The building of the Seattle Convention Center and other buildings in the 1980s displaced many low-income residents in the downtown area. In 1988, housing activists, displaced and homeless people, and others formed Operation Homestead to take direct action. In 1989 they estimated that the city had 3,000 to 5,000 people experiencing homelessness, and that some 2,000 people had been displaced since 1980. Operation Homestead broke into and occupied several older downtown buildings they believed could be renovated for low-income housing.

This brochure gives the history of Operation Homestead and shows images of their 1991 occupation of the Arion Court building at 1814 Minor Avenue. A year later, some $1.5 million dollars had been supplied to renovate the three-story walk-up. As of 2025, the Arion Court still stands; it is managed by Seattle’s Low Income Housing Institute.

Caption information source: “Housing symposium draws fire: city must do more to protect its downtown supply, activists say”, by Angelo Bruscas, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 28, 1989, pages B1, B2.
Caption information source: “Activists take over abandoned housing in protest for homeless”, by Tom Paulson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 20, 1991, page B1.
Caption information source: “Letters: Shelter from cold a fundamental right”, by Jim True, Operation Homestead, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 11, 1992, page D3.