This guest op-ed post was written by Tim Harris, director homeless advocacy newspaper Real Change, and member of the city's Housing and Services for Seattle's Unsheltered Homeless Population panel.

On Monday, city council president Richard Conlin spearheaded a resolution to spend three months exploring alternatives to building a homeless encampment for Nickelsville in SODO. By and large, Conlin's suggested alternatives—using more church facilities as shelter space, providing more rental assistance vouchers—are already being employed in the city. They are nothing new. Nor is there any recognition that the self-help efforts of homeless people themselves must be supported.

But what's most infuriating is that Conlin's resolution ignores months of research and collaborative work done on the part of city officials and leading homeless and housing advocates—all experts in their fields.

You see, last fall, Mayor Mike McGinn assembled Seattle’s homeless advocates and social service providers to answer an important question: Should Nickelsville, the homeless encampment that isn’t going away anytime soon, be granted a permanent, city-sanctioned site?

We were all skeptical that our opinion would matter. We asked, “You wouldn’t get us around this table just to go through some meaningless bullshit exercise while you pretend to care what we think, would you?”

Our host blinked uncertainly, said he was very interested in our ideas, and made no promises. That was all the encouragement we needed.

After two months of meetings with city officials and debating the complex social and political footwork involved in creating a permanent encampment, as well as discussing what should be done for all those who would still be left outside, the Who’s Who of Homelessness and Housing that was our panel came to this conclusion: Seattle should support efforts like Nickelsville with city land and other minor assistance like bus tickets and trash removal. Another outreach worker to connect people with services would also be nice.

We also agreed that the city should recognize that the unmet need is much larger than what one or two or even ten Nickelsvilles can manage. The shelters don’t come close to meeting the need and won’t anytime soon. Seattle should therefore create zones where unsheltered homeless people can be free of harassment and maybe even find a little support. At the very least, the City should do no harm and not interfere with homeless people’s own self-help efforts.

It was a modest proposal from people who don’t expect much.

To our surprise, McGinn listened. He submitted two bills to council—one granted land and the other provided funding to build and run a permanent homeless encampment.

The first was declared DOA because, according to Conlin, no discussion could occur until the Environmental Impact Review was complete. (Apparently, relatively insignificant industrial zoning changes require far more diligence in this regard than $4.2 billion transportation projects.) The second bill was tabled.

Conlin has not reached out to any of the homeless and housing advocates involved in the process; he hasn’t asked for our advice or utilized our expertise. He seems to think he knows how to address the needs of this city’s homeless population better than a panel of experts with hundreds of years of collective experience.

Richard has always been opposed to encampments of any sort. Were I to read between the lines of his resolution, I’d say it says, “You’ll get your permanent encampment when pigs fucking fly.”

Our panel could have recommended dozens of actions, but we didn’t. We asked, essentially, for one thing: The city recognize that the low-cost, human dignity-promoting, self-help efforts of Nickelsville are a critical part of the solution to the crisis of homelessness. We need to stop throwing up barriers to their success and start supporting them.

Conlin’s proposed “solutions” offer little more than another time-consuming set of roadblocks.

Now our job is to help Seattle’s City Council hear what we’ve said and hear it soon. The city can either support the self-help efforts of homeless people, or they can arrogantly dismiss them as misguided and pretend that no urgency exists. The mayor's question has been considered and answered. Now, let’s see who on council is listening.