By Brandon Gustafson, UW News Lab / Special to CHS
The mayor’s homelessness czar gave an update this week on progress made in Seattle’s plans to do more than offer shelter to homeless people — there wasn’t much to talk about beyond garbage and how best to move campers from spot to spot.
“We have a crisis that we need to address. … We have 3,000 people in the city of Seattle who are sleeping in cars, sleeping in doorways, sleeping in tents outside. Unacceptable,” George Scarola, director of homelessness for the mayor’s office told the Seattle City Council’s Human Services and Public Health Committee.
“The main part is to provide people with 24-hour shelter where they can store their possessions. … We’re setting those kinds of shelters up as we speak.”
Wednesday, Scarola ticked through updates on the the “interim action plan” from Mayor Ed Murray’s office to address new alternatives to homeless encampments in Seattle. Rules about the moving and removal of homeless camping areas are changing.“We’re looking at the work of the mayor’s task force… and have discussed in great detail the issues around moving encampments,” Chris Potter, the mayor’s finance guy at the table, said. “We’re looking at that experience, and the interests of the members…as well as the experience that we have on the ground for what seems to be working well and what things work less well and trying to reach a balanced solution.”
The old rules mean that when there are a small number of tents, they are to be immediately removed. Removals can take place even if there are no shelter alternatives available, and there were barely any guidelines on prioritizing which sites were to be removed. Under the proposed new rules, campers must be given a minimum of a 72-hour notice of removal, making sure that other shelter is available, and there will now be a specific criteria for removal and inspection of encampments.
In addition, the mayor’s office and the council are working to create a committee that will be in charge of reviewing the rules for cleanup of unsanctioned encampments. They’ll meet in February.
The city has scheduled trash pick-up near three unauthorized encampments in Seattle, said Ken Snipes of Seattle Public Utilities, and they plan on expanding to three or four more sites in 2017.
SPU currently has three locations for litter abatement pilots: in Little Saigon, Chinatown and Ballard, and the plan is to add four new neighborhoods to that this year. Those locations will be chosen based on where the most complaints of garbage are, coupled with where a need is seen. They will also be adding new needle drop-off boxes throughout Seattle, per Snipes. Seattle Weekly reports the city’s current boxes are so successful, collected syringes now need to be counted by weight instead of individually.
More solid progress on larger solutions is still a ways off.
There are three new sanctioned encampments coming which were introduced to end 2016:
- 1000 S. Myrtle Street-capacity to serve 60-70 people
- 8620 Nesbit Ave. N.-Capacity to serve 60-70
- 9701 Myers Way S.-capacity to serve 60-70
Those sites will be operational “early this year,” and the committee is accepting proposals through January 20th from businesses, churches, and nonprofit organizations to partner with City Hall to increase around-the-clock indoor shelter opportunities for the homeless and their possessions. There is $1.3 million in funding available, Jason Johnson of the Human Services Department said.
But there is no updated timeline for the city’s most ambitious new homelessness resource.
The city’s 24-hour homeless navigation center remains delayed and was mostly talked around this week. “Identifying a site has taken longer than we had originally considered,” Johnson, a division director at Human Services, told the committee meeting with City Council members before the Christmas holiday. The dormitory-style center with showers, bathrooms, laundry, dining and storage will be open 24 hours daily and will allow people to come as they are with their pets, partners and possessions. It will be able to provide services to 75 people at one time. The center is intended to be a transitionary place where caseworkers will help people secure stable housing.
In the meantime, new rules for sweeps and cleaning-up after campers are moving forward much more quickly.
Needing to look, assess, build committees makes some sense in order to best direct funds and services. That said, there are a lot of local agencies that have been working on this for some time. My hope is that the Mayor and the Czar are asking these folks to share their knowledge. My 2 cents: there needs to be government (city, county or state) owned rental units. Landlords, including those who provide low income and/or subsidized housing, have rigid screening criteria ruling some folks out. I don’t fault them–they need to protect their investment. The buildings with looser criteria are full. Shuffling money within upper level deciders will do nothing to solve this until we have more places to put people.
I have been trying for MONTHS to get the city/county/state to take action on the trash buildup all over Eastlake and Capitol Hill. I have personally reached out to the city council, mayor’s office, WSDOT, SDOT, Parks, SPU, and King County Public Health. I have documented and mapped the problem. They do nothing about it – every person tells me they either have no jurisdiction, or that the problem requires “inter-agency cooperation”. Either way, nothing gets done.
See for yourself what’s going on along I-5 in the neighborhood, and then remind yourself that this is only one small six-block area, and that this is being replicated all over the city – hundreds and hundreds of open trash dumps: https://www.flickr.com/photos/inthe206
This is not humane or compassionate for people camping out, and it’s patently absurd that the rest of us should have to live in this mess.
I just drove past the I-90/I-5 exchange at Airport Way. Wow, what a huge mess! They had dumpsters and portable toilets and still, the area was strewn with trash everywhere.
I don’t understand why they insist on living in a trash pile when there are dumpsters on the same property just feet away. I’ve been to the slums in India and they were far more tidy.
I agree completely. City officials have been talking and talking, and frequently changing the protocols for cleanups….and meanwhile encampments and accompanying trash continue to increase. Less talk, more action! The “housing first” approach needs even more emphasis (and funding). Yes, homeless people have rights, but what about those of us “regular citizens”?…..don’t we have a right to not live with the squalor?
P.S. Many of the encampments and trash piles are on state (WSDOT) land. They will not clean it up unless the sites are specifically reported to them, and even then it usually takes many months to happen because they have a huge backlog.
How about giving them a modest stipend to keep their camps tidy, or is that an unreasonable expectation?