The city is considering new procedures for removing homeless
encampments from public property. The proposed rules would give
homeless people 48 hours to move along (as long as there’s no “evidence
of other illegal activity”), an improvement over the previous
zero-notice policy. However, it would also apply the city’s
controversial parks exclusion ordinance, which allows the city to ban
people from parks for “rule violations” including camping, to all
city-owned property in Seattle. The ordinance also allows city
officials to deputize “any person or association” they choose to
enforce the rules. Even more alarming, the new rules would allow the
city to confiscate and destroy any property deemed
“hazardous”—which “may include blankets, clothing, sleeping bags,
tents, or other soft goods that may be contaminated by unknown
substances”—a definition that could apply to virtually
anything.
Work on the new protocols started after protests last year, when
crews working for the city showed up at 10 camps and cleared them out
without notice, confiscating and destroying the property of people
living there.
Last year, the Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless
counted 2,159 people camped outside in the middle of the night in King
County last January—a 4 percent increase from 2006. 