Comments

1
There's been a lot of pushback on this proposed homeless camping law from the neighborhood residents up here. A lot. There's a couple, or maybe one very vocal supporter, but everyone else is pissed off about it. These aren't just your typical NIMBYs either, but a lot of people I know who are normally vested in human rights campaigns and active in fund raising for the food bank are opposing this law.
Nobody that I talk to sees any upside to it. What's the point? To let homeless camps spring up in the parks and become semi permanent? To make problem spots linger for a few days more before moving?
We do need a real housing first option here, and I understand we don't have one and won't for a while, but once this law goes into effect it will definitely be abused just like it is down in Portland. SPD doesn't have the personnel now to do much when clear violations are happening so why would we think that they're going to be able to do anything when they have to give 48hrs notice and provide an alternative "suitable" camping site?
Who's going to determine that a sight is "suitable"? How many lawyers are going to sue the city over what's suitable and unsuitable?
The city could get the same effect of this law today if they just issued a memo to the SPD saying this area is suitable and this area is not. Done. No legal constraints and no hand tying.
3
Sorry Sydney but you and Heidi are wrong on the tent issue. The fact is the 48 hour notice takes parks away from the community. You can spin this any way you want. More people are reporting tent issues in public parks every day. The city council and the mayor have done a horrendous job with homeless. The fact that most cities across this country have lowered homeless rates and Seattle's homeless problem has increased dramatically is directly correlated to our city council and mayor. These kinds of decisions and moves only make the problem worse. http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/camping-…
5
"crown jewel parks"? our city parks are pretty much overgrown blackberry brambles.
6
@5 Oh. That's just not true.
7
@6: its an exaggeration, sure, but go to Stanley Park in Vancouver and tell me ours are "Crown Jewels". there are 1/2 acre blackberry brambles in Magnusson that are at least a 1/4 century old.

IN MY OPINION, our city parks are underfunded, under-maintained, and underbuilt.
9
"Nothing is more critical than dealing with the homeless situation, therefore it is proposed that all bike lanes be immediately converted into tent-sites to support the homeless population throughout the city"

See how everyone has their sacred cows? everyone is a NIMBY in some fashion. take the top ten long-sought municipal social projects and rank them by which eclipses which and you'll only change the members of the angry mob, and not the obscenities that they shout at city council meetings. the answer is some boring tedious hard fought balance; and in the case of the homeless crisis it ought to be addressed on the national level, because it's a national crisis where every city is desperate for a solution. what is really needed is a FDR-like national set of recovery programs. provide federally funded housing (FEMA if naught else) for folks in return for employment on the failing national infra-structure.
10
The fact that Bill Bryant is on the same side of an issue as the Seattle Times Editorial Board tells us all we need to know about the Seattle Times. I understand we love our parks but eventually some concessions are inevitable since Ed has no interest in addressing the "crisis". I doubt vested interests will concede anything other than public property.
11
@7 Magnuson is a bird habitat/nature preserve as well. There are supposed to be blackberry brambles.

Just nonsense.
12
Converting parks into refugee camps is not a solution.
13
The real problem is that nobody really seems to want to do anything to alleviate the actual problem of homelessness, let alone tackle the symptoms. But people seem dead-set on making things as difficult as possible for homeless people who really do need some form of basic habitation. We don't have nearly enough shelter beds, and many of the ones we do have are rife with vermin and other infestations, or human predators, or lack basic facilities such as places to store belongings; and they often require homeless people to queue up for hours just to get in, making it next to impossible to hold down even minimal employment that might help them break the cycle; and NOBODY seems to want them camped out anywhere near where they live, work, or recreate, or might otherwise encounter them.

So, where ARE they supposed to go?
14
What is the Stranger's position on adding Cal Anderson and Volunteer to the list?
15
Ugh, just finished reading the latest proposal of the homeless bill. I highly recommend people do this rather then just read opt-ed pieces about it:
http://council.seattle.gov/wp-content/up…

Here's my problem with it. It makes it so “Unsuitable location” can be almost anything, so the whole "ARE PARKS ARE GOING TO BE HOMELESS CAMPS" is most likely BS, unless the city employees lose their minds.

BUT IT DOESN"T MAKE SPACE FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE. Instead it basically holds the mayor hostage, saying you gonna make that space unsuitable, ok well then make some space suitable....

It just seems like such a pissing match between the council and the mayor, that's written in a way that pits neighborhoods against homeless.

Instead of this the council and the mayor should be finding public space and making it explicit homeless camps. They should spread these across all the neighbourhoods, and make sure each space has garbage, washrooms, and outreach. They should make these safe spots.

Instead the council is basically just saying fuck your sweeps, we don't have any suggestions on where to put people, but fuck your sweeps.

Both the council and the mayor needs to stop the pissing contest, grow some courage, stand up to neighbourhoods and NIMBYs, and make explicit places for homeless people.

Council and the mayor should make it their goal to have a tent and spot for every homeless person in the next month. They have the money and the space, what they need is the guts, vision and courage.
16
@7 Discovery Park is great. Plus blackberries are tasty
17
@13 - I blame the council. Don't get me wrong, Seattle is full of NIMBY assholes and people who don't want to pay taxes. NextDoor is full of these assholes (The discussions on homelessness there make the worst slog troll look reasonable), which is why I left NextDoor.

