Go for a ride through Seattle and you can’t help but notice more tents and camps and the officials admit they are larger in size.
More than temporary camps, that have come and gone, along I-5 are showing signs of being permanent with wooden structures to provide raised a raised platform to keep themselves from being in the mud and water.
Unless camps are considered hazardous, dangerous or pose a serious safety hazard then Seattle is allowing nearly every camp to stay put.
Over a dozen tents are scattered in Denny Park, just outside the office of Seattle’s Parks Director. Six months ago, the city’s Navigation Team and Park’s Department staff would have asked them to move immediately.
“To tell you the truth, it’s a very good comfort that they haven’t come at us and told us to move,” said Vera Big Beaver, who has pitched a tent with her husband Jeffery Drew in the park.
The couple said they haven’t received any offers of ‘available’ shelter. “They don’t have it for couples. It’s just hopes and dreams,” Vera said.
“If individual housing options are not available, allow people who are living unsheltered or in encampments to remain where they are,” said the CDC guidance.
The city adopted a no-camp removal policy after the CDC issued the aforementioned guidance for homeless camps in April.
Seattle has since conducted just 7 camp removals compared to 451 during the April to September period in 2019.
The last major camp removal was on May 21, when dozens of tents were removed from near the city’s Navigation Center, an enhanced homeless shelter in the International Chinatown District.
The removal came after a shooting at the camp, it involved uniformed Seattle Police officers that make up the Navigation Team and other patrol officers which upset many on the Seattle City Council.
“The sweeps have to end now,” said Council Member Kshama Sawant during a council meeting, a familiar retort for her. Sawant has drawn criticism from people on both sides of the aisle, not just for this comment, but for comments and policies she’s supported this year, including slashing the police budgets.
“The City Council has made its will very clear, it does not want us to move any encampment regardless of what the public safety issues or the health safety issues,” said Mayor Jenny Durkan in August.
It’s Durkan’s administration that issued the directive not to clear camps except when they are an obstruction or safety hazard during COVID.
“We have not seen an increase in the number of shelter beds available and so the turnover rate is very low, people want to stay inside if they have a safe place,” said REACH co-director Chloe Gale.
“The really successful model we’ve seen emerge in the last nine months has been using motels rooms as an interim intervention as rapidly as possible,” Gale said.
Federal money that has paying for a majority of hotel rooms for 650 individuals will run out by years end.
“If they got a big ‘ol hotel open they should provide that for people,” said Vera, who dreams of having a hotel room but doesn’t know how to get a free one.
Durkan is expected to announce a ‘reimaging’ of the Navigation next Tuesday when she unveils her 2021 budget.
In the meantime, people like Vera and Jeff are being allowed to camp on public property almost anywhere they want to.
