The two-plus year sojourn of the Nickelsville homeless encampment on the City Light-owned lot at 3814 4th Ave NE is coming to end shortly.
March 31st is the day that the city permit authorizing the village officially expires and that the Nickelsville-led residents have agreed to vacate. After briefly pushing for March 21st (the first day of Spring, and thus probably-not-coincidentally the first day they could sweep the village without breaking the “No Winter Evictions” line), the City agreed to the later date in exchange for a written promise from Nickelsville and residents to peacefully vacate on the 31st. (Can you imagine them trying to force the residents out nine days early when they could just wait?)
But where are they going? And how are they going to get there?
Nickelsville and staff are actively looking for a new location, and if you have any ideas to share, they are welcome! At the most recent Community Advisory Council meeting for the village, the villagers shared photos of some of the lots they have explored, but nothing has come through yet.
What they’re looking for is nothing fancy: a 5,000 sq ft or so lot where they can set their tiny houses and/or tents down for a spell. It could be public land (city land, port land, parks land, etc.) or private land. Either way, it would be leased to Wallingford’s Gift of Grace Church, which has agreed to act as the sponsor for the village, thus enabling them to take advantage of Seattle’s Ordinance 124747, which states that “a transitional encampment is allowed as an accessory use on a site in any zone, if the … principal use is on property owned or controlled by a religious organization…”
They would like to stay near Wallingford, the people here being of a kind and friendly nature, and also the location being well-positioned for access to the various support services and employment opportunities that the city has to offer, but are understanding of their position. The important thing for them is that they have somewhere to go where they can stay together, as they have formed a community, and being able to support each other is critical for a group as “at risk” like this.
If you have any leads on land, public or private, where they could go, please contact [email protected].
Wherever they go, they’re also going to need help moving. There is some disagreement at the moment around ownership of the nineteen “tiny houses” on the existing site, but at least some of the structures as well as people’s personal belongings will need moving on the 31st, so offers of trucks and people power are welcome, as will be supplies (e.g., tents) when a destination is found. Anyone who is interested in helping plan the move is welcome to join us at the next (and perhaps last!) meeting of the Community Advisory Council at Gift of Grace Church on Tuesday, March 17th at 5 pm. I’ll post a reminder here prior to the date.
Finally, one last ask: if there is an electrician out there who would be willing to lend a hand, the camp has needs. Two of the houses have electrical problems that are beyond the ken of Doug Hobkirk, who has been volunteering his time on handyman tasks. Ironically, one of the houses is occupied by someone who is studying to be an electrician, but is having trouble with his studies due to lack of heat and light. One can hire experts like the Perth Electricians to get help.
As we find out more about the electrical issues, we learned that in addition the old Ecosmart ECO 27 inline water heater the camp has been using to provide hot water for showers, laundry and cleaning dishes has ceased performing its duties. Doug tells me its receiving power, it’s just turning that power into hot water anymore.
If you think you might be able to help on either of these, the residents would be much obliged if you’d contact to [email protected].
“a transitional encampment ” – is there any actual unbiased date regarding what % of “residents” transition to self sufficiency, subsidized housing or simply live in camps forever?
apparently shack villages are the ne plus ultra of programs for rehousing people. I’ve seen numbers from 4% to 22% of various shack village residents going to permanent housing. But then the trail goes cold…no one can quantify or qualify what “permanent” means. I worry some of these folks roll right back into the street. Wash, rinse, repeat. Not effective and not compassionate.
Because the solution isn’t implemented: high density housing.
That’s certainly a component but a smaller one for this particular population. What are needed are supportive housing (dense or otherwise), wrap-around services (mental health, addiction, job training, et al) and revised involuntary commitment rules.
right. i’m sure the shelter “resistant” addicts would immediately agree to move into high density housing…as long as you offered a free 5 gallon bucket of meth/heroin.
If only those mean NIMBYs would just hand over their neighborhoods to the urbanists, we wouldn’t have tweaker shooting up in tents 🤣
While there is overlap to a degree, I think “young people” and “addicts” are two very different populations with different housing needs.
And anyway, nearly everywhere in Seattle, we’re getting increased housing density, about as fast as the builders and permitters etc. can go, so it’s kind of immaterial – to the limited extent that’s the solution, there’s nothing to do but wait and hope it somehow gets ahead of further unsustainable growth surges that we seem unable and unwilling to do anything about it.
Their “need for housing” is the same – “housing that costs what they can afford” (perhaps as low as “zero” outside of public subsidy).
Addicts have many other needs in addition to that, but they’re better off “not exposed to the elements and with space they can secure against intrusion” no less than anybody else.
What are you banging on about? You’re either assigning a nefarious aspect to my post which beggars belief or you’re just here to share your stump speech. Whatever it may be, TGIF!
