Edmonds celebrates New Start Center with ribbon cutting

Published 2:41 pm Tuesday, June 30, 2026

EDMONDS — About 100 people crowded inside Edmonds’ New Start Center Monday to celebrate its opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The New Start Center will offer 90-day transitional housing for up to 45 residents, along with life coaching, permanent housing support, addiction treatment and therapy. The YWCA Seattle | King | Snohomish will begin accepting referrals this week for the center, with residents expected to move in within the next three weeks, YWCA spokesperson Annalee Schafranek said during the event.

“I’m ecstatic that we can actually make an imprint in this community, even with the challenges that we’ve been facing,” said YWCA Chief Executive Officer Maria Chavez-Wilcox said in an interview after the ceremony. “If you don’t give people a chance to move forward, they’re not going to have anywhere to start.”

The services offered by the New Start Center will actually make an impact on homelessness, she said.

“The worst thing in the world, when you’re on the streets, is to be put in a room and shut the door,” Chavez-Wilcox said. “That wraparound services that help — that keeping focus — I think is really, really important.”

Construction for the Edmonds New Start Center came in on budget, costing a little under $17 million, County Executive Dave Somers said during the ceremony. Funding came from the Federal American Rescue Plan Act and the county’s 0.1% affordable housing sales tax.

The center will learn of potential residents from its referral partners, including the cities of Lynnwood and Edmonds, South County Fire, Snohomish County and several emergency shelter programs.

The center will house only adults with women on one floor and men on the other. Couples can live in the center at the same time but each will have their own room.

“That’ll be a motivation,” said Kresha Green, YWCA senior director of Emergency Services, during a building tour. “Let’s get you into that stable housing so you guys can be back together in one household.”

Residents will have access to food with help from the Edmonds Food Bank, laundry machines, community spaces, a computer area, and their own private rooms, some of which are accessible for individuals with disabilities. The center will also provide personal care products, laundry detergent and fresh linens each week.

“Hopefully they can feel at rest, at peace, while they figure out how to get those next steps,” Green said. “We’re all working with that idea of trying to get folks from this facility into stable housing within 90 days.”

Individuals cannot stay at the New Start Center if they’ve had a recent conviction for manufacture or distribution of a controlled substance or if they’ve been convicted of a violent crime. Drug use is also prohibited in the building and residents must be 30 days sober before moving into the center.

In 2022, Snohomish County purchased the old Days Inn in Everett and the America’s Best Value Inn in Edmonds to serve as two New Start Centers. Multiple delays, including asbestos and meth contamination cleanup, pushed the projects into 2026.

The Everett New Start Center is on track to open in August, Somers said.

That center’s operator, The Salvation Army, and the YWCA worked together throughout the planning process, Green said.

“We meet with each other on a weekly basis,” she said. “We’re bouncing ideas off each other all the time, so it really feels like a collaboration.”

Both centers will play a role in a much larger plan to help house everyone in the county, Human Services Director Mary Jane Brell Vujovic said after the ceremony.

“This becomes a piece, not the piece,” she said. As a county, it’s about offering a number of different housing options “so we can really meet the needs of all the people in this community.”

The ceremony wasn’t about celebrating the building; it was about the people that will receive help within it, Edmonds Mayor Mike Rosen said during the ceremony.

“Communities aren’t measured by the buildings that they build. They’re measured by the futures that they help create inside these buildings,” he said.

Edmonds Human Services Program Manager Mindy Woods also spoke during the ceremony.

“This motel was my home for my son and I 16 years ago,” she said. “My son and I became homeless when our apartment was taken over by black mold.”

For four months, they bounced between different couches until they got into a shelter program and moved into the motel.

“That was the first time that I was finally able to sleep soundly. My son was able to get in the bathtub and take a nice long bath.” Woods said. “Everyone’s needs are different, and this program will be able to meet those needs with dignity and respect, and with intentional goals in mind.”

That support will be life-changing, she said.

Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay