But aren't there places where the homeless are not allowed to camp - like schools, and playfields? And if it's not allowed and that is posted on signs, shouldn't the homeless know not to camp there? And if they then decide to camp there wouldn't it be at their own risk - meaning they know that their belongings can be removed at any time without being stored for them? I think this would be completely and totally reasonable.

Can they get their settlement in heroin instead of cash?

How about if Seattle provides grants to non-profits like AmeriCorps or the Sierra club to clean up our parks? Would the ACLU be able to sue a nonprofit for cleaning up garbage at our parks?

Somebody is bitter. I guess watching the world change around you as you slide into irrelevance and, soon, your final resting place, makes you bitter. Not like when white men could be dicks to everyone all day and always get away with it.

So if these folks each just received $85k they surely won't expect or need any taxpayer provided handouts ever again.

@4: as a follower of Cthulhu, I'd think you would know there is no "slide" into irrelevance. :)

man alive. troll fodder If I ever saw it.

So no comment on the share the lawyers pocketed on this?

Going to see some high-class tents by the highway pretty soon.

@8: Well, the article did mention $165,000 for attorney's fees.

I wonder if they had the same "belongings" that I see the homeless of Ballard walking around with . . . you know, the shopping carts filled with half a dozen bicycles. I'm sure the cart and the bikes were all "donated" to the poor, homeless heroin addicts the night before.

@10:

Photo, please.

Going through the homeless rush hour on our MUP this morning I passed a truly exceptional rig, 2 shopping carts (that had been chained to the 'you are here' map at the entrance the last couple days each with bikes on top of them connected by a ~20' roll of I don't know what. The operator was steering from the center of the connecting roll. It was going longitudinally (cart, connector, cart, front to back) not sideways because the trail wasn't that wide.

^^ assholes ^^

@ 11 - just type into Google "Seattle homeless bikes" and you'll see plenty of images of heaping piles of stolen bikes inside local homeless encampments. Heck, most of the news agencies in Seattle have been reporting on the growing rate of homeless bike theft.

KIRO has a good story on it from Dec 2 2015: "From bike rack to chop shop: The growing trend in theft:"

"Michaud told KIRO-7 what Chris saw is familiar to police, because it fits a growing criminal trend. From Portland to Olympia to Seattle, stolen bicycle chop shops have been discovered in encampments and on transient trails on a consistent basis, according to police. Last year, Olympia police found hundreds of stolen bikes when they raided one camp. Many of the intact bikes had been re-assembled with parts of other stolen bikes. "It's not organized, but it is a crime of opportunity," Michaud said. "They see a chance, they steal a bike, and they know someone who will buy it."

Seattle police have their own twitter handle: @GetYourBikeBack - with images of the hundreds of stolen bikes they find on a regular basis.

@12: MUP? master use permit?

I love this article being posted the same day as MyNorthwest posts one on tents on playfields. http://mynorthwest.com/406211/video-tent…

I get that homeless people have rights. But we all heave rights. When one persons rights takes away from someone else's rights then we have an issue. Homeless can't be given a thumbs up to park a tent wherever they want. Once again we have to listen to politicians tell us about homeless rights while no one does anything substantial to help the homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicted. The answer can't be park a tent anywhere.

Fine, the shit-covered napkins the guy who shat in my bush left me this morning will stay where they are.

Or this article which tells another tale of Seattle homelessness.
http://mynorthwest.com/407124/woman-leav…

@14:

Sure, I see lots of images - some of bikes, some of people, some of bikes and people (who by-and-large don't appear to be homeless). But, not one image of a shopping cart laden with a half dozen bikes.

How is taking 2/3 of the money considered ethical by the bar association? I mean come on, that's exploitation of the fact that homeless people don't have leverage.

@19 Well, I don't know about shopping carts filled with bikes but the very first image that pops up when I googlated that phrase is from a 2015 Kiro7 article about "bicycle chops shops" run by the homeless.

From that article;

"From Portland to Olympia to Seattle, stolen bicycle chop shops have been discovered in encampments and on transient trails on a consistent basis, according to police. Last year, Olympia police found hundreds of stolen bikes when they raided one camp. Many of the intact bikes had been re-assembled with parts of other stolen bikes."

Just google "bike lock fails" and you'll understand why every time I try to get all up in arms in defense of bike theft victims, I just can't. Walk past any bike rack and you'll see what I mean. I want to feel sorry for them. Why should I really want to spend any precious resources recovering stolen bikes when I walk out my front door and down the street and this is the first thing I see.

@22- nicely done with the victim-blaming. "They had a skimpy lock, they deserved it."

@23 To be fair, if you click on the link provided the bike in the photo wasn't actually locked to the bike rack, skimpy lock or not. That's pretty dumb and I've seen similarly "locked" bikes too.

24- nope. Not gonna be fair. You should be able to leave your bike unlocked and not have it stolen. Blame the thief, not the victim.