You can argue they need housing. But it doesn’t mean they’re entitled to it, either.
Sure, but between the Housing is a Human Right crowd and the Tents Scare / Enrage Me crowd one would think we could build a consensus that would make everyone better off.
I have long supported the FEMA tent concept, which is already being tried by other cities like Tacoma and San Diego. That would allow us to comply with the recent Martin v. Boise ruling and we could finally kick them out of our parks and playgrounds and other public spaces without fear of the ACLU suing us. We can let the campers know that we have shelter space for them, and no one would be able to dispute that anymore. So we can tell them they can either go to the shelter we’ve provided, or we’re going to sweep you mercilessly over and over again until you either accept help or move on to another city.
We should put these facilities out of our neighborhoods so they’re not continually victimizing us while we pay for their services, and put all the wrap-around services they need on-site, along with easy access to Metro. Provide different options for couples, those with pets, single moms, a place for them to lock up their stuff up, etc. Then for those who are actively making an effort to get off drugs and improve their lives we can upgrade them to something a bit better. But they have to work for that privilege and show that they want it.
And one last thing: allowing that parasite Scott Morrow and his SHARE outfit to run these things is a non starter.
Yup that’s right, I’m a proud NNIMBY. “No Needles In My Backyard.” I’ve got enough tweakers living nearby, thank you. I don’t want to bring in more of them. If that’s what I wanted, I would have saved a lot of money and bought in Georgetown instead.
Nope. No neighborhood, rich or poor, should be forced to put up with thieving addicts living in tents.
You’re trying to split hairs. The ones living in tents are pretty much ALL addicts and thieves. And while I don’t understand why anyone would want them in their neighborhood, like I said, I’m not OK with any of it in any neighborhood.
You’re the one who doesn’t get it. You think criminals just “need our help.” You can’t help people who don’t want it and the vast majority of these people refuse the help over and over again. These people are assaulting people and committing crimes every day to support their addiction. So yeah, I don’t want them in my neighborhood. I don’t know why that would be a controversial pov.
” I don’t know why that would be a controversial pov.”
Because criminals and drug addicts who aren’t homeless–or weren’t homeless before housing got more expensive here–have been in our neighborhoods forever and will be in our neighborhoods in perpetuity (until and unless they are incarcerated or enroll in treatment facilities for a time). “Forcibly relocate people poor enough to have dropped into tents as domiciles who haven’t been convicted of a crime sufficient to require incarceration” isn’t anti-crime, it’s rounding up poor people as if they were – well, I’ll let the historical references lie.
There’s some talking at cross purposes here. Hayduke’s talking about a solution, the big tents. I don’t know whether it’s the answer, but it’s an answer. You apparently are talking about sweeps, and are opposed to them. The sweeps aren’t an answer, but neither are we solving anything by not doing them. The random unsanctioned encampments aren’t sustainable – hygiene, infestation, garbage, and worse. Score: Hayduke 1 solution, BK 0 solutions.
I am not comfortable with the use of the word “solution” in a discussion about rounding up out-group people and forcibly putting them in camps. I presume this was inadvertent; please reconsider that post.
Yeah, better to police verbiage, if you’ve got nothing when it comes to solving the problem.
Wallingford is a place with lots of “All are welcome here signs.” It would be nice to believe that many people here want to take the smallest of efforts to ensure people of all backgrounds and lived experiences feel welcome not just on the streets but in the neighborhood blog as well.
I would think the simple logic of “all things being equal, in that spirit, avoid using the word ‘solution’ to refer to anything that involves the state forcible rounding people deemed undesirable into camps” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution).
But all things are not equal. We’re in a thread that’s already cross the Rubicon advocating that the law should treat all itinerant people as criminals:
“The 1926 “Law for the Fight Against Gypsies, Vagrants and the Workshy” was enforced in Bavaria, becoming the national norm by 1929. It stipulated that groups identifying as ‘Gypsies’ avoid all travel to the region. Those already living in the area were to “be kept under control so that there [was] no longer anything to fear from them with regard to safety in the land. They were forbidden from “roam[ing] about or camp[ing] in bands,” and those “unable to prove regular employment” risked being sent to forced labor for up to two years.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_genocide
Less than 72 hours after a Nazi flag was unfurled at a Sanders event, a little mindfulness to make our blog a welcoming place would be kind. If no one else will do it, here’s a different phrasing. If you’re someone alarmed by the historical echoes in this thread, you are seen and respected,and I’m sorry:
There’s some talking at cross purposes here. Hayduke’s talking about a doing something specific the big tents. I don’t know whether it’s the answer, but it is a concrete action. You apparently are talking about sweeps, and are opposed to them. The sweeps aren’t sufficient in my opinion, but neither are we solving anything by not doing them. The random unsanctioned encampments aren’t sustainable – hygiene, infestation, garbage, and worse. Score: Hayduke 1, BK 0.
ok
Wow, I can’t even. Are you actually comparing providing FEMA shelters and services to the thieving junkies who are taking over and destroying our parks to the slaughter of six million jews?
