Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
I guess beggars can be choosers.
What do they think 'permanent' means in this context?
@4, Georgetown residents don't seem to think so.
This location, next to train tracks and a freeway, it sucks. It's really unfortunate. But as someone that wants to see Sodo zoning change to allow some housing, maybe this is the first needed step.
So expect McSchwinnville to reject it. Until they get Kinnear park, this traveling hobo circus will never rest.
Seattle has a chance here to move to the head of the pack and really take a stand by providing this segment of its population with a safe place to live. We've done a lot (Urban Rest Stops, permanent housing for chronic street alcoholics) but we can do more.
And BTW, the NIMBY attitudes of the nouveau Georgetowners I find pretty sickening. As a former 13 year resident of G'town, I was there when there were no hip bars, eateries or festivals, only cheap housing, lots of druggies, and noise from trains, cars 'n' airplanes. That the 'hood would be revitalized by a bunch of grunge-lite whining NIMBY-types is, well, a mixed blessing, I suppose.
I had the same thought.
But don't worry, Nickelsville will say no. The last thing that advances their agenda is being unnoticed. Here’s a suggestion..Why doesn’t Scott Morrow let these people go back to his Tent City 3 & Tent City 4 where the majority came from in the first place.
Nickelsville is a publicity stunt and it’s doing nothing but using these people as pawns and parading them from location to location every few days.
The “operators” of Nickelsville are SHARE/WHEEL, the same people that operate Tent City 3 & 4. Scott Morrow is their founder. Leo Rhodes is their “treasurer”. Anitra Freeman is their president. This is not some random group of people off the streets.
The majority of the Nickelsville residents are made up of people brought over from SHARE/WHEEL’s two tent cities in order for them to force their agenda to have a Portland style Dignity Village.Scott thought that he was going to get that back in May 2004, but the Brickyard Park and Ride site didn’t work out so well for him and thus Tent City 4 began rotating through Eastside churches every 90 days.
Scott Morrow and his associates at SHARE/WHEEL are trying desperately to disassociate with being behind “Nickelsville” as a way to get around the 2002 Consent Decree. (King County Superior Court Cast #01-2-10396-2SEA.) Anitra Freeman and Scott Morrow are attempting to hide behind the Veteran’s for Peace organization as a way to get around the 2002 consent decree they have with the City of Seattle, but the facts are accurate and can be proven with the IRS Tax records of SHARE/WHEEL.
SHARE/WHEEL’s attempts to intimidate and make threats in order to extort public land are wearing thin. SHARE/WHEEL and Scott Morrow used these tactics over the Safe Harbors issue two years ago. They used it back in May 2004 as a way of forming Tent City 4. It’s always “give us/or we will open mulitiple tent cities.”
Now, SHARE/WHEEL and Scott Morrow are taking advantage of the economic crisis and using it as an excuse when the fact remains the majority of the residents of Nickelsville came from other SHARE/WHEEL shelters.
Throwing 100-150 tents into an area might make it marginally safer for a fraction of the city’s homeless, but it won’t do much to really help homelessness and actually makes the areas around them less safe. The city of Nashville actually found that in an area around their tent city, crime rose 21 percent, while it decreased 18 percent in the rest of the precinct over that period of time. What is the mayor's plan for making sure that doesn't happen here? What happens to the problem people drawn to a tent city that are turned away due to past rule violations? Do they just find a piece of grass nearby?
It just makes me wonder how a mayor can make a decision like that without a single bit of community outreach or transparency into the decision making process.
Shouldn't you be allowed to voice an opinion about what is going on in your own neighborhood? And just because some idiot that doesn't live there disagrees with you, so, it is ok for them to place a negative label on you.
In the mid '90s, the city had finally had enough and committed the most unpardonable of sins -- forcing homeless people to accept the housing that they had been offered. The city is cleaner now than I ever thought possible.
I hope my fears that Nickelsville is going to create the same sort of mess are unfounded but I really doubt it. One reason the Tent Cities work is their commitment to working with the neighborhoods that host them, a commitment that's reinforced by the temporariness of the entire enterprise. No goodwill or good behavior means no one will offer to host them.
Once Nickelsville is permanent, what, if anything, is the city going to do if the residents don't show the same goodwill? Since the city doesn't give much of a shit about SODO/Georgetown, I'm guessing absolutely nothing.
Of course, the Sunny Jim site is about THREE TIMES as far away from the residental heart of Georgetown as the first Nichelsville site on West Marginal was -- and there was no noticable change in "homeless crime" in Georgetown back when it was located signifigantly closer to G-Town.
And keep in mind, Clint, the REAL story here is that it's the "concerned neighbors" (i.e.: the NIMBY asses) similar to you -- but with higher property values -- living in Magnolia, Queen Anne and West Seattle that have gotten the NUMBER FOUR site picked over much better sites in THEIR back yards.
If G-Town/SODO has to pull the weight for the well-to-do Seattleites who talk a good game about poverty, equality and human rights, but don't want to actually SEE the poor on their way to buy organic, free-trade produce at Whole Foods, well... what else is new, really?!?
Hardly shocked-
-A non-NIMBY G-Towner