But Council and the Mayor don't want to lead. They have a bunch of people they blame, including each other. But at the end of the day we need:
1) A short term solution - I think the tent/RV encampments are probably the best, cause that way we can have dedicated spaces with needed sanitation, outreach
2) A long term solution - this includes finding funding. How is it that the mayor can find funds for 200 new police officers and millions for a new police station, but blames the feds and the state when it comes to homelessness.

We need our leaders to actual lead. They need a plan, a real vision for this problem. Not this "Hey lets do sweeps" vs "No lets don't do sweeps".

I'm really disappointed by the mayor and the council on this.
18
So the unemployed and drug addicts from shitty Republican towns and states make their way here and it's now Seattle's problem to fund and solve.
19
Also let me be clear, i'm 100% for using park land for homeless camps (I've mentioned it here a while ago before), but what it should be is regulated and sanctioned. I.E. if the city wants to use some of discovery park or volunteer park to put up a tent encampment with sanitation stations, out reach, and garbage removal, and limit camping to that encampment, then I 100% support it.
20
To clarify, I don't think using parks is a solution either; a housing-based solution would be more effective and efficient. Until we have that people have to sleep and shit somewhere. Parks are easy targets because they're open to the public and some of them really hardly get used. I walk through Bellevue Place nearly every morning and never have an issue with the homeless people that use it. How about St. Mark's Greenbelt, Interlaken Park, or Dr. Jose Rizal Park? They're vast pieces of land that are barely used by my experience. Designate some space and set up services such as porta potties and waste removal. The costs will be offset by preventing emergency room visits and incarcerations.
21
Still don't get why it's so important to the Stranger that heroin addicts and alcoholics be allowed to camp wherever they want.
22
@11: In my observation, blackberry brambles support populations of rats more than birds. Birds do not use much more than the outer 5'-10' of a copse. Blackberries are forest-edge plants, and the PNW was once nearly all forest. If they were essential for habitat, why are they being removed by volunteers along the B-G and being replaced with native shrubs like snowberries? In fact, they are noxious weeds: http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/an…

@16: Himalayan blackberries do NOT taste great. Neither do Cut-Leafs. There are tastier varieties - check out the ones that grow along the road at the Edmonds Ferry Terminal.
25
@18:

Given the high rates of unemployment and drug abuse IN those shitty Republican towns, it would appear not many of those residents are picking up stakes and moving on; and really, why should they? Inhabiting a shitty single-wide trailer in a town where you at least have a few relatives to sponge off of seems preferable to having to find a way to a big city where you have even fewer resources upon which to draw.
26
@25 What % of Seattle's homeless are actually from Seattle do you reckon? 10% or 90%? My bet is closer to 10%. Most probably from South King County, the Eastside, Snohomish County, Pierce county, etc. Seattle has been accommodating them. But this leaves the rest of the state off the hook to deal with it and the cost.
28
@23 As I said, I don't think parks are the solution. Neither is not doing anything, which is where we're at, so maybe we should consider some options. Yes, the costs will escalate but the same is true for the sweeps, emergency medical visits, and incarcerations. Even people with jobs can barely afford medical care so you can imagine taxpayers are already flipping a huge bill for medical care for the homeless by not taking better care of them. Data is available and will continue to amass; it's up to our leaders now to harness it.
29
@28 Forgot to include my link to some really great data: http://www.endhomelessness.org/
30
It's America's new "civil rights" movement. The right to be an vagrant junkie bike thief who lives off others while turning public parks into hazmat sites. Don't step on a needle!

31
@26:

You might as well ask what percentage of current Seattle residents are from Seattle?

@30:

Maybe if we stopped treating the homeless like disposable trash, and actually worked to end the problem of homelessness once-and-for-all, they wouldn't behave like disposable trash.
32
@31 The problem of "homelessness" is a problem of behavior. If you built homes for people like this they'd nod off high and burn them down, or strip the copper out for drugs, or simply turn them into magnets for every kind of criminality you can think of. I'm totally willing to have my taxes raised to deal effectively with the problem. That involves jails and mental hospitals.
33
BTW, take a trip down to PDX and see what liberal politics has wrought. They've rolled out the welcome mat for every kind of human trash and it's quite a sight. It's like Dawn of the Dead but the zombies are breaking into cars.
34
@32:

When more than 60% of the U.S. population is one payche…, the problem of homelessness is much less "a problem of behavior", than it is a problem of how our Capitalist society determines the allocation of resources. We could easily house, feed, clothe, and educate literally every single citizen in this country, were it not for the fact we've instead decided it's more important for example for a corporate CEO to earn more than 300 ti….

You can dehumanize and objectify your fellow citizens all you want, but the simple truth is we create the homeless as much due to our own collective greed and lack of simple compassion, as they create their own situation due to their inability to cope with a social structure that is all too willing to pull the rug out from beneath them. So long as we're going to play "dog-eat-dog" and "every person for themselves", there are always going to be some who can't compete and get rolled to the bottom of the pile; in fact, the system we've designed depends to some extent on that paradigm, because it ensures that the less they have, the more someone else gets in their stead.

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