it’s about ensuring that housing is paired with real, required engagement in treatment, work, or progress. Housing should be the start of recovery, not the end goal.

         If housing is healthcare, then where’s the treatment plan? Stability must come with structure or we’re just funding survival, not recovery.

3. Why does the letter or more importantly those who signed it not mention the running total of overdose deaths within DESC to date, I believe the total is quickly approaching 2 dozen in just over a year. All this talk of helping and compassion, yet continuing to to ignore the deep underbelly of what truly happens within the DESC when you put vulnerable people in a lord of the flies scenario without rules or accountability. What about that “Good Neighbor” agreement that DESC has failed to uphold, take the blinders off and refocus on the true reality of what mismanagement and how a tainted system really exists in there.

   1. The overdose deaths isn’t a secret; it’s part of the reality of the fentanyl/opioid epidemic hitting the most vulnerable people in our community. The question isn’t, “Why are people dying inside DESC?” The real question is, “What is better? For them to overdose alone outside?” When a chronically addicted person moves into DESC, the risk of overdose moves inside with them, but so does the Naloxone, the 24/7 staff, and the chance of a life-saving intervention. That level of immediate harm reduction doesn’t exist on the street. To call it a “Lord of the Flies scenario” is not an informed view of how to help people with addiction. DESC operates on a Housing First model for a reason: you can’t force sobriety, but you can offer a roof and a chance to survive long enough to choose recovery. Evicting someone for policy violations just sends a high-risk person back to the sidewalk to die alone. We need to stop pretending that this is a failure of the housing program and recognize it as a crisis that DESC is actually trying to manage and mitigate, not ignore.

      1. The DESC model may have good intentions, but when overdose deaths become routine within supposedly “supportive” housing, something is deeply broken. The point of Housing First was never to create supervised places for people to die; it was to create a bridge to stability, safety, and recovery. If those outcomes aren’t happening, then the model is failing the very people it claims to protect.

         Bringing Naloxone and staff into the equation doesn’t excuse a system that keeps people in a state of perpetual crisis. Overdoses inside DESC aren’t proof that harm reduction works, they’re proof that the safety net has gaping holes. “They’d die on the street” isn’t a defense; it’s an indictment of a system that’s settled for keeping people barely alive instead of helping them actually live.

         And calling critics “uninformed” is a convenient way to dodge accountability. The public has every right to demand answers when tax-funded programs meant to save lives are presiding over preventable deaths. DESC’s defenders need to stop using compassion as a shield for dysfunction. True harm reduction isn’t about accepting death as inevitable, it’s about doing whatever it takes to prevent it.

         If overdoses are happening inside facilities with trained staff and round-the-clock supervision, that’s not the unavoidable reality of addiction. That’s operational failure, plain and simple.

      2. So instead of overdosing alone outside they still overdose inside even with access to Naloxone, 24/7 staff and a building full of others, you do realize good intentions and waiting for someone to make a treatment decision is misguided when drugs exist at the wave of a hand.

4. Wish I had known that this was being written because I would have signed my name to it as well.

   For those people who keep claiming how much rampant drug use, trash, and police activity is going on there, why hasn’t the police chief actually written a letter with factual information regarding this “truth”? Why no report about all of this to the Burien City Council? Maybe because those people are exaggerating to the extreme.

   1. Omaha if you would like to sign on, you are welcome to now. I imagine you aren’t the only one who will want to do so after reading this LTE. Here is the link: https://forms.gle/gLL9MQesQfn1zgDo7

   2. Omaha this well discussed in previous city council meetings and residents speaking out, along with independent journalists you can simply search into google and find videos, etc etc:

      https://b-townblog.com/tensions-flare-at-burien-city-council-meeting-over-desc-bloomside-tree-removals-and-zoning-plan/

      https://b-townblog.com/city-of-burien-responds-to-community-concerns-about-desc-bloomside-facility/

      https://b-townblog.com/city-of-burien-responds-to-community-concerns-about-desc-bloomside-facility/

5. While it is true we need to provide good density with reasonable regulations within the city limits, the idea that affordable housing is the issue for this population is misguided. Drug abuse, and mental illness are at the core for the majority of these folks. They will likely be wards of the state for a very long time if not for the rest of their lives. We have an obligation as a society to care for those but not without conditions. You dont get to sleep or set up tents on the streets that lower the safety and quality of life for those that are trying to live and run businesses that pay the taxes to fund your care. You dont get to use drugs or be provided drugs by the facility that has agreed to house you. Signatories of this editorial letter – save your righteous savior complex issues for programs that actually work. This model does not.

