The bathrooms aren’t for you anymore. The parks aren’t for you anymore. Good luck finding a trash can at a light rail station, or getting comfortable on a bench while a metal armrest stabs into your ribs. Your other seating options require $6 for over-sour coffee or surveillance from an underpaid librarian whose unofficial second job is now social worker. The bus shelters don’t shelter, the park closes at 10, and the street is a Ring doorbell showroom. But at least we’re solving the “homeless problem.”
A few weeks ago, we reported how the city quietly locked up Seven Hill Park over Labor Day Weekend. The little Capitol Hill greenspace, next to a church turned swanky “Sanctuary” condominium building, would be closed for 60 days, or until just before Halloween. The city did this because people were living in the park and neighbors told us the residents of that swanky condominium had complained. Sanctuary’s building association did not return a request for an interview.
Parks said it put up the fence to address “bouts of negative park activity,” and might install new “amenities” hostile to sleeping, sitting and vibing.
Two neighbors told us the people at Seven Hills were no bother (but a gun had once gone off, an incident the Seattle Police Department was unable to confirm), and the latest group had responsibly picked up its trash. A tourist from Atlanta, Georgia told us “Atlanta, Georgia said ‘fuck that.’ Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth dodged our questions and told us to reach out to parks for answers.
For this story, she got back to us and says residents would have a better idea of whether the fence has been an effective measure than she would. When we asked what “amenities” the city should install to prevent people from camping, she dodged again, saying tents and encampments had never been an issue for her or the community, only fentanyl use, “biohazards,” and “unsafe activity.” When we asked if anti-homeless architecture impacted the overall enjoyment of a park, Hollingsworth says the question was irrelevant to the closure. When we asked what public response she’d heard, she referred us to a public statement:
“I’ve heard from many of you who deeply value these parks as vital green spaces in our neighborhoods,” she wrote. “I totally agree. Access to safe, welcoming parks is essential for our community’s health and well-being. That’s why we are doing everything we can to address these issues and reopen both parks as quickly and safely as possible for everyone to enjoy.”
There you have it: 60 days is top speed. There were rumors that the city would close additional parks in Capitol Hill. However, those closures haven’t happened and none are planned, according to the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation.
Even though the homeowners on the council can’t comprehend it, in a neighborhood of apartment renters, two months without a neighborhood park can be suffocating. Those spaces are breathing rooms. Where else can a person take a call away from their nosy roommate? Leaning against a fence?
That’s exactly the idea. Since the city sees no problem fencing off Seven Hills Park, the public good must still be enjoyable. We attempted to find all the possible ways to enjoy a park that’s been de-parked.
Photos by Billie Winter for The Stranger.
Masturbate behind the fence. The city has been playing hard to get with this Denny Blaine stuff, but we finally got the hint. You could have just asked. Something for you, something for us.
Play “Berlin Wall.”
3D scan the area and create a VPE (Virtual Park Experience). With the Metaverse, we don’t need outside.
Use the fence as a bathroom. They’re hard to find in this neighborhood!
Use the fence as a backscratcher. Check for rust (and piss.)
Pretend you’re on the Love Lock Bridge in Paris. We don’t have the grit to protest like the French, but we can co-opt their whole romance thing.
Tie a puppy player to the fence and leave him there. Ryan got away.
Throw a bunch of baseballs in there. Have you seen Sandlot?
Find a Handhold: Those Seattle Bouldering Project gyms are too damn full and too damn expensive. The city thinks the fence is a solution. Climbers see a “problem.” (Check for rust and piss.)
Step 1: release bunnies; Step 2: sell hunting permits.
Red Solo Cup Art. It can say whatever you want, but the holes are more rectangular than is ideal.
Lure a police officer in there and trap him like you’re a 7-year-old playing The Sims: Oh feebee lay!
Tie balloons to the fence until it floats away. Up is based on a house in Seattle, so obviously, it works.
Tell the city the fence is an encampment. Found, fixed, reported, baby. The city will have 90 days to collect its fence.
Tunnels?
Role play! If you pretend you are conservative, an orgasmic-like pleasure will roll through your body like a freight train.
Astral project.
Stare longingly at the benches, the shady patches under the trees. If you spin it right, you can convince yourself this is like some kind of restrictive delayed gratification kink thing, which brings us back to masturbating behind the fence.
Put a Ring camera on it. Call the cops whenever someone walks by.
if you was Smart
you’d be Rich and
you’d have Acreage
& an irish setter who
played Frisbee with your
kid and you could hunt big
Game in season and Safari like
there was No tomorrow and the
Winos’d be your neighbors who some-
times took drugs that no one cared the least about
so
Why
DO we
allow some
very cunning people
to amass great Quantities
of Wealth and buy “our” politicians
whilst so Many have Nothing or next to it
they’re
strip-mining
America & we the people seem
Powerless to stop them or even slow them down
^^^Why must Seattle be so rated R?
