Straub is a long-time Hillman City Collaboratory volunteer who dedicated the past four years to running a homeless drop-in center in the space.
Reserve collaboratory simmons full#
On the other side of a wall and glass doors are several office spaces and small meeting rooms, and in the back of the space is a full kitchen. The community hub consists of a large main mixing room that can fit a hundred people comfortably. The Hillman City Collaboratory is located on the main floor of a red brick building at the corner of South Orcas Street and Rainier Avenue South. He introduced himself as Victor Straub and gave me a brief tour. He nodded in understanding as if he had been expecting me and we went inside. I wanted to know more about the closing of the collaboratory, I explained. As I tugged on the collaboratory door, the man took a final draw on his cigarette and approached me.
He smoked a cigarette and peered down the empty sidewalk. An older man, who looked to be in his 60s, stood about 30 feet from the entrance. This was the final day of the community hub - they had to vacate the premises. And then there were the films and the talks and the discussions and the various events - social, political, cultural, artistic, and business-related - that I attended at the collaboratory throughout the years.īut as I approached the Hillman City Collaboratory headquarters on April 30, I could see, even from across Rainier Avenue, that the social change incubator that once teemed with life was completely deserted.
High-quality clothes were neatly folded into stacks - anyone could grab some pretty decent threads and it didn’t matter if they had money or something to trade. The second time I engaged with the space was when I attended a clothing swap in the main mixing room. I first discovered Hillman City Collaboratory in 2016 while working with housing activists to save a Central District family from displacement - the collaboratory was a space where we could strategize and discuss.
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