On Monday, a very big news story broke: official confirmation of the purchase of the Vashon Community Care (VCC) facility by the Seattle Indian Health Board — a nationally recognized organization that will use the facility to reopen and expand its inpatient residential treatment facility for those who are overcoming addiction.

Since VCC closed its doors in 2021, many islanders have wondered what will become of the facility. What entity would purchase it from Transforming Age, the Bellevue-based nonprofit that had purchased it in 2017, and then closed it and decamped in 2021?

Many islanders had no doubt hoped — though no organized effort took place to make it so — that the facility would be used to help ease Vashon’s affordable housing crisis, or that perhaps, against all odds and market trends, the building would once again serve as a long-term care facility.

It is only human to remember what VCC brought to this community — a peaceful and well-run place for our family members to go when they could no longer live in their own homes. And it is only normal, especially for many of us who are now aging or who have aging family members, to still be saddened that VCC’s era — so long supported by the contributions of islanders — ended so abruptly in 2021.

But looking to the future, we believe islanders can be heartened that this storied facility will continue to serve in some ways as it always has — as a place of respite, healing and care for those who have lost their way and are in great need.

The facility has fulfilled this purpose dating back to 1928 when Goodwill Industries purchased the Ellsworth Ranch and established a working farm and boarding house for destitute men and women from Seattle.

It was subsequently sold to a couple who also ran the farmhouse and grounds as a rehabilitation site, and then later as a nursing home as their residents aged.

Years passed, and the property changed hands again several times but continued to be operated as a care facility until 1995, when the owners at that time announced their intention to close the facility — a move that would have displaced 36 residents.

But in what became known as “The Christmas Miracle,” the community rallied to save the care facility, with more than 30 people pledging loans to guarantee the lease of the property.

And within two weeks, those activists had organized a nonprofit, Vashon Community Care Center, to keep the facility operating.

What isn’t as well remembered about “The Christmas Miracle” is that it came about, in part, because the owners of Island Manor — the building currently on site — had announced their intention to lease their facility to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.

Some islanders didn’t like that idea at the time, and some might not like it now.

But we know much more now than we did then, and many of us have gained this knowledge the hard way, as drug and alcohol addiction have personally impacted and diminished our lives.

Throughout King County, there is a worsening crisis of addiction.

The work of the Health Board, through the recovery center it will now bring to Vashon, is completely focused on helping to resolve this crisis, one addicted person at a time, and we can’t think of a more important focus.

Lives will be saved and redeemed at this new facility on Vashon, and that is something to cheer and be proud of. By welcoming the Health Board to Vashon, we, too, can be part of the solution to the scourge of addiction.

Yes — there are still many things to learn about how the new facility will operate — including whether current islanders will be able to access treatment there, which we hope very much is the case.

What will be the staffing model of the facility, many of us wonder, since staffing shortages became such a problem for VCC?

Beyond all that, what will be the Health Board’s greater engagement with our community?

Of course, we’ve wanted to know these things, and more, for a few weeks now, as we learned that it was likely that the facility would be coming to Vashon.

But it is also completely understandable that the parties involved in the sale did not talk to the press or hold any public meetings, prior to the close of the sale. That’s not how the sale of buildings or land works.

This was the case for Sea Mar, in its purchase of the Spinnaker Building, and also for King County in its recent purchase of 110 acres of the former Misty Isle Farms. Neither of those buyers opened it up to a community discussion as to whether or not they should make those purchases.

They did it, and then told us what they intended to do with the properties.

We have no doubt that the Health Board will do the same, and in a fulsome, neighborly way. Our community can also do its part too, by welcoming the organization to Vashon.

After all, they’re coming here to help.