Wash and learn

Williston couple brings social services to Burlington laundromat

BY PATRICK CROWLEY VTDigger

It was around noon on a Sunday, a busy time for laundry.

King Street Laundry is a small space, and on Jan. 15, it was more bustling than usual.

Conversations took place amid the sounds of whirring washers and tumbling dryers. One of the loudest voices belonged to the laundromat’s owner, Andrew Christiansen, who enthusiastically greeted visitors at the door.

Some arrived with baskets of clothes, wondering what all the commotion was about. Others had come looking for employment.

Near the front door was a table filled with pastries and coffee. A team from Working Fields, a staffing agency with a specialty of finding employment for vulnerable populations, was stationed near the door, ready to work with job-seekers.

Andrew and Hannah Christiansen, a couple from Williston — Andrew works remotely for a biotech firm, and Hannah is a birth educator — purchased the laundromat last year with plans to make it more than just a place for local residents to clean their clothes. When they reopened it last June, they wanted to tackle the problems that led to the laundromat’s closure in 2021.

In December 2021, former owner TJ Riley shut down the business he had owned for 15 years, citing safety concerns.

“I was out of patience for deal- ing with the crime and the vandalism and the drug use,” Riley said during a recent interview, explaining that the business fell victim to a “perfect storm” of the Covid-19 pandemic, opioid use and “constraints being placed on the police department.”

The business model of a “predominantly unattended” laundromat became “unbearable,” he said.

“I went down there one day and it was a bunch of vagrants hanging