   1. It’s easy to dismiss a program as a “righteous savior complex” that doesn’t work, Terry, but the model you’re advocating for—the one that requires sobriety, treatment, and “housing readiness” before offering a key—is the very definition of a failed approach. It’s called the “Treatment First” or “Linear” model, and that’s the one that has demonstrably kept people on the streets for decades. My question to you is: What programs do you think actually work (and are, in fact, cheaper)? Show me the peer-reviewed research proving that locking the chronically homeless out of housing until they’re sober is more successful, or more cost-effective, than Housing First. Because the data on (Permanent Supportive Housing) PSH (like DESC) is overwhelming: it keeps high-need tenants housed, and it saves public money by drastically reducing arrests, jail time, and expensive ER visits. If you’re going to use the taxes-and-safety argument, you bring an effective solution to the table, not just recycle a discredited idea that we should let mentally ill and addicted folks suffer in tents until they somehow “earn” a home. The true savior complex is believing you know better than decades of social science research.

      https://endhomelessness.org/resources/toolkits-and-training-materials/housing-first/

      1. It’s not about a “righteous savior complex,” it’s about accountability and reality. The idea that requiring treatment or sobriety before housing “doesn’t work” is an oversimplification that ignores what actually fails in implementation, not in principle. The so-called “Treatment First” model wasn’t designed to punish people; it was meant to stabilize them before permanent housing so recovery could last.

         Yes, Housing First has strong data behind it but it’s not a magic bullet. Studies also show that without follow-up treatment, employment pathways, or accountability structures, many Housing First participants still struggle with addiction and unemployment. Simply putting a roof over someone’s head without addressing the underlying issues isn’t compassion, it’s containment.

         Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) absolutely has its place, especially for those with chronic mental illness or high needs. But pretending it’s the only effective solution ignores the spectrum of homelessness and the reality that many need structured, goal-oriented programs to rebuild stability. A balance of housing access and personal accountability isn’t a “savior complex.” It’s how long-term recovery actually works.

6. Permanent Supportive Housing benefits us all. I join over a hundred of my neighbors cheering on nearly a hundred of my other neighbors with this letter. DESC Bloomside houses and provides wraparound services to up to 95 of Burien’s most vulnerable, and I’m proud to count several of them as my friends. The tangible improvement that permanent housing provides can’t be overstated.

   Not for nothing, I’d like to point out that among the signers here are several of our local leaders, including Rep. Edwin Obras (33rd LD), Rep. Mia Gregerson (33rd LD), Rep. Brianna Thomas (34th LD), King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda (D8), Rocco DeVito, and Sam Mendez. I think it’s important to note, as there are direct policy impacts to whether our leaders can see and respect people in need of Permanent Supportive Housing.

   I love our community.

7. If you would like to sign on to this letter you can do so at this link: https://forms.gle/gLL9MQesQfn1zgDo7

8. I’m having a hard believing what I’m seeing in this letter, support for Bloomside DESC? Tell me why your WORDS (not even from a representative of their company) means anything more than “your words”? Where are you getting this information from and what studies have been done?

   We’ve heard numerous negative situations and stories about this company from Burien city officials down to many residents, (not to mention living in the area) so to see support of this style of “help” is quite surprising.

   We need to support the homeless by treating them better and setting practices in place where drugs & crime are not present at their homes every day! We need to have a system in place that works and is followed.

9. Nice letter, Im all for serving the homeless and creating a system that paves the road to regaining home ownership.

   Im against the DESC organization. They are not new to this and I got my fair share of how they operate, not only this Burien location but another nearby location as well.

10. 100% support for actually helping the homeless, not enabling and letting them fester in drug filled dens.

    Roll out some new policys or a new organization away from DESC

11. Racism, a lack of affordable housing, and jobs that don’t pay enough to meet the rising costs of food, gas, and healthcare are the main reasons people find themselves homeless

    If this is true, why are they all mostly white and drug attics? Weird.

    If the cost of gas in Wa gets higher, we’ll all be on meth!

12. All that this letter is to all the signers is that old saying “out of sight, out of mind”. I’m retired and with my cup of coffee every morning before starting my daily chores if you will I sit and read the B Town Blog and others, not FB we do not have but I look at the B’s live emergency feed and practically every day and or every other day either at the DESC, Transit Center, and that general area there is an emergency call.
    Example: 10/29/25 @9:27pm listed as ODF at the DESC Bldg. so again to all you signers and believers—-being housed first isn’t working for these people, all it is doing is “OUT OF SIGHT/OUT OF MIND” to you all! SMH!

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