You know who else thinks we should try my SOLUTION? YIMBY hero and virtue signaller extraordinaire CM Teresa Mosqueda:
https://mynorthwest.com/1453469/tacoma-stability-shelter-seattle-homeless-crisis/
Wow, I can’t even. Are you actually comparing providing FEMA shelters and services to the thieving junkies who are taking over and destroying our parks to the slaughter of six million jews?
You know who else thinks we should try my SOLUTION? YIMBY hero and virtue signaller extraordinaire CM Teresa Mosqueda:
https://mynorthwest.com/1453469/tacoma-stability-shelter-seattle-homeless-crisis/
Another person has died while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, BuzzFeed News reports. The 22-year-old Guatemalan woman had reportedly undergone gallbladder surgery in Oklahoma on Feb. 9 before being returned to a detention facility the next day. She was being detained at a second facility in Texas when, on Feb. 18, officials returned her to a hospital after she began experiencing abdominal pain, and she died there on Sunday from an as yet unknown cause.
ICE has not yet confirmed her death. “The death is the eighth in ICE custody in the 2020 fiscal year, which began on October 1, and equals the number of deaths for the entire 2019 fiscal year,” BuzzFeed News continued. The report notes that the woman had passed her initial asylum interview, meaning she didn’t have to be jailed in the first place…
Bryan you’re determined to take this thread to any number of woke topical safe spaces.
Not sure what that has to do with our squalid, camps populated by predators and strewn with needles and feces, unless you’re now suggesting that a federal facility is actually a more dangerous environment. But meanwhile yet another baby has died in one of our illegal camps. It seems it’s worthless “parents” value easy access to heroin over the life of their own flesh and blood. And our county and city leaders turn a blind eye to it, because “social justice.” We have young women being raped and pimped out in some of these camps too. But for God’s sake, don’t send in the Navigation Team!
Um yeah so provide medical care and shelter, but “not trundling off to camps.”
Not complicated.
No. Obviously, I’m comparing the idea that the law should presumptively treat itinerant people as criminals to the Law for the Fight Against Gypsies, Vagrants and the Workshy. And I’m offering the POV that since it costs nothing to avoid associating the word “solution” to the state forcibly putting people into camps, given what a particularly large and painful memory one such effort was called, when people who experienced it or lost loved one during are still around, doing so seems like a decent thing to to.
It also seems overwrought and a not terribly well-executed attempt at shaming by tenuous association. How many more contorted ways can you draw a line to the holocaust, which doesn’t deserve to be cheapened by your watered-down connections? My grandfather had a number on his arm, Bryan. He would have patted you on the head and said “Calm down.”
So, let me get this straight:
(1) You’re surprised that a proposal that the law should presumptively treat vagrants as criminals, and make provisions for shipping them to camps was compared to a law that presumptively treated vagrants as criminals, with provisions for shipping them to camps; and
(2) You can’t imagine any reasons why, with both present-day Nazis and increasing deaths among people forced into camps because they were deemed undesirables in the news, it might be good to avoid needlessly interjecting specific words the Nazis used to describe putting people deemed undesirable into camps where they died into public discussions?
OK then.
Having followed these discussions here for years, the context is important. The camps that hayduke appears to be suggesting (we can argue the elegance of his prose, but I think I get his intent) are the very same that CM Mosqueda has proposed: tented facilties with beds, showers (sorry if THAT triggers you), caring services for the myriad root causes…you name it. A 360 from festering in a tent in the greenway.
Purely speaking for myself, the difference in intent between the immigrant camps is that they are first and foremost detention camps…the ones I hope we build here would be redemption camps. And yes, we need to also acknowlege that some will refuse to go to them, for various reasons, and if that’s the case and they break camping or other laws, that needs to be addressed. I’m afraid the days of carte blanche, laissez faire with the folks despoiling our environment and stealing are over for me. Maybe you have more tolerance there. I used to.
As for my understanding of nazism and any current parrallels to it, I can assure you I see them every day and it’s not in a discussion about housing homeless people (which, when you get through the rhetoric, is, I think…I certainly HOPE…what hayduke is discussing). I learned all about nazism from someone a bit more qualified to teach its evils than you, sir. Trust me.
Important point that you only imply here – the reason we don’t have detention facilities for drug abusers or mentally ill, is not that Seattle is full of such caring people, it’s because we don’t the legal means, in this state or probably any in the US, to detain/commit/incarcerate people for that general reason. The details are subject to some fine tuning in Olympia, but not to the extent that we could toss campers into a FEMA tent and lock the doors. That is not an issue, it’s a silly fantasy that usually comes up on the other “side”, like the infamous TV special that proposed to put them on McNeil island.