That’s pee!
The last time I was at Seven Hills Park for a picnic with friends and fellow activists in either 2018 or 2019, I saw what looked to all of us like an unhoused person sleeping in a sleeping bag on the opposite side of the park. Two other unhoused people came upon the park, conferred, and crept up to the sleeping bag. Finally they attacked it, kicking it and stomping on it. Thankfully, there was no one in the sleeping bag.
Whatever the city is doing to deal with our crisis of unhoused neighbors absolutely is not working, and putting up fences around the park doesn’t stop this behavior, but this experience soured me on the park. If I lived in the fancy condo building next door, I certainly wouldn’t want to see someone get curb-stomped either.
The park is almost certainly closed because enough people complained about it. The Parks Department doesn’t proactively close parks. Being a city department, I’m sure there are all sorts of steps outlined in a DPP (Departmental Policy and Procedure) somewhere.
Maybe a journalist somewhere could request the data from the Find it/Fix it app from the city, along with any written correspondence or phone calls to the customer service bureau? That wouldn’t be as fun and frothy as articles like this, but it might actually shed some light on the issue. But of course, any comments from homeowners should be immediately discarded as everyone knows they are MAGA.
In any event, if you choose to tie balloons to the fence, don’t use mylar ballons. If they get loose and decide to introduce themselves to a transformer, all sorts of terrible things happen.
This article might be the most moronic thing I’ve ever seen on Slog, and that’s saying a lot.
@6
see: @6.
Park closures like this are the direct result of The Stranger’s policy preference: prioritize the homeless, those engaged in antisocial behavior, and criminals over residents, those engaged in prosocial behavior, and the law abiding. The Stranger — over and over and over again — has expressed its belief that public spaces should be dedicated to the homeless engaging in criminal and antisocial behavior even if this means they are completely unusable by residents. Park closures are the completely predictable result of encouraging rampant antisocial and criminal behavior, but rather than reconsidering whether their long-held stance is bad, The Stranger writes articles like this one.
A core tenet of Trumpism is that Donald Trump can never be held responsible for the results of his policy preferences and it’s always someone else’s fault when things go wrong. The Stranger has decided that this is something to emulate. It’s unfortunate but not surprising.
It’s astonishing that The Stranger actually wasted money paying you two to produce this crap.
@5: “But of course, any comments from homeowners should be immediately discarded as everyone knows they are MAGA.”
Especially Beacon Hill homeowners who happen to work City Light and wear really tall wigs.
“The bathrooms aren’t for you anymore. The parks aren’t for you anymore.”
Yes indeed! Its been that way for years! But the cause has nothing to do with fences.
Well, at least in this case, TS can sit and pout with the rest of us, regardless of their blinkered perspective.
@5, @6, @8, @9: Wow is the Stranger engaging in some epic sore-loserism over this. It’s one tiny park, but perhaps even the Stranger understands it’s a symptom of their having lost Seattle’s civic debate over homelessness?
@4, @8, @11: Yes, but it’s ok by the Stranger if you won’t use the park because it’s full of needles, poop and violence. That’s YOUR choice, see?
This article was written to be troll bait and I think we’ve all been had.
Coolidge dear, you’ve learned how to Google! I’m so proud…..
@13
NO one
will Ever “win”
the ‘debate’ over
a Symptom of late-
stage Capitalism but it
Def keeps our Overlords
chuckling from their Penthomes
Yachts and mile-deep
Caverns
@13
not
Everyone
@15a was meant
for wormmy.
Apologies!
@14: All things you’ve mentioned – Google wasn’t needed
The Stranger has such complete dedication to their vision of Seattle’s parks as open sewers, they literally send people to urinate into a park after the city closes it.
The Stranger has gone from merely advocating policies which make Seattle a worse place to live, to physically taking actions which intentionally pollute it. It’s as if the Stranger literally spent weeks wondering, “what’s the most disgustingly puerile way in which we could validate our critics?”
@15 If anyone believes the homeless and addiction issues would be better under ANY stage of socialism they are both historically and economically illiterate.
Who was peeing? The Stranger owns the city a $250 penalty for a civil infraction.
@19
only the Rich get
Socialism in the USofA
the Rest get Austerity and a
Jackboot up the Ass when they fall
the least bit behind. but Yeah do not look UP
you might overlook
the fucking Symptoms
as see the Fucking Cause:
ALL the Wealth
is getting Fun-
neled Up-
wards
that You Choose
to Not See it
is Alls We
Need to
Know
see
also:
Scandifuckingnavia
@14 I confess that I googled you once a couple of years ago because your name and icon interested me and I came upon a website that had pictures of your house…and you have the coolest kitchen.
