Dear friends and members of the media, thank you so much for being here.
Both the Central or the Central Area Senior Center and Bird Bar Place have served the vital needs of tens of thousands of seniors, working families, and students for decades.
The Central Area Senior Center and the Bird Bar Place are jewels in our community, annually providing essential services to thousands of Seattle residents, especially seniors, low-income families.
and working people.
Bird Bar Place, founded originally in 1964 as a Central Area Motivation Program and housed at 18th and East Cherry Street, strengthens our community with advocacy and a range of services to keep people safe in their homes.
Bird Bar staff and volunteers operate a food bank, run personal finance workshops, provide financial assistance for renters facing eviction, and offer energy assistance programs to help families pay their bills.
The Central Area Senior Center, or the Central, on 30th in Leschi is a daily beehive of activities for seniors, including exercise programs, computer classes, guitar lessons, card clubs, language lessons, crafting clubs, and recreational trips.
And I've heard bingo as well.
Five days a week, the Central's in-house kitchen serves hot meals to seniors.
The groups that have been operating the Central and Bird Bar Place, that have been operating it and providing the services for decades, have documented to the City of Seattle their capacity to manage these properties.
And our community and our organizations have been saying that we want these spaces to be in perpetuity in public use and for the social good.
And that is why our community have been asking the city of Seattle to do a transfer of ownership of these properties into the hands of the organizations that have managed these properties for years.
Furthermore, Bird Bar Place is at risk of losing a nearly $1.5 million state grant if it does not obtain ownership or a long-term lease by June of this year.
The question then comes up, why the delay?
Why is this being delayed?
Isn't this a good thing?
But what we found out is that there has been an at least seven year delay on transferring the ownership of this property to the community over three mayoral administrations.
And now we come to the Mayor Durkin administration where for over a year the community has been asking and hasn't got it and then Facing the inaction, the city council passed a resolution last year setting a deadline of March 31st for this property transfer, ownership transfer to be made.
That deadline has now passed.
And yet we see the establishment of this city dragging their feet.
The question is, why?
At a Central Area Senior Center community meeting this past Monday night, attended by over 150 seniors, many of whom are right here today, I heard speaker after speaker express dismay and indignation at the mayor's delay.
They correctly pointed out that the Central occupies land that is coveted by for-profit developers for its location and view, and that the mayor won her election with major backing from big developers like Vulcan and corporations like Amazon.
So we are going to have to fight for ourselves.
Are we ready?
Seattle's working families, young and old alike, are facing an unprecedented housing crisis resulting in gentrification and displacement because of the domination of the for-profit market.
Because the for-profit market does not build housing for those of us who need housing, does not build public spaces for those of us who need social spaces.
It builds construction units in order to maximize the profits for the billionaires.
And that is why we are here to raise our collective voice to both defend affordable housing and our publicly owned community spaces from encroachment by corporate developers.
We are here to demand that the Central Area Senior Center and Bird Bar Place are immediately transferred into the ownership of the community so that they can continue to serve our elders and our community members for decades.
And the beauty of our fight is that we are not doing this as individuals, we are doing this as a community, raising our voices together.
And so I wanted to invite somebody who has led this struggle for years, Diane Ferguson, Executive Director of the Central Area Senior Center.
Well, we certainly appreciate having this press conference today.
And for the council members to watch.
And council members to watch.
Okay.
We appreciate having this press conference.
It's not on.
You can't hear it.
okay yes this is for the press so we appreciate having this press conference today we thank all of our members and friends and supporters for being out here with us we have been occupying the space that we are in for the last 51 years and we have worked really hard in those 51 years because we were in a community that was redlined and did not allow African American people and people of color the opportunity to live wherever they want.
We knew the land was valuable then, but it was the only space that we could be in.
We took that land with the effort and the work of Mayor Wes Allman in 1975, who through the referendum helped us to get money so that it could be purchased so we could continue to serve the African American seniors who in 1975 represented 43% of the population.
Now we know that gentrification has happened in that neighborhood.
but we have continued to serve that neighborhood and that community with the programs and the activities that offset what the price and the cost of that space is.
We have tried for 51 years to get ownership of that property so like everyone else we can have an institution in our community, it can remain a gathering place for people who might not have a wonderful view, that people can celebrate their lives and their births and their passing away.
It's really important that we recognize what collaborative justice is, that we recognize how important it is to have equity in our communities, and to be genuine and authentic and what the real purpose is for why we want the space we want.
So we are asking that there should be no more delays, that the resolution that the city council passed, we are so grateful for all of the city council members and an effort that Lisa Herbold and Michael Bryan and then the full council join in with them in the passing of the resolution that the building be transferred to us so that we can make sure that our children's children can continue to enjoy the space and the programs and the activities.