Addiction and mental illness are not crimes, end of. So arrest and/or detention of folks facing either must only be an option when they break a law or are of such danger to themselves or others that detention is a lifesaving option. And that detention should be an evidence-based program that treats them as human beings, not “the guy who stole my package” because, in fact, the guy stole that package because all he can think of is the next fix or he’s mentally out of it. So I get it. But I’m also tired of packages going missing and being yelled at on the bus by someone out of their mind. It’s time to help the sick AND the community. If this makes me a right-wing demon, then the world really is just too far gone.
Here we get to the difficult part. If we had a great big correctional facility that really lived up to its name, with plenty of room and proven ability to turn people’s lives around, could we arrest that lady that stole your package and send her off for the cure? I’m pretty sure the answer to that is “no”, not without making immense changes to the system within which the county court operates. A big time drug dealer, maybe.
But I started with a fantastic premise there. In reality, the name “correctional facility” is sort of a bad joke, and I believe the criminal justice system is badly overloaded, and neither of these problems is going to get better any time soon. So it’s just a hypothetical question, and if there’s a viable answer to these problems, it’s probably more along the lines of cleaning up the situations that breed and/or attract the dysfunctional.
“If we had a great big correctional facility that really lived up to its name, with plenty of room and proven ability to turn people’s lives around, could we arrest that lady that stole your package and send her off for the cure? I’m pretty sure the answer to that is ‘no'” — Why not? If it works, it works
“not without making immense changes to the system within which the county court operates.” — No time like the present! I’ve been writing to state legislators about changing the involuntary commitment laws to reflect the self-destructive dysfuntion I see on streets/in camps…that’s one small step
“cleaning up the situations that breed and/or attract the dysfunctional.” — I think you’re saying address root causes of personal dysfunction/civic decay here and I can only agree.
Why not lock them up for petty thievery? We need a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure the penalties provided do not include incarceration, and that we couldn’t rewrite them that way because of fundamental principles of proportional justice. So once you have a population of low level petty criminals, you just have to decide how much time and money you want to spend shuffling them through the system, and recognize that in any case the exercise has little practical value. Diversion programs are hot, maybe valuable though that’s poorly documented at this point.
I think we all agree it’s past time to address root causes, just don’t don’t have a real good consensus on what they are or how to go about it.
I appreciate your generosity of spirit, but I think your gloss on hayduke’s proposal in the context of this statement “So we can tell them they can either go to the shelter we’ve provided, or we’re going to sweep you mercilessly over and over again until you either accept help or move on to another city.” I think it may be overly optimistic.
“when you get through the rhetoric”
The rhetoric itself matters:
Unlike hate movements of the past, extremist groups are able to quickly normalize their messages by delivering a never-ending stream of hateful propaganda to the masses.
“One of the big things that changes online is that it allows people to see others use hateful words, slurs and ideas, and those things become normal,” Neufeld said. “Norms are powerful because they influence people’s behaviors. If you see a stream of slurs, that makes you feel like things are more acceptable.”
While hate speech today proliferates online, the methods used by these hate groups is nothing new. The path to radicalization is similar to that used by the Nazis in the early 20th century, said Steven Luckert, a curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum who focuses on Nazi propaganda.
“Skillful propagandists know how to play on people’s emotions,” Luckert said. “You play upon people’s fears that their way of life is going to disappear, and you use this propaganda to disseminate fear. And often, that can be very successful.”
The Nazis did not start their rise to power with the blatantly violent and murderous rhetoric now associated with Nazi Germany. It began with frequent, quieter digs at Jewish people that played on fears of “the other” and ethnic stereotypes. They used radio — what Luckert calls “the Internet of its time” — to spread their dehumanizing messages.
The antidote, Luckert says, is for people to not become immune to hate speech.
“It’s important to not be indifferent or a passive observer,” Luckert said. “People need to stand up against hate and not sit back and do nothing.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/30/how-online-hate-speech-is-fueling-real-life-violence/
The only whole groups I’ve seen labled as criminals and deviants are criminals and deviants. If anyone said “the homeless” were all criminals and deviants I would be among the first to push back. And while it may be fake fear to you to have criminals living carte blanche in our midst, as a woman who wakes up to a jimmied back door lock, a rifled car, a stolen package, a vandalized dog house, etc etc etc…the fear (and the anger) are real. So many comments here and so many people just talking past one another. Meanwhile, people fester on the streets, die under bridges and can’t find a place to live. I’m sure they all take heart reading these posts.
