Recently Mayor Greg Nickels rejected a request that would have allowed some of our city's homeless to spend the cold winter nights sleeping in City Hall. The plan was to allow people who had been sleeping in the old Municipal Building to stay at the new City Hall.

Since the old building is going to be demolished they can't stay there. But the mayor decided that the homeless couldn't stay in the new building, either. The decision to send some of the homeless back onto the streets was a bit harsh, but sensible too. After all, with the homeless hanging around City Hall where would all the lobbyists go?

The mayor gave some reasons for his decision, including security, sanitation and the rational reason that City Hall was not designed to be a shelter. But what is kindhearted Seattle to do to help the homeless? The mayor and city council are wisely and justly proposing $3.2 million next year to build the South Downtown Service Center for the Homeless. This excellent space will give the less fortunate a safe, dry place to shower, clean their clothes, rest and eat during the day. But it is not an overnight shelter.

What our leaders really need is to find some places where these folks can sleep. Luckily for the mayor, this city has lots of underutilized space, for example, the monorail. No, not the new one that we keep voting on, but the old one. The trains have been sitting idle for several months after they caught fire in the spring. Since they aren't moving or combusting, why not let homeless people stay there? Think about it, comfy seats, skylights, plus all the poles to swing on! But for this proposal to pass, we'd have to vote on it. Then revote. Then vote on the revote. And then...

I propose to the mayor that we use Seattle's most underutilized space as an overnight shelter: the Experience Music Project. It isn't like it's that busy anyway. Does anyone go there more than once?

Serving as a shelter for homeless families would go along way to helping give that eyesore a better name. Think about how perfect that building would be for housing fifty or a hundred people. It has low maintenance costs; if anyone made a mess or broke something who could tell?

Sanitation isn't a problem either. It already looks like Godzilla's dung so adding a little more couldn't hurt. Then again, maybe this isn't such a good idea since telling someone they had to stay in that monstrosity would probably make them want to stay on the street instead.

Finding shelter for the disadvantaged is tough in George Bush's economy. I'm sure the Republicans could come up with a market-oriented solution. For example, why not let the homeless stay in the old Municipal Building right up to the time the demolitions crew sets off the explosives. Maybe let them stay there just a little bit after. That's a real value-voter strategy to curing our city's ills.