News Sep 11, 2013 at 4:00 am

The Council Moving Nickelsville Out of Sight Did Not Help Homelessness

Comments

2
I moved here from another blue state, Connecticut, and I've never seen so many homeless people and obviously mentally ill people in my life.
3
@2, okay RickFromTexas from Connecticut, what is your point exactly? I don't think it makes sense to try and correlate the political leanings of a state and its homeless population?
5
Yesterday SLOG ran an article about a couple that built a house for $20,000 and lived on land renting for $300.

Let's say 100 homeless people at 2 per house.
That's $10,000 x 100 = $1 million for the houses.
(And the City has already spent half a million on the problem).

Then the land. Well, from what I could see of that couple's plot, it could host a whole lot more tiny homes...and given these guys are living in tents butt up against each other...so let's say they could put ten tiny homes on that size of land.

That means $300 a month for 20 people, or $1500 a month for the 100 homeless people in the example.

Ok, so based on your own tiny home story, which you assured me is honest and forthright and based on real costs, it should take.

$1 million one time cost to build tiny homes.
$1500 per month or $18,000 per year there after to rent the land.

Problem solved.
6
#5 (cont.'d)

Correction, at 2 people per home, they would only need 50 homes. So that half a million they wasted in the last months could have built enough tiny homes for the majority of the hardcore homeless!

7
#5 (cont'd some more)

Oh yeah, and they would only need half the land, so say $750 per month.

Thus to house 100 homeless people in tiny homes:

$500,000 for housing
$750 for land or $9000 per year

Do I think this could be done? If this were Seattle/Washington in 1970. Yes. No problem. We would be the innovators.

8
Hmmmm, homeless problem..... hmmmm, lots of empty house3s due to foreclosure..... Hmmmm, obvious solutions to both... let the city do imminent domain, manage the real estate and house the homeless with the profits... simple, but apparently impossible to comprehend....
9
@5 That sort of ignores the reason why tent city exists in the... city. Land is expensive here because there are lots of services and amenities, services and amenities that the homeless rely on more than anyone. One of the reasons Nickelsville has been shunted from lot to lot is that neighborhoods often complain about its presence (specifically it's impact on their home values). Where in Seattle could you find space for fifty homes? And how would you convince the surrounding neighborhood to go along with it?

Personally, I think we ought to accept the city's proper role as a place where poor people go to improve their lot, rather than a big playground for the rich or a walled garden for their kids. That means finding a permanent place where people of few means can deploy improvised housing, a sort of free-favela zone, heavily regulated for sanitation and such, but otherwise left to the folks who live there.

I don't see any realistic alternatives, honestly. The rent is too damn high!
10
@5: That was a $20k house, built with 800 hours of free labor, that also required a $12k solar panel setup. Then you have to find somewhere to set the house up. The nice, college educated D.I.N.K.'s in the article managed to find someone to in Snohomish to rent them land for $300/month.

If you think that giving each resident of Nickelsville $20k and a set of house plans will result in a bunch of happy tiny houses in three months, you're mistaken.
11
@5,6,7 (SROTU)

What you're proposing as a solution seems to come from the best of intentions, but it may not serve the needs of these residents.

Everyone talks about and around the "homeless," but few, if any, are talking to them.

They are residents of the city just like everyone else with the same rights to expect that the city government will represent them and will work with them to establish themselves in a sustainable way that contributes to our shared, diverse community.

In fact, the city council has a sworn obligation to listen to them and serve them as the city is able. Instead, the city council has thrown money at them like a beggar in the street in the hopes that the people will just go away and leave them alone.

The assumption that anyone knows what's best for the people living in the Nickelsville camps when no one is actually talking with them to gain their perspective is the epitome of arrogance and stupidity.

If the city wants to know how best to serve these residents, the solution is quite easy. Go and talk with them; gain their perspective on what would work for them to become a sustainable, vibrant part of our community. Then, connect them with the people and services that can help them accomplish this vision.
12
@9 - I live near where Nicklesville was and it's a shame that they had to leave. The idea that it impacted the neighborhood any more than the waste transfer station practically next door is ludicrous. They weren't bad neighbors, they didn't make me feel unsafe, and it was a community that served itself pretty well. Not perfectly, but no community can claim that.
13
@12 - So when you say you live near Nickelsville, what exactly does that mean? Do you live directly abutting the Duwamish Greenbelt where a lot of the real crud of Nickelsville went down. To say that Highland Park, and the industrial businesses along West Mariginal Way were not very adversely affected by Nickelsville is naive at best, or covering up at worst.

If tent camps are going to be allowed in Seattle, it is in everyones interest that they be located in areas where there are more eyes on the residents. Otherwise, it is an anything-goes-hoopla of a party, with drugs, booze and yes sexual assaults. Instead of going to the CD and Skyway, I would have preferred they send one of the three new camps to the front and backyards of City Council Member Licata, O'brien and Mayor McGinn's instead of placing people with a lot of issues in neighborhoods that already have enough problems.
14
Otherwise, it is an anything-goes-hoopla of a party, with drugs, booze and yes sexual assaults.

So Nicklesville was like a college campus?
15
The insanely rich truly are out of mind.
16
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