That’s not just me saying that. That is cops and other emergency responders, service providers, the City of Seattle in the lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, and even the homeless themselves.
Do the ones living in tents and tarps represent “the whole group” and all homeless? No. They represent roughly half our homeless population
“Not all people who live in tents are all thieves or addicts.”
And once again you are attributing things to me that I did not say. I said “pretty much” all of them are thieves or addicts. I would never say 100%, because there are exceptions to every rule.
So yeah, I hate to burst your bubble and tell you that these people are not all just “down on their luck. The vast majority of these “wonderful” people camping in and trashing our public and private spaces are (gasp!) addicts and thieves, and so they should be labelled as such. You can go ahead and call them our “unhoused neighbors” or whatever ridiculous warm and fuzzy term the homeless activists would have us use next to refer to them. I will continue to call a spade a spade and call them what they are.
“Not all people who live in tents are all thieves or addicts.”
And once again you are attributing things to me that I did not say. I said “pretty much” all of them are thieves or addicts. I would never say 100%, because there are exceptions to every rule.
So yeah, I hate to burst your bubble and tell you that these people are not all just “down on their luck. The vast majority of these “wonderful” people camping in and trashing our public and private spaces are (gasp!) addicts and thieves, and so they should be labelled as such. You can go ahead and call them our “unhoused neighbors” or whatever ridiculous warm and fuzzy term the homeless activists would have us use next to refer to them. I will continue to call a spade a spade and call them what they are.
I don’t hate “people.” I hate people who are criminals.
What’s wrong with hating criminals? Why shouldn’t I hate them? They make a career out of victimizing innocent people. They don’t give a damn who they harm.
On the contrary, compassion for criminals is the root of this city’s problem. I was chatting with a former communications guy for Ed Murray (speaking of scumbag criminals). He said, and I agree with his take that the calls for “compassion” have paralyzed our city leadership, because they are so afraid of drawing the ire of homeless activists and social justice warriors on Twitter.
I don’t care if the criminal is violent or if they just engage in petty property crime (and the typical low level offender does that every day). We need to enforce the law and start cracking down on them.
They’re not harmless if they’re stealing from others or leaving dirty needles where people can get hurt by them.
“Someone who pockets a tooth brush at CVS is harmless and should be helped…”
No, they should be punished. Then we can talk about helping them. And that’s assuming that they even want the help, which most of them don’t.
And you’re a fool if you think all they’re stealing is a toothbrush. Vagrants are regularly observed brazenly walking out of stores with armloads and even grocery carts full of merchandise. They are now actually being given shopping lists by organized criminals for what they want them to steal in return for drugs.
A hard core drug addict typically needs $75 to $200 a day, each and every day, to fund his habit. The stuff they steal is sold for pennies on the dollar on the street. That means they have to steal thousands of dollars worth of loot every day and it adds up to a six figure crime spree every year. That has impacts on our feelings of safety and security, not to mention what we pay for our goods.
And we have more and more businesses getting fed up with it and leaving places like downtown, Pioneer Square and Sodo because they and their employees and their customers don’t feel safe anymore and they’re losing too much merchandise. So no, these toothbrush thieves aren’t “harmless.”
Lastly, your point about providing garbage services to these illegal camps is absurd. We’ve put out dumpsters for them, they don’t use them. They just dump all their trash and filth wherever they want. Seattle Public Utilities also provides them garbage bags and only about a quarter of them actually get used. And the ones that do get filled up get torn open by junkies looking for needles with any left over drug residue inside.
You seem to think that if we just give these people everything and leave them alone that they will do fine and turn their lives around. Stop thinking you can fix people like this, you can’t. The only thing that matters to them is their next high.
I added more to my previous comment.
You don’t have to be a “master criminal” to walk out of a store here with a shopping cart full of merch. Or for that matter with a garbage bag full of merch. This video was filmed in San Francisco but it might as well have been filmed here:
https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=204960720615635&_rdr
Yeah. Those are all fake actors. 🤣
I get it, you don’t trust Facebook videos. That’s understandable. We can’t trust everything we see on FB or on the internets. So how about this story from our very own downtown Target? Here we have one of your precious “vulnerable community members,” to use the parlance of city leadership. He is merrily going on a 15 minute long shoplifting rampage, stealing thousands of dollars worth of electronics and threatening people while the cops are nowhere to be found.
Judging from the video, he’s definitely not a “master criminal.” And as violent as he was, he didn’t actually physically harm anyone. So in your view this is an example of one of your “harmless” poor people just trying to get by.
Anyway, it’s been fun. Signing off for now.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kiro7.com/news/local/video-shows-man-on-destructive-rampage-in-downtown-seattle-target-store/836808092/%3foutputType=amp
I added to the comment because I had an afterthought about it. And I have now pasted the video for you. I was having trouble doing that before it wasn’t letting me for some reason.
