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For travel writer and TV host Rick Steves, it matters that his community is cared for.
Last December, after Steves learned through a local newsletter that the Lynnwood Hygiene Center—located near his home in Edmonds, Wash.—was set to close, he stepped in to purchase the property.
“I just thought, I’m supposed to buy that right now and go forward—and I did,” said Steves, who is a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynnwood, Wash. “And it’s the best two-and-a-quarter million dollars I could imagine spending.”
The building that hosts the center was once used by a mechanic that Steves frequented to get his car tuned up. For the past five years, it’s been host to the hygiene center.
A community anchor, the center provides approximately 700 showers a month to unhoused residents. Without it, people in the neighborhood would not have access to basic necessities including bathing, meals, clean clothes and a medical clinic.
When news broke that the landowners, who rented the building for free to the Jean Kim Foundation, were selling the property, it seemed like the hygiene center would be closing for good.
When she first opened Steves’ email, “I was pinching myself,” said Sandra Mears, executive director of the Jean Kim Foundation.
“It was in My Edmonds News where I was doing the Hail Mary and I was looking for a community solution, some creative possibilities,” she said. “And he used my words and said, ‘I may have a creative solution for you.’”
Steves purchased the building so that the foundation could continue its mission of serving Snohomish County. Now the space is in the process of receiving some much-needed renovations. The center has two showers and hopes to increase the number of facilities available.
Steves announced his purchase of the center in a Facebook post just before Christmas. He says he’s no saint—he’s just focused on being a good steward.
“I still care about what’s right here in my community, because I really believe in community,” he said. “Good community happens when people do more than their share, when they invest in their community.”
Since the purchase, Steves says he’s had the chance to get to know some of the people who frequent the hygiene center.
“My faith is pretty simple—it’s just ‘love your neighbor and love God,’” he said. “Try to figure out who [that] is and do your best.”
A place to gather
Steves takes his faith seriously, speaking often of religious traditions from around the world in his long-running PBS show Rick Steves’ Europe.
“One thing I’ve learned from my travels is even if all you care about is your own well-being and your own loved one’s security, if you know what’s good for you, you don’t want to be filthy rich in a desperate world,” he said. “It’s not a pretty picture.”
After the news of the hygiene center broke, Steves continued to invest in another Snohomish County endeavor. In early February, he helped to open the Lynnwood Neighborhood Center, a 40,000-square-foot space that offers a variety of community resources for people in need. The center, which opened Jan. 24, also hosts office spaces for multiple nonprofit organizations that otherwise wouldn’t be able to gather.
“I feel like we live in a very privileged corner of the world,” Steves said. “If there are people willing to do that hard work in the trenches to make our society more just and fair and beautiful, the least we can do is give them a nice building to do it in.”
The center’s plans are ambitious, featuring a gymnasium, classrooms and collaborative rooms for the community to gather in times of need. It offers services such as therapy, education and work training to community members.
“If there are people willing to do the hard work to make our society more just, fair and beautiful, the least we can do is give them a nice building to do it in.”
The Lynnwood Neighborhood Center also features a large-scale kitchen and café, a central hub that’s been nicknamed “The Piazza.” For Steves, this points to Italian town squares where all kinds of community members gather.
“A community should be multigenerational,” he said. “And to me, you don’t have the under-35s over here and the seniors over there—you’ve got them all together on the piazza. That’s what we have at the Lynnwood Neighborhood Center.”
Steves says the space is already functioning as a piazza, and that the joy it’s brought has been palpable. A piazza is the opposite of a wall, he said. It’s a place to break down barriers among ourselves and those around us. It’s what’s needed to make the world a bit freer.
“We need to be creative about overcoming these walls,” he said.
Steves hopes that through the community he’s helping to gather in Washington, those walls will continue to come down.
