It's interesting, especially since the UW Campus is hosting another homeless camp next Spring just South of that location.

The "lot right across from the University District Trader Joe" is a parking lot.

You seem to mean the vacant lot near the TJ's. It's always interesting when Stranger writers describe places outside of Capitol Hill.

"Is this... character development?"

Someone(s) must have set up a camp that Pedersen can see from his back yard.

During the Great Depression, they didn't have "tiny house villages" to enrich already-wealthy real estate millionaires.
They had the CCC, instead.
The government would give anybody who needed one a job. It paid minimum wage ( a new concept at the time ). Housing and meals were provided. Housing consisted of a cot in a military-style barracks. The CCC workers built the barracks themselves ( including chopping down the trees and milling the lumber ). They also kept the place clean, they cooked their own meals in a military style mess-hall, and they cleaned up after themselves.
There was no "privacy", no mangy dogs with a bandana around their neck and a cardboard sign, no "volunteers" from ritzy suburbs to pick up your cigarette butts and used hypodermic needles for you.
Nobody was forced to be there. If you don't want to abide by the rules, you were free to leave. But most people stayed, they were happy just to have a job.

What a concept.

@4: Persons who entered the CCC wanted jobs. Our homeless, by and large, want to live in tents or RVs, get drunk or high, pay no rent or taxes, and steal to get what they want. (Seattle's homeless population rose dramatically in the middle of a ten-year period of steadily declining unemployment.) So long as our current City Council actively enables such anti-social behaviors, we will get more of them.

"According to 2019 data from LIHI, in the four years since Seattle introduced the model, 2,520 homeless people have lived in a tiny house and 20% have moved out of the villages and into permanent housing, such as apartments or houses. However, of the 325 people who left tiny homes in 2019 alone, 44% moved into permanent housing. This is the data that won Pedersen over, catalyzing his U District plan."

This data is incomplete, and by itself, does not support CM Pedersen's plan. We know that of 2,520 persons, 20% or 2,520/5 = 504 persons moved from tiny-house villages into permanent (and hopefully stable) housing. Over a period of four years, this is an annual average of 126 exits into permanent (and hopefully stable) housing. In 2019, of the 325 who left tiny-house villages for any destination, 44% or 143 persons exited into permanent (and hopefully stable) housing. As we do not know how many stayed in tiny houses, just how many left, we can't say for sure this was an improvement. Also, lacking data on the year-to-year variance of both exits from tiny-house villages, and for entry into permanent (and hopefully stable) housing, we don't know if 143 is a statistically-significant deviation from the average of 126.

Prior to 2019 the "success rate" of people moving from tiny home villages to permanent housing was like more like 13%.
What changed? The city finally introduced accountability in the form of lost funding if organizations could not produce results. The past two years have seen a drastic increase in move-ups...shocking.
Also giving SHARE less of a role and less money was smart, even smarter would be to ditch them entirely.

@4 During the Great Depression, capitalism was broken beyond repair.
Today, capitalism is broken beyond repair.

What have we learned in three-quarters-of-a-century? Not a damn thing.

@5 "Persons who entered the CCC wanted jobs. Our homeless, by and large, want to live in tents or RVs, get drunk or high, pay no rent or taxes, and steal to get what they want."

Source?

@9: Try walking past an unsanctioned encampment. Or reading the city's own survey of homeless persons, http://coshumaninterests-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/City-of-Seattle-Report-FINAL-with-4.11.17-additions.pdf

-- 55% reported using alcohol or other drugs;
-- 59% reported being unemployed or unemployable;
-- asked "What would help you obtain permanent housing?", 68.1% answered "rental assistance," 64.8% said "more affordable housing". A distant third, at 36.6%, said "employment assistance." (How housing can possibly be "affordable" for persons who showed little interest in employment was not explained.)

Homelessness in Seattle results primarily from a public-health crisis among recent arrivals, not a housing-affordability crisis afflicting long-term, formerly-housed residents. Trying to treat the former as the latter has wasted enormous amounts of money and increased our homeless population. As this story recounts, our City Council's response to our chronic failure is to propose more of the same. Any guess as to what the result will be?

@8: Capitalism in Seattle has produced huge numbers of high-paying jobs. Government policy on homelessness has produced relentless failure. Yes, we need to learn some things.