If I was trying to be sneaky I wouldn’t have told you about it, would I.
If I may plunge back into the pool of futility here –
1. Figure I’ve read for opiate addiction in unsanctioned camps was 80% – 90%. Said previous mayor. That apparently wouldn’t count other addictions.
2. Opiates are not free, hence Hayduke’s $75 -$200/day.
3. You think about how far a stolen toothbrush will get your statistically typical camper.
The facility Hayduke’s talking about, “FEMA” tent or whatever, is far more conducive to getting help with that or anything else, than an unsanctioned encampment. The Navigator team that came to a WCC meeting a ways back, had to admit that they’re getting virtually no one off drugs; I wouldn’t expect miracles in a facility either, but services like that are part of the program.
Encampments are being “swept”, and that’s going to continue, because they simply aren’t a sustainable housing model. At present, the alternatives are skimpy, and campers just move from one place to another. That’s what Hayduke’s proposal addresses. Not so much encampment removals, which are happening now. Shelter facilities with services. All the hand wringing about “rounding up” and so forth is just making you two look clueless.
First of all, this isn’t about “rounding up” poor people. This is about dealing with criminals and addicts.
So if I understand you correctly, if they don’t want to leave where they’re camping, it doesn’t matter to you if we actually comply with Martin v Boise and build shelter for all of them. It doesn’t matter to you if they’re camping in front of people’s homes or businesses or in parks and playgrounds and making citizens feel unsafe. You think they should be allowed to camp where they want for as long as they want, and that they must not be moved.
Nevermind the fact that actually getting them into shelter with the services they need might actually save some of their lives. Nope, it’s better to allow them to continually be a problem for the neighborhood and wallow in their squalor month after month, year after year. Because that’s what passes for “compassion” in progressive lalaland.
There’s a way to deal with criminals: if you’re convicted of a crime through an impartially administered judicial process, you can be incarcerated.
Anything beyond this, and most of what you write above, is about rounding people because of a series of reasons that “aren’t that.”
(As far as shelter, we should indeed provide shelter to anyone who needs it, but that’s unrelated.)
That sounds nice on paper but they’re not even prosecuting these people anymore.
So advocate for more prosecution, rather than rounding up people for “not that.”
Not complicated.
“So advocate for more prosecution…”
Arghhh, what do you think I and others have been clamoring for these last few years? Unfortunately we have a city attorney and King County prosecutor who are absolutely spineless and who refuse to do their job of protecting the public. Pete Holmes even went so far as to try to sabotage the career of a judge who had the nerve to hand down a jail sentence on a guy with a multiple convictions for assault.
For example you can take a look at the 100 prolific offenders report called “System Failure,” which was put out by the downtown business association last year. If we would just put away these 100 individuals it would make a huge impact on lowering crime but Holmes and Saterberg refuse to do what needs to be done.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/q13fox.com/2020/02/25/seattles-100-prolific-offenders-have-collectively-been-booked-into-jail-320-times-in-the-past-year/amp/
I am 100% for prolific offender task forces, as we’ve know definitely for decades a small number of people commit a disproportionate percentage of crimes.
That’s why all the scarce and expensive office hours spent on – for example, sweeps! – that contribute absolutely nothing toward detecting and interdicting them strikes me as utter professional malpractice by SPD.
Low hanging fruit, redeploy to finding and getting the Worst Bad Guys.
Well look at that! A rare spot of agreement. At least on your first point.
As to your second, I would argue that if you’ve got in illegal camp right in front of your home or business you would want to have it removed. Especially because they are often breeding grounds for crime.
That’s not actually how crime works. “My domicile is wood, I’ll be law abiding. My domicile is a tent – Imunna be a criminal” isn’t a thing. (Tents and rough sleeping do increase the likelihood people doing that will be victims, ’cause no doors and walls, but that’s it’s own thing.)
It increases the likelihood they will be victims….of other homeless people.
Look, you would agree that most those living in tents are addicts, right? How do you think they acquire all the crap they have by their tents? How do you think they get by day to day and feed their habit?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/373227adda8285915c03eee39fb5afeaf52aa246ef3b8e3745b98cfef2f714df.jpg
Is that supposed to be an answer to Hayduke’s question? It isn’t about people living in tents, it isn’t about whether they’re addicts, it isn’t about how they support their needs, so … I guess not?
If most of those living in tents were addicts, I’d expect that “alcohol or drug use” line to be much higher. But it’s not. So they probably aren’t.
“It isn’t about people living in tents”, is it? It’s about all homeless, of which I see Hayduke says the campers are about half. That’s an important distinction to bear in mind, when interpreting figures like Murray’s 90% addicts – he was talking about tent camps, and though the most visible, they aren’t all the homeless nor are they necessarily typical.