So thank you so much for hosting this press conference.
And we have a member that also would like to share how it's benefited her.
Yes, and I will, can you...
Diane Ferguson mentioned a very important thing, which was the racist redlining which our city had, and we don't have that racist redlining anymore, which is a good thing, but we do have an economic redlining, which effectively means that our black and brown households, low-income seniors and young people and young families are being pushed out of our city because of the sky-high rents.
So those of us who are defending the Central and the Bird Bar Place, we are also fighting for rent control because we want affordable housing in our city.
And Diane also mentioned another thing which everybody should know about is how many of you have gone to the Central Area Senior Center?
I'm sure you all are from there.
So you know what I mean when I say the view.
When people ask me, why is the mayor's office dragging their feet on transferring the ownership, I tell them, look out the window.
It is not a million-dollar view.
It is a $10 million view.
And there is no way that the massive for-profit developers, the financial speculators, venture capitalists, property management corporations, there's no way that they're not eyeing this property and saying, we want to make millions of dollars off this property.
But we have a different vision for the Central.
We want it to be preserved in perpetuity for social use, so that seniors and people of all ages, regardless of income, feel welcome.
Right?
We feel the same way about the Bird Bar place, and that is why I wanted to invite Sumit Pamma, Operations Assistant at Bird Bar.
Thank you council member.
Hello my name is Samit Pama and I work at Bird Bar Place.
Today we call on the mayor to urgently complete the property transfers of the Central Area Senior Center and Bird Bar Place so they can be maintained as a public good in perpetuity.
We need to permanently protect Bird Bar Place in the Central Area Senior Center to make sure they remain accessible to everyone regardless of income.
Bird Bar Place has served vital needs of tens of thousands of Seattle residents since its inception as a community action agency in 1964. We have helped seniors and working families keep food on their tables, heat in their homes, and education and training programs that provide tools for self-sufficiency.
Last fall, the City Council unanimously adopted Resolution 31856, calling for Mayor Durkin to transfer these properties to community nonprofits no later than the end of March.
The mayor has missed the deadline, and community members are demanding urgent action.
With ownership of our home, Bird Bar Place is able to make much-needed seismic upgrades to our 111-year-old building.
Renovations are necessary to become ADA-compliant and improve access to everyone.
By modernizing, we will be able to increase community space in the Central District and continue to provide those who have called the Central Area their home for decades a place to convene.
Seattle's working families young and old alike are facing unprecedented housing crisis and displacement because of a growing Seattle economy that is benefiting some but leaving most behind.
If the city fails to protect organizations like Bird Bar Place and the Central Area Senior Center these community jewels will be vulnerable in the future to a takeover by developers and those who don't value our community's history.
We need to use our collective voice to defend our publicly owned community spaces so they can continue serving generations to come.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sumit.
I'd like to invite K.
Y. King-Garrett from the Africa Community Land Trust, somebody who is well known in our community and who has played a critical role in making sure that we now have the Liberty Bank building in the Central District.
Good afternoon.
K.Y.
King-Geer, Africatown Community Land Trust.
Also...
Okay.
K. Y. King Garrett, representing CEO Africatown Community Land Trust, also a member of Race and Social Equity Task Force, and here to support the immediate transfer of the Fire Station 23 to Byrd Bar Place and the Central Area Senior Center to the ownership of the Central Area Senior Center organization.
We're here to support our elders, who have, whose shoulders we stand on, who made the community that I grew up in, who made the city, who endured the racist practices of redlining, underinvestment in the infrastructure, depression of the property values, and many other transgressions which we hear much talk about writing today.
In other words, we hear about shared prosperity, we hear about race and social justice initiatives, we hear about equitable development.
And we know that the root word in equitable is equity.
And equity means ownership.
And so for a community to have more equity, we need more ownership.
And the community institutions that have served our community for these years need to be under the community control and ownership.
So that's what we're here to stand for today.
The city played an important role in investing in the development of the Liberty Bank building.
But we know that which provides 115 affordable rental apartments for people to not be displaced from the community or to come back to the community.
But we know that because when the lines opened up, thousands of calls came in for this scarce resource and we need to create more opportunities, and not just for the housing, but for the space of social well-being, of support networks, of community.
And you judge a society and a civilization by how they treat its elders as well as its children.
And in a city with this much resources, this much education, it's a shame that we should be having to struggle for our elders to have space to be well.
And lastly, I would also like to add that the former fire station 6 on 23rd and Yesler, which when it was the new fire station was built, displaced a very important youth and cultural program, the rites of passage experience at camp.
And we lost that resource.
