The sub-street known fondly as “Crack Alley” is strewn with a couple of dozen people by 6 p.m. Most are there to get in line for an overnight stay at the Martin Luther King Center, a so-called house of last resort for more than 100 regulars.



You can read about the details of the King Center’s current dilemma elsewhere. Short version — after Tacoma City Council received recommendations that the Center’s organizers not receive a grant that composed more than a third of its operating budget, Martin Luther King Housing Development Association has announced it is getting out of the downtown shelter game. Local caregivers and politicians, meanwhile, are looking for a new organization to oversee operations. If no one steps forward, MLKHDA has said it will close the shelter by July 1. These are stories of people who are likely to be most affected by whatever fate awaits the shelter.



Jason Rasmussan, 28, says he was born into homelessness. The son of Hell’s Angels, Rasmussan says he considers himself responsible for the care and protection of the people who live intermittently at the Center. Rasmussan is wheelchair bound, unable to walk because of progressed birth defects.



“My mother did drugs while she was pregnant,” he says, naming cocaine and methamphetamine.



Rassmussan speaks with a slur because of his disabilities, but has the regal demeanor of a politician. His confidence and personal presence border on eerie. He sleeps at the King Center nightly, he says, and has nowhere else to go in Tacoma. If the King Center moves or closes, he’ll head to Everett, where he has a support network. He stays in Tacoma out of loyalty, and because he has a duty to take care of his friends. His disability makes him eligible for assistance and housing, but he stays on the street by choice. The boarding houses he would likely end up in are too unsanitary.



“I have options,” he says. “But I’m not willing to let the state take total control of my life.”



The King Center is a happy medium between unsheltered street life and becoming what he considers being a prisoner of the state. If it closes, he’ll find that medium up north.



“If this place gets shut down, it’s   going to hurt,” he says.



Mitch Mayes, 57, has lived on the  street on and off for 10 years. Mayes  grew up in Tacoma and trained as a boxer with the Tacoma Boys Club. Until recently, Mayes worked at Jefferson House Care Center, which closed down in recent years, leaving Mayes unable to pay rent. Mayes works at Tacoma Metals, a wrecking yard, and stays at hotels most days. When he runs out of money, he stays at the King Center.



“I don’t know what I’d do if they closed down,” he says.



Carol, a woman in her 50s who asked that we not use her real name, says she has stayed at the King Center every night for two years. Carol is shy. She smiles nervously and uncontrollably, like a little girl, before answering most of my questions. Carol says she stays at the King Center because the other shelters are usually full or only allow her to stay for a few weeks before she has to move on. If the King Center is closed, she has nowhere else to go. Recently-passed city laws make it illegal for her to stay on the street, and she doesn’t have any friends or family to help her find other options.



“Most of us are like that,” she says.



On my way out of the alley, which lies at the fenced-off end of the block on the corner of 13th Street and Tacoma Avenue, a grey haired black man looks to be chiding a younger man, also black, with stunner shades perched on his sideways cap. The young man has tears in his eyes, and has a rapt, delirious, curious look on his face. Like he just woke up.



“If you don’t do what’s really, really right, you’ll be here, in this alley, forever,” the older man says.



Well, maybe not this alley.