NPR did a story about how Salt Lake City had virtually eliminated homelessness.
How does a rich uber Liberal enlightened paradise like Seattle fuck it up so bad?

Again:

All of the speculation over where people will be allowed to camp (and all of the tedious "I read the bill and you dint so no they can/can't camp there" back-and-forth) could easily be avoided by simply switching the language of the legislation from trying to define which city lands aren't suitable for camping to clearly spelling out which city lands are to be considered suitable for camping.

There's a whole established body of law and precedent for zoning, so why not use it instead of language that's never been seen in a court before? There's going to be a lawsuit from some business or neighborhood group filed five minutes after the legislation is signed, so let's make sure the bill is at least going to survive its first legal challenge, no?

All current versions of the legislation punt the basic question of "where can people camp?" to the judiciary, and the consequent uncertainty isn't doing anyone on any side of the issue any good.

Well for starters, Commentor Comltatus dear, Land is a lot more affordable in Salt Lake City. And Seattle's liberalism ends when the almighty dollar starts.

Plus, their weather sucks. And they're not a port town. And they're sort of in the middle of nowhere (Sorry, any Deseretians out there).

In short, it was an easier reach.

How about a little consistency, Stranger writers. Right-wing "patriots" take over a federal wildlife preserve, you rightly denounce the individuals seeking to use public land for private gain. But people creating private spaces in public City property via encampments - totally cool? The Council hasn't just failed to demonstrate where's the public benefit, it has no compelling answer to the fact that encampments ERODE livability for everyone else in the City. Haggling over what part of parks are suitable to camp in is a distraction.

More than one way to get rid of O'Brien's proposal: Get rid of O'Brien. Recall petition just posted: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/balla…

3
Well, yeah; but love and brotherhood and all...

@3
Seriously, thank you for your response.
A Portland station did a nice story in May about SLC.
(it's long, we'll paragraph it just for you ;)...

Editor’s Note: We’ve all seen how visible and troublesome Portland’s homeless problem is. With all the government is doing, why isn’t the situation getting better? KOIN 6 News reporter Tim Becker travelled to Salt Lake City, where the number of their chronic homeless has been reduced by more than 90%.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (KOIN) — Portland is home to more than 1000 chronically homeless people. About 760 miles southeast, Salt Lake City has seen the number of their chronic homeless population has dropped from nearly 2000 to less than 180.

Salt Lake City’s efforts have generated national headlines, praise and interest from across the country.
What makes Salt Lake City’s efforts work?

“I think part of it is we just stuck to it. This isn’t a sprint. This is a marathon,” said Tamara Kohler, the director of the Utah Community Services Office.

Kohler told KOIN 6 News Utah rolled out its initiative called “Housing First” in 2004. The city, county and state agencies all bought in — and stayed in.

“In some areas they would try it and say, ‘Hey, it didn’t work,'” she said. “Well, this doesn’t work the first time , doesn’t work the second time. You have to perfect it but you have to be commited to it and keep doing it.”
Portland introduced a 10-year plan to end homelessness around the same time as Salt Lake City, with a similar goal. But lack of cohesion between agencies created a noticeably different outcome.

While camps of cardboard, tents and tarps are popping up in Portland like mushrooms in a rain forest, it is visibly different in Salt Lake City. You’re hard-pressed to find blatant displays of illegal camping.

What Salt Lake City does

A former hotel is now home to more than 200 kids and adults who were once chronically homeless. They now have permanent, desirable and clean homes that cost 30% of income or up to $50 a month — whichever is greater.

Salt Lake City has almost 2000 beds in places like this.

“Salt Lake doesn’t have a bigger chunk of money than Portland. You probaby look at it and Portland has more,” Kohler said. “But what we’ve had is a singular commitment from all of the services providers.”

She is quick to point out they are still far from solving the full homeless problem in Salt Lake City, but she said they are headed in the right direction.

The Shelter System
Matt Minkevitch runs the biggest shelter system in Utah — The Road Home — which has 500 more beds than Portland. He’s the first to say they still have a homeless problem.

“We’re full here every night. We don’t have empty beds in this shelter,” Minkevitch told KOIN 6 News. “We have the same issues that you have in Portland with respect to heroin usage and street drugs, criminal activity.”