And now we have the fire station 6 and we've been working with the city to bring that under community ownership so that we can have an innovation hub to develop our young people and our businesses to be able to participate in the economy.
And we need to move forward the ownership of that as well.
And so I'm here in closing.
I'd just like to say Seattle has an opportunity to lead around showing new solutions.
We have companies that are trying to create communities in outer space here.
And we need to be able to create space right here for our elders in our community.
If this is going to be a world-class city, we should have a world-class African-American community.
And part of that includes making and creating and maintaining space for our elders and our services that are important to all of our community members.
Thank you.
We have Mike Andrew, who is speaking on behalf of the Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action.
I'm Mike Andrew.
I'm Executive Director of Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action.
And I want to thank Councilmember Sawant and her staff for inviting us here to lend our voices in support of in support of maintaining the Central Area Senior Center and Bird Bar Place as public goods, which is what they are.
People who don't know seniors or don't work with seniors or people who maybe don't care to know seniors or work with seniors don't realize how important senior centers are in the life of the community and in the life of seniors who make that a center for their social life.
This is especially true for the central area senior center because people in that neighborhood have seen their communities eroded away by gentrification.
And this is one of the last remaining institutions that working people, working class seniors can rely on where they can go and they can have lunch with their friends, they can play cards with their friends, They could learn how to play the guitar maybe.
They could learn to play bridge if they want to.
And so it would be shameful if the city allowed these public goods to slip away and be turned over to private owners and developers.
So I have the pleasure of working with seniors every day, and we brought a special senior with us, Kelsey Watson, who's going to talk about why she enjoys coming to the Senior Center on a regular basis and how it's benefited her life.
Kelsey's legally blind, so I will...
Hello.
I hope you can hear me.
Hi, can you hear me now?
Okay, thank you.
I'm Kelsey Watson and I had a brain aneurysm 18 years ago that caused that blindness.
But I found the Central Area Senior Center, thank God, I needed to learn how to walk, and I did that using the enhanced fitness class at the Central Area Senior Center.
And I got so good at walking, I took up dancing.
I am a line dancer with the sliders.
And I enjoy that very much.
And I am a borderline diabetic.
We have Dr. Juana Reister, who holds classes, very excellent classes, at the Central Area Senior Center.
And lastly, but not least, there's Anthony Hertz in our communities eating program.
our lunch program.
I love the Senior Center.
It helped keep me alive.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, Kelsey.
And our last but not least speaker, before we go head up to committee and chambers, we're really honored to have Reverend Harriet Walden, community elder, founder of Mothers for Police Accountability, member of the Community Police Commission, and current resident of Liberty Bank Building in Africatown.
Please come.
Good afternoon.
It is a good afternoon that we all gathered here.
Is that right?
Right.
That's right.
You know, I came here in 1975 in the central area.
I lived on 30th and I raised my children around here.
And I want to thank Diane.
I want to thank you for doing a good job over there.
And the one thing I like to say is that we like to let the mayor know.
that you know in south africa they say when you touch a woman you touch a rock so i'm standing here as a woman and a founder of mothers for police accountability and we stand one hundred percent behind the transfer of the property not only to bird bar but also to uh...
to the central mothers have had many events there my granddaughter had a sixteenth birthday there birthday party there and you know what it's just wonderful and i know some people think it's just too beautiful for black people I understand that.
I understand Seattle.
I understand it and you know I'm a truth teller.
I know that.
If it was next to a building that didn't have a view, nobody would care.
But it has a view, it has a view that God gave us.
Okay, did God give us that view?
Yeah, and is God gonna help us keep it, right?
We got a pastor right over there.
That's an amen right in there, all right?
Any more amens up here?
All right, just like we're here and we, you know, we want, we really want the mayor to hear this today.
Hear us, hear us, okay?
That we are here.
We've been here since the 1800s.
We've been here since Gross and I and all of these other people who came to Seattle and came to Washington State.
We're not going anywhere.
Just go ahead and do the right thing.
Transfer it today.
Thanks.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for participating in one of the most exciting press conferences we've ever had.
Thanks to you all.
So we are soon, in a few seconds, we're going to head up to Chambers, which is right here.
Those of us who are able to take the stairs can go this way, or else my staff can show you to the elevators, and we can come right there and walk across the blue bridge up there.
Either way is totally fine.
Don't go yet.
We, so what's the purpose?
As the Reverend Walden said, our purpose here is to make sure the mayor and all the politicians hear us loud and clear.
We are here to demand that there are no more delays in transferring the ownership of Bird Bar and the Central into the hands of the communities.
So can we do a chant, just three times?
Let's just chant, no more delays, okay?
No more delays!
No more delays!
No more delays!
No more delays!