And then there’s the self reporting problem, and whatever tendency there may be for addiction to spread in camps, and then, believe it or not, it’s possible to be an opiate addict and maintain jobs and relationships and not immediately be on the streets.
Why in the world would “shelter made of canvas” be decisively associated (or even associated at all) more than other forms of rough sleeping with being an addict?
I agree, so let’s take a third look at what exactly we’re saying. Seattle’s law suit against the pharmaceuticals says “Seattle’s Navigation Team … estimates that 80% of the homeless individuals they encounter in challenging encampments have substance abuse disorders.”
I take “challenging encampments” to mean some subset of everyone who puts up a tent. It isn’t about the tent, it’s about the community. I’m sure there exist tents in Seattle that aren’t surrounded by hypodermic needle debris.
(I remember Murray stating that figure as “opiate” addiction, but then I wouldn’t really rely on Murray for anything.)
So “let’s presume everyone in a tent is an addict+criminal” is actually based on “no idea” how many people we’re actually talking about who actually are addicts+criminals.
You want to know exactly how many? It’s true, I don’t know that and wouldn’t expect anyone really does. But let’s return to the point.
I think the people who work for the mayor know what “challenging encampment” means, and that’s what typically gets removed, no? Are those people addicts? Most of them, apparently. Are they criminals? Unless they have some other source for the money, so yeah, probably.
I personally have little expectation that a big tent somewhere is going to be any better answer than what we’ve already tried and failed with, but leaving these communities in place isn’t an answer, and just inflames the hostility against all homeless among those who aren’t making such careful distinctions.
LOL. “I can’t offer you any basis to believe this is more than like 10 guys, but let’s proceed with mass forced relocation anyway.”
Just from an taxpayer cost point of view alone it’s like uh, no.
Come on Bryan, I know you’re smarter than this. You’re actually going to take the word of people living on the street for what their problem is? I suppose you also believe they are all war veterans and that they really will work for food?
They are self reporting. You think they’re gonna be honest about what their problems really are, if they’re even able to recognize them? King County’s official position is that 80% of them are addicts.
Good grief.
(1) Link?
(2) Just out of curiosity, how do you think King County would arrive at a percentage? Magic? I’m guessing “asking people” was a significant input.
(3) In any event, are you in fact asserting that 80% of people living in tents in King County are supporting their addiction by stealing $75-$225 a day in stuff IIRC?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/36b3d002f9f32807de3b13d7331b183892ab3d905b12e268b763ef1ec9bedb8b.jpg
Well there it is. How many encampments are “challenging” encampments? How many people did they “encounter there? What’s the “n” of 80% of “n?”
What’s “substance abuse” since theu don’t say “opiod addiction?”
If there are 400 encampments, are there 2 “challenging” encampments with 5 people each in them, of whom only half were “encountered” because they weren’t there when a sweep tore the camp down, or what?
(I think it’s obvious that if a document intended to justify as much money as possible from opiod manufacturers could have made the claim that “80% of people living in tents in King County have an opiod addiction” they would have!)
If “n” is small, then we’re good, right? The city can go ahead and clean them out, because it’s essentially irrelevant to the larger homeless population of innocents, and we don’t even really need to share Haywood’s concern over providing more shelter space for them to go to.
If n is small, good police work (which we don’t seem to be doing) should indeed be able to ID who the worst bad guys are, find them, and weed them out (h/t to Weed and Seed from the 90s, which some may find offensive, I acknowledge, but we put to positive use in New Haven)
Tbh, I’m not sure how they break it down and define it. It sounds like they’re talking about the 4505 unsheltered homeless. As I mentioned in another comment, roughly half of our homeless are living unsheltered in tents, tarps, etc. So that figure, being from 2016, is in the ballpark. I believe they’re talking about all unsanctioned encampments as “challenging encampments.” The Navigation team for last few years has used that figure of “over 400 encampments” whenever I get a response from them for reports I’ve filed.
It is interesting how in one breath the city tries to say these people are “just down on their luck” and looking for work and they deny it’s an addiction problem, claiming only 30% or so are addicted. But when they come reaching for the deep pockets of Big Pharma suddenly its 80%.
Here’s another little snapshot from back when they were reporting on the Purdue lawsuit https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be54816c1e81a011f3aa26e4086fb274a960dc196a948f29195c00b376489d58.jpg :
We can redefine crime though. How about defining crime as “people who don’t share”?
Walk me through this. You’re saying that you want to criminalize not sharing?
I am not saying I want to criminalize not sharing. I am saying laws can write in all kind of different ways, so it’s not right to just hate criminals for the sake of them being criminals. Just by change of law, criminals may suddenly become not criminals or vice versa. “Against criminal” is a false and lazy argument, because people only support that when the specific law is something they support. If it’s a law they don’t support, people’s argument would turn to “against bad law” instead.