But he also said agencies in Salt Lake City all agree it’s less expensive to house the most vulnerable than leave them on the street — where service costs-per- person annually run $30,000 to $50,000.

“I think that the people of Portland, of Salt Lake City and New York City and Los Angeles all value having people off the streets, all value having the poor’s suffering alleviated,” he said.

Alex, who is a 24-year-old resident, said that humanized and individual outreach is a huge part of what makes Salt Lake’s model successful, one that puts attainable housing above all else.

“For me, it allows me to be myself,” Alex told KOIN 6 News.

“The homeless population needs a human trust and interaction with outreach to actually make some inroads to move them into housing or even into shelter,” Kohler said. “It’s really hard when you keep herding them from one area to another.”

That seems to be Portland’s immediate answer to a problem that’s been beggin for a long-term effective solution — like those they’ve been passionately pursuing in Salt Lake City for more than a decade.

A couple of thoughts:

- some schools do bank right up to parks and one, Lowell, right on Capitol Hill, has experienced a lot of concern and stress over people camping there

- What is the difference between "maintained parks" and "improved areas of City parks?" That's the language in O'Brien's legislation and I find this vague. So it should be clearly spelled out.

- What's to stop tourists from learning they can do this? Why get a hotel if you can camp in a park? It's not like cops are going to ask every single person camping in parks for IDs every night.

I think this energy could be better used in finding real housing for the homeless.

Salt lake City has less than 200,000 residents;
it seems if they could deal with 2000 homeless Seattle could handle 3000.
Seattle really doesn't seem to be getting any bang for the big bucks it is spending.

The issue is not PR, the issue is poverty. Doing the right thing doesn't make you popular. Deal.

It doesn't matter whether the ordinance would or wouldn't allow unfettered camping in city parks. It would allow camping in SOME areas of city parks, and that is unacceptable. Allowing people with addiction and mental health issues to camp out in parks does absolutely nothing to help them get into housing or access treatment, and poses a host of problems for the city in addressing trash, human waste and criminal behaviors.

The city already can't keep up with the trash created by unsanctioned encampments; how will it possibly deal with the many encampments that will inevitably spring up if this ordinance is passed? Take a look under the Ballard Bridge or the West Emerson Overpass for examples of what will happen. How will the city address illegal and criminal activity in these ad hoc encampments? More importantly, how will it provide outreach to campers scattered across the city when it hasn't been able to do that with the number of existing encampments?

This proposal is flawed in many ways, and needs to be thrown out. The council should go back to the drawing table and come up with a plan that gets people off the streets, provides suitable shelter for a range of needs and circumstances, protects public health and safety and bans camping on public property.

Almost 19,000 people have signed the petition opposing this proposal. Citizens do not want this.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-…

@12:

On any given night 3,000 human beings in Seattle are sleeping on our streets, in shelters, or camped out somewhere - mostly on City property. They're already doing this right now. The proposed ordinance simply enumerates HOW the City can perform a (relatively) humane eviction of homeless people from City property while adhering to lawful due-process; and one of the main provisions requires the City to at least attempt to connect evictees with services first, and if that proves unworkable, to THEN seek an alternative "suitable location" to transfer them.

So, SLC gave them affordable-rent government housing, and has what--180 left that will always be outside, probably due to mental health, substance abuse, authority issues, etc. Good luck on getting Seattle to build 3000 housing units for the currently homeless in a timely manner, or at all.

@13, What it does is establish requirements for removal so onerous that it will make it almost impossible to clear out the illegal encampments that will proliferate around the city, just as they did in Portland - which abandoned its disastrous camping policy after a few months.

Under the Seattle proposal, illegal encampments could only be removed if there's "accessible and adequate" housing available. Since there currently isn't enough long-term housing available, it effectively establishes a legal right for people to camp on public property indefinitely. This helps no one, and will have an enormously detrimental impact on green spaces around the city. Have you actually seen any of these encampments up close? They are filled with garbage, needles, human waste, stolen property and criminal activity. This ordinance will pave the way for mini-Jungles all over the city. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

Again, I would ask proponents of this ill-conceived idea, how will this better connect homeless people with services than the current system? How will it address the growing public health and safety hazards caused by illegal encampments? How will it help move people off the streets and connect them with treatment and mental health services?

that map of "homeless camping" parkland is literally just a map of seattle's parkland.