@25 Suit yourself. In a perfect world one could leave a bike -or anything at all- unattended and no one would steal it. If a cyclist doesn't take even elementary steps to prevent a theft, they are partly to blame if it is stolen. In this instance if they thought they had done something, even elementary to prevent the theft, they were also very stupid.

@26- careful now, someone at the stranger is more than likely to twist you words and extend your beliefs to other crimes wherein the victim should have taken more precautions. Also I think the racist-worshipping Cthulhu guy is a prick so giving him no quarter.

@11- put the pizza pockets down, go for a walk and see for yourself.

Let me get this straight. You mother fuckers pitch a fit every single time the city wants to spend money to help people in crisis because you have a laundry list of reasons why people with housing, drug, mental health, or other problems brought it on themselves. You grasp at any excuse you can for why they don't deserve help. You find one anecdote about somebody who you deem isn't worthy enough of help and you repeat it across the internet for a year.

Because personal responsibility and shit. Personal. Fucking. Responsibility. Yeah. We value that. We do.

But ding dongs who can't manage to google "how to lock a bike" and follow *simple instructions* still deserve my fucking sympathy? You want my valuable tax dollars to pay cops to spend their time hunting down stolen bikes and bike theft rings, instead of spending the money on people with *real* problems, no matter how stupid said bike owners are?

"You should be able to leave your bike unlocked"? How about: "You should be able to quit your job and the state will feed you and house you"? "You should be able to smoke a pack a day for 20 years and expect somebody to pay for two million dollars of medical care to keep you alive for six more months"?

"You should be able to camp in a vacant lot and expect the city won't trash all your belongings"? No? Why the fuck not, princess?

Do you guys even listen to yourselves?

You know the whole stolen bike market would collapse if lazy, entitled assholes followed basic rules for locking. The time, skill, and effort to steal one well-locked bike after another would limit the bike thief workforce to the point that they couldn't produce enough stolen bikes to keep the industry afloat. Too much overhead, not enough skilled workers.

Remember when there was a huge black market in stolen car stereos? That market only came into existence when the conditions were favorable; once those conditions changed, it dried up. Did car stereo theft become a huge thing because cops weren't doing their jobs? No. Did stereo theft fade away because cops were all like Jason Bourne supercops? No. All the cops in the world chasing all the bike thieves in the world won't eliminate bike theft, when you can make a good living stealing bikes with zero skills and zero intelligence. Entitled little pricks are the reason it takes zero skills to be a productive bike thief.

Want bike theft to be a thing of the past? That's in YOUR hands, whiney bitches. Stop asking me to feel sorry for you. Stop blaming homeless people for a problem you created.

@29- well that was a garbled mess worthy of Trump. I apologize for calling you a prick. I should have called you an insufferable prick. Now go blame a mugging victim for having the audacity to carry something worth stealing.

@30

Carry some thing worth stealing? Carry it? You mean LEAVE it. Leave something worth stealing. On the sidewalk, tied to a parking meter with a piece of string.

Help police police I've been mugged! I've been mugged! They stole my valuable nude pictures of Ernest Borgnine! I left them right here on the sidewalk tied to this parking meter with a piece of string! What's the world coming to? Won't the police do something? Go bulldoze somebody's campsite. I have rights!

You did this to yourselves. Now you want help. I'll I'm saying is you have to get in line behind all the other people who have problems too, some of them self-inflicted, some not. Get in line. You'll get help but remember who did this to you. You did.

@32- oh please, you're the type of person that says they had it coming when an i-phone gets snatched out of their hands because they presented the down-trodden with an opportunity.

@-32- does the thief carry any measure of blame or is it soley the victims fault?

@29- You are an uninformed idiot. Very very good locks can be and are broken quickly by experienced thieves. I have personally known several people whose bikes were taken literally within minutes when properly locked. The problem is not bike owners, the problem is pricks who steal. There need to be some fucking consequences for these guys. Should not be too hard to stake out some high-theft areas and wait for a thief, then administer the proper treatment to his kneecaps. And when you find a homeless campsite full of demonstrably stolen bikes, flamethrower the whole thing.

@31-most of the commenters here are not "pissing on little people" for being homeless, they are pissing on them (and justifiably so - more than a little piss would be warranted) for being scumbag thieves.

@35- Don't bother with that bellend. He's a proponent of situational ethics and that puts him an appletini away from needing Brock Turner's defense lawyer.

It's immoral and sick that so many people have no empathy for minorities and the poor. Shame on them all. At the Boeing cafateria I heard engineer assholes complain about the poor. Yeah, an engineer making over $80,000 life is just ruined because he has to drive by a poor person in the morning.

All those dollars will go into the pockets of drug dealers, convenience stores for alcohol.

Look, White People;
it is fine for the UnderClass to steal from you.
Get over your WhitePrivilege.

When you are victimized remember to recite:

"Thank You Sir! May I have another?…"