Comments on O, They Will Know We Are Christians by Our...

cue charles in 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

you made me smile, dan! tell you what, I'll go if you go. Don't forget to bring your big, gay finger for some serious wagging.

psyour pi link is broken

Because, you know, very few decisions are monitarily related.....

It's also worth remembering that Seattle U has worked for years to displace the thriving Ethiopian businesses nearby, including demolishing the restaurant Meskel to make way for a vacant lot parking lot, and pushing out other businesses to make way for University storage.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=21106

That "parking lot" is going to be the site of a new building that will house the bookstore and law student housing. Fact is, they need to grow. They have students living in lounges and people have offices that in former lives used to be janitor closets (no joke). So if they develop on property they own but is rented to something like a restaurant, people are pissed. If they try to develop existing buildings by relocating the residents of bessie burton, people are pissed. No matter what they do, some people aren't going to be happy. So Leary has to be the bad guy, but looking beyond the immediate pain of making changes that impact others, it has to be done.

That's why "christian" values have nothing to do with the reality that something on that campus has to change. The unchristian thing to do would be to kick the residents to the curb with a "tough shit, not my problem" attitude. Which is how dan characterized it and it is the characterization that is not true.

Fact is charles has a hard-on for Seattle U.

Your math is wrong Dan, it's actually 0.55%

The restaurants? Who cares. Businesses lose their lease every day. That's the way the world works.

But this nursing home business is shameful, no matter how you slice it. SU has a moral responsibility to these patients. They know their student admissions patterns. They should have stopped accepting residents years ago, and let the facility wind down through death and attrition.

@8,

Right, I'm sure the nursing home residents would love living in a virtually empty facility. Nice and lonely.

“Jesus must be spinning in his grave. “

Ha. I have it on good authority from a board member at SU that it was most definitely about finances - although the board member also said that the decision was partially based on SU's desire to be more of a student/academic facility and phase out the non-academic portions. Even if that's the case, once you've started a something like a care facility where people become dependent on you, it's a pretty heartless stunt to pull. The board member told me that she was told the residents would be getting assistance with finding new housing - doesn't seem to be the case. Seems like SU is keeping it's own decision-makers in the dark as well.

No matter how you slice it booting old people out of their homes is so definitely NOT Raven. Unless they are actually doing something to relocate them. Are they? Or is it just... "we need the space, we've packed your things for you... oh, are you still here? There's the door, let me walk you out... don't come back... ever... go... go on, go..."

The university, which has assigned social-service workers to every resident to help with the transfer process

According to the PI article, the university is helping the residents find new housing. Just because the families of the residents are whining doesn't mean that the university is tossing the elderly residents onto the street.

If you need to demolish small businesses to build a bookstore and housing, then give proper notice, and don't do the demolition more than five years before you are going to even break ground for your new construction. SU rushed its evictions, did the demo, and then didn't do shit. That vacant lot is just the most obvious example of what SU does when it claims that it absolutely needs to displace its tenants immediately and can't wait one more month for them to find another place somewhere else. The nursing home closure is worse, because it hurts the elderly and their families, giving two months notice as if it's really easy for families to find proper nursing homes that meet their loved ones' needs. There's no way this is just about money. What kind of multimillion dollar institution is so poor with its planning that it can't give 9 months or one year notice before evicting its tenants? The answer, obviously, is one that doesn't care.

The reality should be middle ground between wf @14, charles @5 and gc @8. I'm an SU alum and have taken serious issue then and now about the school's "social justice" jargon being primarily self-congratulatory hot-air.

Charles is right; the University does need resident and office space for CURRENT students, faculty, and staff. It does not, however, "need to grow."

Admission numbers have been rocketing (as has tuition, of course) and SU can't keep up. The school is brimming with the STATED hope to become "the premier private university in the NW." SU is ok, but it isn't exactly UPS. let alone about to be Swarthmore of the pacific.

So now the school is moving away from social-justice in the backyard (Bessie Burton) while it continues to pump funds into programs in which students get to become global cultural tourists, I mean.. help create communities of social justice in the developing world.

wf is right; notice must demanded for these projects. 5 years may be asking too much, but 2 months is ridiculous. the fact is, the school does own other property and has other options for space. Bessie Burton just happens to be in the way, on the back doorstep of Campion Hall.

But do you know what's worse than all of this? the new Chihuly in the Pigott building. That is some ugly, ugly art.

Fact is charles has a hard-on for Seattle U..

only until i've finished paying my student loans that I took out to get an education there.

I keep seeing this argument, which is basically dan's argument, which is "you're throwing old people out onto the street." That isn't the case. It's an assisted living facility. There are strong emotional ties to elderly family and their care, but you can't run a higher education institution based on emotions alone. It's a medical facility that provides round the clock care and support. These things are not sacred ground, and it isn't the only one in the greater seattle area. The people who live there will all be relocated and will receive the care that they deserve. Their well being is NOT in jeopardy here.

I agree that the time line could have been longer, but you'll note that closing bessie burton has been discussed openly since at least March 2006 as a possibility.

As for comment 14, I'm not sure how extending dates and not charging rent for tenants in order to allow them to save money to move constitutes poor form. Unless I'm the only one that hasn't gotten free rent from my landlord to save up first/last deposit bankroll for a new place.

