Beginning in early 2017, about 200 people experiencing homelessness will be housed in three new authorized tent and tiny house encampments, the City of Seattle's Human Services Department announced today.
The exact locations of the new encampments are:
1. 1000 S Myrtle Street will contain up to 50 tiny houses serving 60-70 people.
2. 8620 Nesbit Ave N. will contain up to 50 tiny houses serving 60-70 people.
3. 9701 Myers Way S will contain up to 50 tents serving 60-70 people.
The new encampments are part of a plan Mayor Ed Murray unveiled in October, after advocates unsuccessfully pushed for a city law to allow camping on some limited public lands.
At that time, the mayor opposed allowing camping in some areas of parks and other city-owned land but promised four new city-supervised encampments as an alternative. He said then that two of the camps would open to people with substance abuse disorders. Currently, rules about substance use, belongings, pets, and partners can stop some homeless people from using the city's shelters or existing encampments.
Today's news offers just three locations. According to the mayor's office, the camp near Licton Springs on Nesbit Avenue will be open to people actively using drugs and alcohol, but will not allow use on site. The city will hold public meetings in the neighborhoods where the new camps will be located before opening them. (Similar meetings in the past have attracted angry neighborhood backlash and fear mongering.)
The scale of these new encampments—housing just 200 people total—remains far below the city's needs. According to the last one-night count, about 3,000 people were sleeping outside inside the city of Seattle. A new way of conducting that count next year is expected to find even more people without shelter.