@13
sorry but if that's all this legislation does, you wouldn't see this outcry. you are leaving out the very likely (and legal) circumstance where a person can live in unimproved areas of our parks for quite a long period of time before any action is taken. and you and I know that's exactly what will happen.

we're certainly down the rabbit hole with the approach O'Brien is advocating for. $50 fines to the city and it's contractors for not providing garbage bags and Sharps containers? while those who are responsible for those messes leaving needles and trash wherever they wish are only further enabled? it defies all rational logic.

Maybe the problem is that local "homeless advocates" don't really help them so much as they use them as pawns in their anti-capitalist agenda. They use the homeless to irritate the rest of us in their game of white-guilt and class-guilt. Otherwise why would part of "helping" them include letting them continue to stagger the streets spanging and defecating on sidewalks?

The city should just offer a one way ticket to Utah. Would probably be cheaper than this cluster. Then build affordable housing for the remaining 1000.

@18: fuck your conspiracy theories, dori monson.

It makes very little difference how the revised plans differ from the original. The only thing people on the streets are going to hear is "camp wherever the fuck you want." That's exactly what happened when Portland enacted their similarly restricted plan that failed clusterfuck-style.

Commentor Comltatus, I've often thought that a lot of the motels that are past their prime could be repurposed and turned into homeless housing (and indeed some have been) but the sad reality is that the land is worth so much that it's hard to make that a good long-term plan. Most of the old Aurora motels are gone. Most of the trailer parks as well. Even a lot of the 60's era apartments with generous footprints are going away in favor of either luxury nonsense or tiny little apartments (not quite apartments, but certainly not generous in square footage)

And remember that Salt Lake City is the center of a vast urban area that stretches all along the Wasatch Range, from Brigham City to Spanish Fork - that's over 100 miles of flat sprawl. There's room to the west as well. We have the I-5 corridor, but are hemmed in by water on one side and mountains on the other.

You do realize that if you build them housing that the underpasses would be filled again immediately? If you put out food for rats, pidgeons, etc more of them show up the next day? Get that concept? And what about the bums that refuse to partake in your dedicated vagrant utopia? There will be many. These people tend to be mentally ill and won't even accept going to a shelter but you're going to corral all of them into parks meant for families and children. The tax paying neighbors should enjoy the litter, knife fights, and broken car windows. If those unfortunate local homeowners are D voters it'll be some poetic justice.

@15/17:

But the ordinance also makes a clear distinction between "suitable" and "unsuitable/unsafe" locations and conditions for encampment:

"J. “Unsafe location” means a location that poses imminent danger of harm to individuals residing in that location or to the general public. The danger of harm must be created by the presence of the specific outdoor living space or vehicle used as a residence at the particular location and not generalized danger of harm common to all who are unsheltered.

K. “Unsuitable location” means a location that has a specific public use that is substantially impeded as a result of an outdoor living space or vehicle used as a residence in that location, and where the public lacks alternative means to accomplish the specific public use."

And it further defines "Public Space" as:

"any area which is owned, leased, maintained, controlled, or managed by a government or public entity."

These would apear to be more than adequate to establish that the ordinance specifically empowers the City to disallow encampments in public parks, sidewalks, and greenbelts.

I think a big problem with this is that homeless are going to set up camp wherever they well please, whether it's legal or not. And then they have either 48 hours to 30 days (depending whichever proposal you're looking at) to vacate. In which case, the city spends tons of money to have social workers offer services and then properly clean the area of toxic waste (needles, human waste, and garbage). Then homeless just move right back in, set up camp, and the process continues. It's a huge waste of time, money, and effort. Meanwhile, pedestrians need to duck underneath a bicycle hanging from denny and third and tons of garbage- all while a shiftless drunk man stalks behind people walking too close.

Yes, @21, I agree. The similarity between the Seattle proposal & the Portland proposal is not the details of when and where people are allowed to camp, but the presumption that by making the rules more generous or reasonable, the homeless/campers would follow the rules. There are a lot of individual stories for why people are homeless or why they don't use what available shelters exist. But, certainly one of those stories is that there are people who can't or won't follow the rules of the community (from drug use to mental illness to individual choices).