As a current SU student, I'll admit, what they're doing is very much not a part of their "core values." But as a Jew that attends SU, I gotta say, for the amount of money it costs to go there ($8,000 per quarter), the facilities fucking suck. I've never lived on campus so I don't know about that. But the food sucks, my dept (the journalism dept) sucks, the labs suck, the bookstore sucks, the parking situation sucks, All of it. They are hopefully putting the best interest of the students first and in my opinion, that's what they should be doing.

It is unfortunate that Bessie Burton Sullivan nursing facility is closing. I work at a hospital, and we have many patients that discharge there for short term skilled nursing and rehab placement. It is one of the better facilities in the city, and frequently requested by our patients.

I am a grandchild of someone who was at Bessie Burton until her death in late 1995. I’m also Catholic by birth, though I no longer practice. I went to Catholic school all the way through college, which was at Gonzaga – a Jesuit institution – and my sister is a graduate of Seattle University.

My grandmother was not fortunate enough to die of a heart attack or car accident. Hers was a long, drawn out, multi-year ordeal which took her from an old lady to essentially a vegetable. During the last 5+ years I never visited, but my father went every week. When I saw her in her last days I couldn’t imagine what he went through during the last months and years when she was just lying there unable to respond; his was the only familiar voice she heard, and he kept going to her with that until the very end.

Through it all the people at Bessie Burton became somewhat of an extended family to him - he’s gregarious by nature, but if you’re there every week people remember you – and when the end came they were crying right there next to us.

It doesn’t appear that many of the commenters have had to deal with end-of-life care, because if they had they wouldn’t be so cold. Believe me everyone, it well and truly sucks. The number of shitty “care givers” out there is so high that the ones that do a decent job can charge so much that they drain any life savings the person might have had.

It’s rare to have a place like Bessie Burton, and it’s a shame that they’re getting rid of it. To me, it would make the most sense to not take in any more people and ride it out with the ones that are there until the last one dies. Sure it would be expensive, but since when is cost the overriding Christian value? The Jesus guy everyone talks about – you think he’d be up for this? Me neither.

Also, regarding the “protests”. While I appreciate that they’re trying something that clearly has no hope in hell of succeeding, it seems to me that a better way to go about it would be to contact the families of the people who have already died there and have them take part as well. Not only would they have a more powerful message, they likely have more sway in other areas like funding, pr, etc.

I’ll close with a couple of comments to your commeters.

candyqueen, what fucking difference does it make that you’re a Jew; would the facilities suck any less if you were wicken? If it sucks that much fucking leave.

And finally, to keshmeshi, who called the families of the residents whiners: go fuck yourself. You have clearly either never lost someone close to you or you’re so self-centered it had no effect. I hope your loved ones die as gracefully as possible so you don’t have to go through what these people go through. Everyone deserves that, even people who act like you.

Too late, Paul. I have gone through that and the last thing that would have been on my dying family members' minds, and on my mind, would have been where they spent their last days. As long as the facilities were adequate, what mattered to us most was spending their last days together as a family. Excuse me for thinking that moving to another facility is not the fucking end of the world. If they can't find an adequate facility to replace Bessie Burton, then they have reason to complain. I haven't heard that complaint yet, only that closing down that specific facility is somehow callous and cruel. Bullshit.

And, wait a minute, you didn't visit your grandmother during the last five years of her life? And you're calling me callous?

Paul probably didn't visit his grandmother during the last five years of her life for the same reason I didn't visit my Alzheimers-afflicted Grandma after she was unable to leave her care facility. I got reports from her son (my uncle) and other family members. She was no longer able to recognize her visitors, didn't speak and didn't even open her eyes for the last couple years. I preferred to remember her as the amazing person she was during the rest of her life.

@ 16: "I'm not sure how extending dates and not charging rent for tenants in order to allow them to save money to move constitutes poor form. Unless I'm the only one that hasn't gotten free rent from my landlord to save up first/last deposit bankroll for a new place."

That's not what happened to Meskel, and it's not what's being offered the seniors who are tenants in SU's nursing home either.

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I worked at Bessie for 2 years and then went to part-time. I always enjoy worked for the best interdisplinary teams ever in my career. I will dearly miss the interaction with the residents and my co-workers.

To comment 13: "The university, which has assigned social-service workers to every resident to help with the transfer process"

I can guarantee you first-hand that they are most certainly not doing that whatsoever. The same usual staff who discharge patients when they are well or ready to leave the facility are now the same staff responsible for discharging all 139 patients. There are 3 full-time social workers, who were used to discharging about 5 patients each week. The workload has increased a thousand-fold, yet the University has not provided any more employees to assist the social workers in the discharges.

To comment 13: "The university, which has assigned social-service workers to every resident to help with the transfer process"

I can guarantee you first-hand that they are most certainly not doing that whatsoever. The same usual staff who discharge patients when they are well or ready to leave the facility are now the same staff responsible for discharging all 139 patients. There are 3 full-time social workers, who were used to discharging about 5 patients each week. The workload has increased a thousand-fold, yet the University has not provided any more employees to assist the social workers in the discharges.

To comment 13: "The university, which has assigned social-service workers to every resident to help with the transfer process"

I can guarantee you first-hand that they are most certainly not doing that whatsoever. The same usual staff who discharge patients when they are well or ready to leave the facility are now the same staff responsible for discharging all 139 patients. There are 3 full-time social workers, who were used to discharging about 5 patients each week. The workload has increased a thousand-fold, yet the University has not provided any more employees to assist the social workers in the discharges.