Peter's Place

If you're ever on the 7 Rainier in the early morning hours between 5 to 7, after the Deaborn Goodwill, all the homeless indigents that got on in Pioneer Square will deboard at this stop, across the street from the Shell station, and file down that back road that goes behind the Pioneer Industries building. behind tbat building is Peter's Place.

At Peter's Place inadequate staffing and poor management have basically ceded control of the shelter to the clients. In a large day room, with lotsa chairs and tables all focused towards a large TV and a central charging station you will see and hear everything from 25 cent cigarette sellers to women selling sex and smoking crack in the men's bathroom. Peter's Place is one of the few shelters where women and men are allowed to cohabitate. For obvious reasons, youth are segregated from the old as men are from women. Peter's Place is not only unique in that it's co-ed,it's also a day room.

Understand, most shelters operate at night and are closed during the day. Check out time is always between 6am - 7am. This is the homeless gap. From 6am to 7am you can see us lined up waiting for day rooms at the Lazarus Center, the UGM, the Bread of Life Mission, or Peter's Place, to open for the day.

One rainy morning I came to Peter's Place at 8AM. I had just left the UGM dinning room that morning at 6:15, went to the Lazarus Center at 7 for internet, and 8AM breakfast. I wanted to see about living at Peter's Place, someone told me they have their own rooms their and women!!
At the door, in the rain there was a line of about 6 or 7 of us, and a note on the closed door read as follows: "One in, One out". There outside, next to a fenced in smoking area, we had to wait outside in the rain for about 10 minutes to get in. They were full. There were no public building alternatives. We were in the rain in the homeless gap.