@25:

At least under the ordinance homeless people would get some kind of connection to services, which isn't required in the current scenario where the City just sweeps them out of where ever they are, and they're left to their own devices.

@27 its still going to be a shuffle the homeless around game played the neighborhoods.

We need permanent short term solutions, so its good that one of the proposals has more official tent encampments.

But what we really need is for the council and mayor to find some courage and make enough permanent tent camps for all 3000 homeless people.

@28 And those permanent tent camps will have rules which will be unacceptable to at least a few hundred of the current ~3000. What are you going to do with the folks who don't want to live in the city approved shanty towns?

One Term Mayor.

Look, it's simple, provide sanitation and BUILD 3000 Tiny Houses and stop trying to impose morals you don't impose on homeowners.

And just where will these camps and/or "tiny house" enclaves be located? The City of Seattle is rapidly filling up. There's not much buildable land left in town.

72 hours to clean up needles & feces before the city can move you? I'd say ONE hour to clean up the hazard you have created for the public is more than reasonable.

No "camping" – use of that word in this context is a joke – should be permitted at all. If the city directs police or DA not to enforce civic statutes for a while during an emergency, maybe that's acceptable. But to make it a right is just preposterous.

Bigger issue is the total failure of Seattle's homeless "non-profits" (which are in fact more profitable for their top staff than many "for-profits" are for their owners). We spend a ton on homelessness compared with other cities and our problem is worse. This is what the council keeps failing to address.

@27. They do offer services. Social workers usually go to the illegal encampment and offer contacts and resources for drug addiction, etc. before they are asked to evacuate. Unfortunately it seems most people don't really want or take the help.
It's really infuriating that such a great city filled with some of the most intelligent people can't seem to figure out a solution and actually implement it. Instead everyone just dances around the issue trying to please everyone and really something just needs to be done for the better good in the most humane way possible.

Maybe someone needs to look into why seemingly intelligent council would support these ridiculous solutions- even though similar solutions proved big failures in other cities. Someone making money in homelessness?? Probably. Think of all the methadone clinics getting business from all the strung out people being Brought in daily.

@34 There's only two types of "something": provide them with housing, either with few/no restrictions (like the 1811 Eastlake project) or many (jail), or have the police beat them until they flee the city or die.

Any housing with restrictions will generate a certain number of people who won't abide by those restrictions and they'll remain on the streets unless they're jailed or the goon squad gets rid of them.

@36 I agree provide housing with no restrictions. Seems like a better alternative than having people on streets. But what police are you talking about that are supposedly beating up homeless people? I still like my other idea about offering one way tickets elsewhere.

@29 thats part of being in a town. There's rules we all have to follow, so as long as the rules are fair and humane, i dont have much sympathy for those who wouldn't follow them (assuming there are social services to help, including support for drug/alcohol abuse and mental illness).

But we're jumping the gun, council doesn't have the courage to actually set up tent encampments that would house and support the homeless. We're got the money, and we can find land (yes we're gonna to have to use some land that will make people unhappy). The only thing preventing us from having a tent in an offial tent encampment for all 3000 people is the councils lake of courage and vision.

So instead we get this shitty bill, that doesn't actually make space for the homeless, it just makes it a little but harder to shuffle them from place to place.

@31 - we'd probably have to use some park land in conjunction with some private land.

But would you rather have people scattered throughout a greenbelt, or in an a sanctioned camp?

Id rather have people in wheel/share still tent encampment rather then scattered all over the place?

Its only 450 ppl per district.

@38: Sure, there's rules you have to follow in town, because otherwise one of two things happens: you end up homeless, or in jail.

For most folks, the threat of either of those is enough to keep them from a terminal case of the oh-fuck-its, but if you're already homeless, then you can look at whatever rule system is in place at the tent city or government housing and say "Eh...I prefer the autonomy of my tent/lean-to where I can do whatever." Or, you're too damaged to abide by the rules--too afraid or belligerent, or you need to stay un-sober as much as possible to try and cope with whatever.

