SHARE/WHEEL, one of the city's largest homeless-services organizations, says it will forgo $250,000 in city dollars, about half of its funding, and shut down some of its 13 shelters rather than contribute information on its clients to Safe Harbors, a city-run database of information about the homeless. In a lengthy and often tense hearing on the city's 2006 budget last week, homeless activists called the program an invasive, "Hitleresque" plot to track the homeless and control their activities. If the city refuses to change its funding criteria, which currently include participation in Safe Harbors, SHARE says it will shut down its shelters and open three illegal tent cities, possibly in city parks. SHARE is allowed to operate one tent city in Seattle under the terms of a 2002 settlement with the city; any additional tent cities, however, would be a violation of the agreement.

Supporters of Safe Harbors, including City Council Member Peter Steinbrueck, say it legitimizes city spending on homeless services and links a confusing network of more than 120 homeless service providers in King County. Before the database was created, Steinbrueck says, "everything we were hearing about homelessness was anecdotal... Even the numbers of the homeless were in dispute."

Steinbrueck also points out that service providers are required to strip the data of all personal details before putting it into the system. But SHARE and their supporters aren't convinced. City Council Member Nick Licata, who opposed the creation Safe Harbors, says he can imagine a scenario in which homeless people are denied services for refusing to abide by rules set by the city. "The issue is that you start quantifying everyone's behavior through questionnaires and pretty soon you start controlling their behavior as well," Licata says. SHARE representatives point out that collecting data on people in shelters is unlikely to give an accurate portrait of the homeless, since most homeless people spend their nights on the streets.

Katia Blackburn, a spokeswoman for the city's human services department, insists the city "will lose federal funding if we don't participate" in Safe Harbors, although opponents of the database, like Licata, dispute that claim.

As part of the ongoing budget talks, some council members are discussing contingency plans to either exempt SHARE from the Safe Harbors requirement or set aside $350,000 in this year's budget for a "shelter contingency fund," for which SHARE would not be eligible.

barnett@thestranger.com