As a longtime Eastgate resident, I support and applaud our council members and the city staff for planning a shelter for homeless men, a day center and transitional housing at a site near the Eastgate Park-and-Ride.

I have lived in my Eastgate home for more than 35 years and raised my children here. I know that my neighborhood has included addicts in recovery and not, homeless men living near the tennis courts of Eastgate Park and former criminals on Department of Corrections release over the years. “They” are already among us. I am glad Bellevue is partnering with other cities, the county, Congregations for the Homeless and others to fund this much-needed service complex. I consider it an excellent use of my tax dollars.

I volunteered for more than five years to host Congregations for the Homeless men’s shelter at my church for a month each year in the 1990s. I helped plan for the men’s stay, prepared and delivered the evening hot meal once a month during their stay and visited with the men over their dinner. I recall that at that time, about 40 percent of the 22 or so men were employed. I remember talking with an architect whose buddy had abruptly moved out of their shared apartment. The architect couldn’t afford his rent alone and was saving up money to afford an apartment for himself in three months. Another guy I talked with worked full-time at a call center along the nearby Interstate 90 corridor. Most of the men seemed to be from or work in Bellevue or the Eastside.

As for the women students at Bellevue College (whom some critics of your plan seem eager to protect,) we and the women students can and probably have walked past homeless men, addicts and folks with criminal records on the campus and in downtown Bellevue, Factoria and Crosssroads. We need to help provide for these people among us. We need to answer fears with information and reality.

This site is a great location.

Susan Wineke

Bellevue