So, unless the taxpayers are willing to provide expensive jail housing for those folks, or authorize the police to beat the hell out of them until they die or leave, it's going to be more of the same. The taxpayers aren't keen on paying more money for the homeless, and they're certainly not keen for a city-sanctioned shanty town or public housing building near where they live, work or play.

So again: the two decisions are provide no-charge housing, food and medical services, or send in the Goon Squad to beat/deport the resistors.

Any "solution" falls into one of those two categories.

Looks like the mayor plans to open 4 more tent encampments, thats at least a move in the right step.

The voice of Seattle citizens was heard and will continue to be heard. And I hope that any solution goes to the voters that are affected by this. Both by having folks camping around them and by needing to foot the bill for it. I don't trust my council at this point to listen to the people instead of some self-appointed advocates.

While I understand that the existing situation is sub-optimal and that existing protocols have not been followed when clearing encampments, the proposed solution was not the answer. Allowing any camping in city parks makes this unacceptable. There must be better long term solutions than this short-term band-aid that helps no one.

@40 thats where you lose me. There is a social contract between people in society, and I believe part of it is we help those who need help (housing, food, clothing, mental help, drug rehabilitation, safe injection sites, etc), preferably through government programs paid for by fair taxes. But i also believes that part of it is everyone has to respect their neighbors as well. So if you don't want help for your drug problem fine, we should still give you a place to live. But if you want to live on places that are unsuitable or you commit crimes against other, then i have no problem with you being arrested (note i have a ton of problems with or actually prison system, but if there is real support and people are still committing crimes then I don't know what to do. But once again we far away from having the actual support in place at the rate councils going).

But first lets get the tent encampments for those who'd use it and work to make the whatever rules are in place limit people as little as possible.

"With our actual"

@37: Which police? I dunno: Sgt. Heidi Tuttle for one. No Taser? No body camera? A country where any cop who "fears for their safety" can shoot someone and walk?

The presence of a uniformed, armed, violent, city-sanctioned police force, with a history of beating protesters, bystanders, using pepper spray indiscriminately, firing "blast balls" with abandon, and repeatedly attempting illegal surveillance operations sends a powerful message. Historically, the police have been deployed to use force to "break up riots" or "preserve the peace". Cops can only do two things: incarcerate you or use force on you. Tickets are meaningless unless they're backed by the ready use of incarceration or force. Incarcerating people is super expensive, and eventually they get released and go right back where they started: in a tent somewhere. The "put them on a bus to somewhere else" is another Goon Squad move: it's backed by the threat that staying here is Not Going To Be Good For You So Just Move Along Mr. Homeless Guy Before Sgt. Goon incentivizes you. Otherwise, the Jungle residents just stay where they are, or move to a similar location in walking distance, still within the city. It's not like they're sitting around thinking "Damn! If I could just get to Boise, the streets are paved with gold, and I'd get a job and stop using drugs! Oh, if only I had a one-way bus ticket!"

Understand: I'm not saying that the Goon Squad tactic is a good idea, I'm deeply opposed to it, but the only other option is paying a lot of money to house these folks, either in very open public housing (which has yet to be built) or in jails (which would also need to be built to house 3000 additional inmates). I favor option 1 as the least expensive and most humane. I'm tired of seeing NIMBY discussion groups tearing their hair out for the police to "do something". The police have a very limited toolbox: they are not social workers, they are not the organization to "do something about homeless"--they're the organization that (in theory) keeps the peace and chases down bad guys and brings them to justice.

@43 I suspect you do have a problem with the taxes that will be required to put a sizable number of homeless people in jail and keep them there under humane conditions. Part of that social contract is: we foot the bill for our bright ideas. Locking them up is the most expensive way to deal with the issue.

@46 - i'm very pro taxes. What should we do with people after we've given them housing, and support? At some point we do need to lock people up. It should always be a last resort.

I think you're missing the part where i said housing and social support must come first. I support low restrictions on sites.

What is your suggestion? Move people every 30 days? Allow them to camp anywhere permanently?

You don't throw people in jail first, you examine why they aren't taking advantage and then address it. But no I don't think "i dont want to" is a reasonable reason for not going to the encampments. Neither are people who are a harm to others or prey on others.

Or put another way, if someone wants to drink or do drugs all day and just chill at the tent encampments, i think thats fine.