@21 if you think the same dynamic is not true in socialist systems you are wonderfully naive. The only difference difference is who is pulling the strings. Better for it to be someone with a profit motive rather than a power motive. History has shown under the latter millions of people have perished.
@24: Respectfully disagree. We could insure everyone via Medicaid expansion. The profit in healthcare equals exactly the difference between what you pay and what you get. As “healthcare” actually means “one whole heck of a lot of skilled labor,” there’s no way to get that for cheap in a developed country, but the government could use massive buying power to reduce some of the cost remaining after we’ve stopped private bureaucracies from draining our healthcare funds for their profits. (A constitutional amendment, to increase the patent time from 17 years to something closer to the copyright time, would make drugs and medical devices somewhat cheaper, too.)
@22 – “Scandifuckingnavia”
kristofartian, I try to never read your comments because they are extremely annoying, and also extremely annoying to even look at. Sometimes, though, parts of them catch my eye, like seeing a fatal bloody car wreck when driving, you see it even if you don’t want to.
Guess what one of the major, most crucial differences between “Scandifuckingnavia” and the USA is?
It is chock-full of… (GASP!!!) WHITE PEOPLE, at least until the last few years (looking at you, Sweden).
As I have written before, I’m always astonished by the confident and blithering naivete of Seattle White-Guilt “progressives” and liberals.
Since kristofartian mentioned “Scandifuckingnavia”, I would be remiss in failing to point out the actual facts, of which the ‘fartian seems to be naive/unaware:
Mass immigration, particularly from non-Western countries since the 1990s, has strained the welfare systems of the Scandinavian nations, due to integration challenges, higher welfare usage among some immigrant groups, and fiscal pressures.
SWEDEN:
Sweden has accepted the highest per-capita immigration in Scandinavia, with non-Western immigrants now ~20% of the population. This has led to welfare costs rising ~25% since 2010, partly due to higher unemployment (up to 50% for some groups) and reliance on benefits.
In 2015, Sweden introduced stricter asylum rules and temporary residence permits, limiting access to full welfare for the first 2–3 years. By 2023, the government cut child benefits and housing allowances for low-income families, disproportionately affecting immigrant-heavy areas.
Universal access in Sweden remains, but wait times have doubled in some regions (e.g., Stockholm’s immigrant suburbs), and a 2024 pilot in Malmö rations non-emergency care based on residency duration to control costs.
DENMARK:
Denmark has been the most proactive in reforming welfare to address immigration, often called “Denmark’s ghetto plan.” Non-Western immigrants are ~10% of the population, with welfare usage 2–3x higher than natives.
Benefit cuts: Since 2018, “integration benefits” for immigrants are ~50% lower than standard unemployment aid (DKK 6,000/month vs. 12,000). A 2021 law requires 37 hours/week of mandatory job training or community service to qualify, reducing payouts for non-compliant recipients.
Healthcare adjustments: Free universal care continues, but 2022 rules limit free dental/oral care for adults on benefits (unless working), targeting long-term immigrants. Preventive services in “ghetto” areas (immigrant enclaves) were scaled back in 2023 to prioritize natives.
NORWAY:
Norway’s oil wealth cushions its welfare state, but non-Western immigration (~15% of population) has increased costs by ~15% since 2015, with immigrants using 2x more social services.
Stricter eligibility: A 2016 law introduced a “maintenance requirement” for family reunification, requiring sponsors to prove income without welfare reliance. By 2024, asylum seekers get reduced cash benefits (NOK 2,500/month vs. 5,000), tied to integration courses.
FINLAND:
Smaller immigration (~8% non-Western), but 2015–2016 influx led to 2017 reforms cutting unemployment benefits for new arrivals by 20% and requiring language proficiency for full access. Healthcare remains universal, but rural/immigrant areas face longer waits. Partial scaling back, with savings redirected to native pensions.
ICELAND:
Lowest immigration impact (~5% non-Western), minimal changes – welfare intact, though 2022 tightened work permits to limit benefit tourism.
“Scandifuckingnavia”, The Camp of the Saints indeed.
cypope dear, thank you, but just the kitchen? 😉
@20 I know you’ve never seen someone stand up to pee before so this must be scary for you.
@29 the house is lovely, but I could live just in the kitchen.
Clearly, the only thing that can be done is to guilt the voters into another property tax levy.
Revenue can be used to form committees and conduct studies.
In 3 years when nothing has been accomplished progressives can blame NIMBYs and nonexistent republicans.
When and if the Stranger gets serious about journalism, they will imbed the reporters in homeless encampments to figure out why a mother and her child got stuck living in one long enough for the child to be sexually assaulted among many other things that have been reported by other outlets and then buried. Until then, this looks and feels like my hometown high school newspaper.