OK thanks for clarifying. I don’t think we necessarily need laws to tell us when someone is doing something bad that is harmful to others. We instinctively know that what they’ve done is wrong, and that they’re pos for doing it. Laws are part of being in a civilized society and we need the law to enforce consequences, otherwise we descend into anarchy and vigilantism.
So sure, laws can change. For example, look at petty theft. We all know it’s wrong and that it is harmful to others, and yet the city of Seattle has chosen to basically ignore enforcement of it. Likewise, drug addicts are no longer arrested if they possess less than three grams. It doesn’t make their behavior any less harmful to themselves or others. But as we know, what you tolerate, you get more of.
Or how about on a state-wide level, where democrat legislators just decided to change the laws around knowingly and willfully transmitting HIV to another person. I think all would agree that doing that is an evil act that should be severely punished and yet we’ve downgraded it from a felony to a misdemeanor.
So how about if I rephrase to say I’m against bad people who willfully harm others, and they deserve to be punished?
Move them into housing that’s out of the weather, with sanitary and other facilities and social services. That was the big tent model in California if I remember right. It may have drawbacks compared to the toolshed tiny house, but I believe the attraction is that it can serve many more people – the tiny house camps take so few as to be nearly irrelevant.
Locating such a tent in Wallingford is not a real issue, it’s a fantasy that’s here only for the the purpose of sidetracking the discussion.
Nope. Didn’t say that. That’s the third time you’ve tried to put words in my mouth. You cant seem to get it through your thick skull, so I’ll say it again: I’m not OK with vagrants camping in any neighborhood.
I’m sorry I said something mean to you in response to your repeated attempts to attribute things to me I didn’t say.
If you take the trouble to look through your posts, in every single one that asserts or implies something about Hayduke’s position, you pull out something that he never wrote or implied. You’re arguing against a “straw man.” Hayduke’s direction may not be the right one, but this isn’t a productive discussion of it.
A friend of mine bought a known squatter house a couple of blocks from me, and he plans on fixing it up eventually. Meanwhile, these dirtbags keep breaking into his house and shooting up and leaving their needles and other filth.
At least one of them is a known prolific offender. He’s a methead who should have been locked up a long time ago and the cops know him well. But this is Seattle, where we are “compassionate,” so he is allowed to roam freely. So because we haven’t dealt with him, he has assaulted multiple women and he has threatened me and friends and neighbors of mine. So if you think my motivation should be welcome him into my community and convince the city to waste it’s time and our money trying to “help” him, you’ve got another think coming. I want the city to get rid of him.
Entitlement is a difficult topic. What made people entitled to properties, for example?
Ah tj! Long time no see! Out pounding the pavement for Comrade Sanders today?
Regarding your question about “what made people entitled to properties?”
Uh, because we pay for them?
Well, as an academic matter of principle, individual ownership of land has its good and bad side, and I’m not sure the bad doesn’t outweigh the good. It would be nutty to find any relevance in this, though, at this late date – if we were going to find a better way to do it, we should have started a couple centuries ago.
There were lots of heroin addicts in Seattle in the 1990s, but many fewer tents and people on the streets – because there was more marginal / cheap / rundown housing. Any addict with any degree of mental competency would take it, because, at minimum, “wooden lodgings with lockable doors” make it harder for someone else to steal your drugs.
And where did all that housing go? Oh, yeah…
Kitaro’s is still boarded up because the ambitions for it are bigger than the lot – multistory residential is going to be really tough there. But there are plenty of other lots around there zoned to LR2, LR3, NC55-75. The “Bill the Butcher” site on Stone, with permits on file and apparently a more feasible spot but I haven’t noticed a lot of activity on that either. Zoning is not the problem. Make the zoning whatever you want, and the industry still is practically guaranteed to not keep up with the rate of influx.
From what I’ve been told, the Bill the Butcher project hasn’t been able to secure funding. They went with a very expensive build and apparently they’re too deep into the process now to start over.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but there’s another resource starvation problem that comes up as we approach the limit of housing production – on both ends, the expense of building, materials and labor, and also the availability of capital.
Looks like all of “pa’s” comments have been deleted. That’s a shame, it was getting interesting.
I’m guessing they deleted their account. I wonder why…
Perhaps he was upset I just couldn’t see the wisdom of his “thinking.”
He was a dime store version of Bryan, IMHO. The latter has the same POV and generally states it more clearly.
And now Scott Morrow always looking for ways to bilk the city out of more of our money for his camps, wants to turn the Northlake Nicklesville into a Corona virus quarantine site for the homeless. They will infect our neighborhood if they are allowed to leave the premises. This is why we need to shut this facility down, and fast.