But if someone wants to do drugs or drink and hurt or be dangerous to others, or if they want to do this in shared public space, then its not fine. And if they have a repeat history of this then arresting them may be the only option.

Once again this is all if we had the support in place for homeless people, which we currently don't.

@47 I'd support low-restriction housing for everyone who needs it, and then jail for the rest, sure. A sizable contingent of Seattle doesn't want to pay for that "free ride" and doesn't want it to be built anywhere near them. Given the history of our state and city government, this means that the "We need to look into this and have public hearings..." contingent will stall this housing for eternity. In the mean time, we will have filthy campsites and a need to arrest violent lawbreakers in those camps. In other words: what we have now, for years and years and years.

I posted this in another thread, but here it is again: Here is what unsupervised camping has brought to the borderlands between Capitol Hill and Eastlake... Taken yesterday and this morning: https://www.flickr.com/photos/inthe206

The city seems totally unable to deal with this, since it's been like this for the past year and just keeps getting worse. In addition, we have two permanent camps adjacent to my office - they've been there on and off for the past year, and nobody is chasing them away or taking their belongings. If anything they've been left to do whatever they please, to the detriment of the rest of us in the neighborhood. I fail to see how expanding camping to parks and public right-of-way does anything make this situation better for anybody.

@49 I agree with you there, Seattle politics is the worst. But i do blame council and the mayor. They enable it. It does seem like the mayor is going in the right direction with his latest proposal. Hopefully the council can get on board and up the number of tent encampments.

@50: That looks a bit like I would expect most Capitol Hill or Eastlake alleys to look after a few weeks without refuse service. Where is the nearest garbage can or dumpster to the area in your images? Do you know that the state bars homeless encampments from arranging for garbage pickup?

@50 Expanding camping to parks and public right-of-way makes things better for the homeless people who need a better and safer place to camp then under or next to the freeway. So, their situation would be better than one where they're camped a hill next to freeway traffic. Letting the homless stay where they are now, i.e. near the hapless Inthe206 means that they aren't moving in next door to the rest of the city, which lets them both sigh and relief and shrug their shoulders, giving thanks that someone else is getting the short end of the stick, and not them.

But here we have it: the desire for "someone" to "chase them away". This is the cry for the Goon Squad to do what Goon Squads always do: use force on the powerless to fulfill the wishes of the more powerful. The only way you can "chase" someone away is if they run from you. They reason people run from someone is: fear. Fear of being beaten, killed, or locked in a cage. This is not what the police are for: police are there to cite or arrest lawbreakers, that's all they can lawfully do. Ticketing the homeless doesn't really work: they aren't going to pay fines, they don't have money, they don't have permanent addresses to badger them at, their credit rating is already destroyed. Ticketing is only a problem for the people still inside the system, until the police move to phase two: locking you up for not paying tickets or court non-appearances, whereupon the large bills for the taxpayers kick into a much higher gear than letting them squat on public land.

@51: The Mayor and City Council keep running into the same issue. There's some problem, people want them to fix it. They come up with a tentative plan, which will (like all plans) make things better for some people and worse for others. The draft plan is leaked, the people who figure that they'll come out on the short end of the deal raise a ruckus, the Mayor and the council back down. It happened with the housing rezoning attempt, and it's happening with the homeless plan. Until enough of the council says "Fuck it--you don't like it? Vote me out next time--I think this is the right plan", forward progress is doubtful. This is not a problem unique to Seattle.

The modified plans won't work. No matter what restrictions those plans put in place, just like in Portland all anyone's gonna hear is "camp where ya please!" And then the bureaucracy involved with relocating kicks in, and then we (like Portland) don't have anywhere near the available person hours in the public sector to deal with administrating and enforcing the rules. So whatever the plan is it's gonna be a total clusterfuck waiting to happen for sure, no question.

And then the aspect normally put indelicately by the right wing dickheads who unfortunately have a point here: Seattle doesn't exist in a vacuum. Most of our homeless already have migrated to Seattle because it's a better place to be homeless than other places in region (and the western US). Like it did in Portland's case, word will spread quickly (even purposefully through local governments) and we'll have a mass influx of more homeless. It sucks that this is the case but it's the reality.