Capitol Hill Tiny House Village part of mayor’s push for burst of new emergency shelter in Seattle

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A Central District THV at its 2016 opening

A $1.1 million plan to build a 32-tiny house “emergency transitional encampment” just off Capitol Hill’s busy E Olive Way will be part of Mayor Katie Wilson’s push to rapidly create new shelter in Seattle.

Early plans for the “Capital Hill Tiny Village” (sic) show a gridded layout, seven by three deep, with a fourth row of six individual shelters, group kitchen and laundry facilities, plus a “hygiene trailer.” A security shack is diagramed at the entrance facing Belmont Ave. The lot’s new run of 8-foot cedar fencing will stay as the camp takes shape.

The cleared 4,300-square-foot Belmont Ave lot was home to the recently demolished Granberg Apartments. That building was acquired and cleared as Downtown Emergency Service Center develops a 120-unit supportive housing apartment building with onsite services for its residents. The block had been home to trio of former transitional housing building from Pioneer Human Services before the $6.5 million acquisition.

Opposition to the planned DESC supportive housing facility help power the unsuccessful run for city council by former Capitol Hill business owner Rachael Savage.

Response to the decision to site a new tiny village in one of the densely populated areas of the city will be a new test for the administration as it shepherd’s Wilson’s plan.

The mayor issued her executive order in January to speed up the creation of new shelter and affordable housing in the city with a new “interdepartmental team” tasked with identifying “options for financial incentives, permitting changes, and other policy changes.” The first goal is to have hundreds of new shelter units in place by the time of the World Cup this summer.

Wilson’s strategy to increase both the scale and number of Tiny House Village encampments in the city is hoped to impact well beyond this summer’s soccer.

CHS reported here on the latest legislation moving through the Seattle City Council that would raise legal limits on residents at “transitional encampments” to 150. The bill would also allow one “interim use” 250-resident village in the city.

Previously, council gave its approval of legislation enabling the Director of Finance and Administrative Services’ authority to execute leases when the land is used for transitional encampment purposes. Another bill passed will allow for $4.8 million in unused funding to be redirected to the effort.

As of early 2026, there were around a dozen tiny house villages currently operating within the Seattle city limits. The number has grown with the opening of the Olympic Hills Village in Lake City in February 2026.

Most of the sites are managed by the Low Income Housing Institute in partnership with the City of Seattle and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

According to the early planning for the project, the Capitol Hill Tiny House Village will be operated by LIHI as “a religious controlled emergency transitional encampment.” The arrangement allows the camp to move forward under guidelines established by then-District 3 representative Kshama Sawant exempting religious organizations from permitting requirements for encampments. The religious partner organization for the Capitol Hill village has not been announced.

Nearby, LIHI has partnered with groups including Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd and New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in the Central District.

Capitol Hill’s Environmental Works and DH Landscape Architecture are leading the design.

The mayor’s office is highlighting work around public safety and “neighborhood coordination” that it says will be part of its rapid expansion emergency shelter. Facilities will have 24/7 staffing, defined site boundaries, “Resident Code of Conduct” efforts, and Community Advisory Committees for oversight.

(Image: King County)

Sites are also reviewed against a set of public safety and environmental criteria. The mayor’s office says the Seattle Police Department will “work with operators to review site design (CPTED) for lighting, visibility, and access points.”

Low Income Housing Institute officials say its existing code of conduct for residents will remain in effect at the emergency encampments.

According to the plans, the Capitol Hill Tiny Village will be similar in size and scale to the organization’s Aurora Ave encampment. In fact, the early paperwork for the city still inadvertently is labelled “Friendship Heights THV.”

The Capitol Hill Tiny Village will be temporary — but could be in place for years as the development process for the 120-unit supportive housing building from DESC plays out and an environmental cleanup continues at the site after decades of leaky oil furnaces.

In the meantime, this block of Capitol Hill is being readied — quickly — to make 32 new homes.

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