Staff at Auburn Youth Resources say Arcadia House, their youth and young adult shelter at 915 H St., is too small for their purposes at maybe 700 square feet.

Its proposed 12,000-square-foot successor at 702 10th Ave. N. describes a 2- to 2½-story shelter that provides transitional housing, permits easier access to AYR’s services, offers food, case management for commercially-sexually-exploited children and allows drug and alcohol treatment programs and mental health therapy.

It’s all about ending the cycle of homelessness, AYR Development Director Michael Jackson told the Auburn Council at a study session Monday.

“… You folks know the need. There’s hundreds of people sleeping out on the streets every night. … It’s important that we take care of this and get it going,” Jackson said.

Jackson, AYR Director Sylvia Fuerstenberg and Design Consultant Rand Redlin paid their visit to City Hall just as AYR was launching its $3 million capital campaign. While AYR has put in $350,000, the state of Washington has contributed $1.2 million, King County has kicked in $999,000. The City of Auburn has agreed on a figure as yet undisclosed.

AYR, Jackson said, is the only agency in South King County doing the work outlined above for youth and young adults. And what has Jackson and his cohorts excited is getting to do all of it in one new, state-of-the-art facility.

“We’re going to offer meaningful services, the drug and alcohol treatment, the mental health therapy, job placement, GED, whatever the kids need, we’re going to be giving that to them with a low barrier to the kids that need it. It’s right downstairs. They won’t have to go across the street. They won’t have to go from our campus … around the corner to get their services,” Jackson said.

Early design work shows a two-story building with 12 units upstairs, three downstairs, and a 12-bed shelter. Office space allows staff to do mental health counseling for youth and young adults and the families that AYR serves.

At this time, AYR is working with the City to determine how many cars could park at the proposed site. The answer is likely to determine whether the building is to be two or three stories.

“We do face some challenges, we haven’t figured them all out yet, we’re still in the preliminary planning stage,” said Redlin. “We’re taking an existing site that Auburn Youth Resources owns now, the Severson House. We’ve owned that for almost 20 years and operated a youth program there that has been very well integrated into the neighborhood. So we’re going to be taking down an existing building and building maybe a 2- to 2½-story building there.

“We feel it fits into the neighborhood because it’s a mixed commercial-residential area. We feel it has good transit for youth and for our staff. But because it’s only a little over a 10,000-square-foot site … parking is probably our biggest challenge,” Redlin said.

Councilman Rich Wagner said the City would do what it could to make the project feasible in terms of building and development standards.

“All I’m saying is, don’t be afraid to ask,” Wagner said.

Jackson said that AYR is aware that some may frown upon the project, given the common belief that the homeless are being drawn from the surrounding area to Auburn precisely because such services are available here.

Jackson said that isn’t true.

“Most of the youth and young adults who attend any of our programs, our shelters, or who are coming in and out of our drop-ins identify themselves as being from here, from Auburn,” Jackson said. “They’re coming down here because they live here. So it would be our duty to go and provide these services for those people who are Auburnites,” Jackson said

“…We’re trying to be the agency in South King County that says we’re doing those things that everybody else is talking about,” Jackson said. “We believe in the therapy, we believe in the treatment, we believe in treating these folks like they’re human, that they’re worthy. And that’s why we are building the Arcadia House.”