In arguably the most important piece of local journalism of 2021, Will James did a three part story on the displaced residents of the Merkle Hotel in Downtown Tacoma.

The Merkle was the last of its type: a residential hotel that provided no strings attached housing to very low income and disabled Tacomans. The conditions in the hotel were deplorable, a failure of municipal code enforcement, but it was a home with a door that locked. In 2018, a local developer seeking to renovate the Merkle Hotel pushed out the last remaining occupants.

Three years later, Will followed up on the people who were displaced and found nearly half were now dead. We brought him on to talk about this story, what it says about overall housing trends in our region, and his reporting on people experiencing homelessness in Washington.

Cast of Characters

Going Further

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM