Operator Jasmine Donahue stands in front of Hope 'N Wellness on Rucker Avenue.
Photo courtesy Hope 'N Wellness
EVERETT — The city has extended its cease-and-desist deadline on Hope ‘N Wellness, a resource center downtown near Pacific and Rucker avenues that assists hundreds of primarily homeless individuals.
Instead of Feb. 28, it’s now April 30, as brainstorming continues about how to relocate the indie social services organization without losing it.
The city’s only objection to Hope ‘N Wellness is because its first-floor frontage violates a zoning rulebook developed to meet a special vision of having an attractive downtown. It says social service groups shouldn’t be using first-floor storefront spaces.
The city hasn’t budged on its position, but has sent teams to meet with the center multiple times.
Mayor Cassie Franklin announced last week she’d directed to give the extension.
“I want to again express how important and necessary Hope ‘N Wellness’s services are for our community. As a city, we continue to balance that work with the needs and concerns of our businesses and the importance of creating and maintaining a vibrant downtown,” Franklin said in a statement during the Feb. 12 City Council meeting.
“Our team is looking at a viable location and paths for funding,” Franklin said.
City spokeswoman Simone Tarver said by email that city officials are “also working with other social services partners to explore opportunities for collaboration for increased services and supports, and Hope ‘N Wellness could possibly be a partner.”
Operator Jasmine Donahue said she got word of the extension the day of the announcement.
The center opened in 2020. City staff became aware of it in 2023 after it put up its sign, and first tried last fall to close the center on the same grounds of a zoning violation. April 30 is the second extension the city has given.
It opened a satellite center in midtown on Rucker Avenue near 43rd Street, but that’s a distance from other services downtown its clients go to, such as the courthouse.
The downtown site is open on Wednesdays.
Observers noted the council modified the same downtown zoning rulebook last year to allow childbirth centers on the first floor. Tarver indicated a social services organization such as Hope ‘N Wellness wouldn’t fit the area’s vision and couldn’t get a similar adjustment.
Tarver said the funding Franklin referenced could come by way of City Council members dedicating their share of COVID-19 funding toward Hope ‘N Wellness.
In 2023 and 2024, the seven council members were allowed to allocate a combined $1.4 million to efforts around the community.
There is a cumulative $176,500 not yet allocated between four council members, Tarver said.
