(Image: CHS)
A small battalion of Seattle Police Department officers accompanied City of Seattle personnel early Monday to post notices on trees, fences, and tents in Cal Anderson Park that the area will be swept of encampments Wednesday morning.
“Materials in this area are an obstruction of the intended use of this property, are in a hazardous location or present a hazard,” the notice reads. “This is not an authorized area for storage or shelter.”
“Any materials left here will be removed,” the city says “and belongings will be stored for 70 days at no charge.”
Monday’s actions were met by protest, yelling, and threats by some campers and mutual aid supporters but there were no reported arrests. UPDATE: SPD says one person was arrested for investigation of assault.
SPD says one person who reportedly assaulted an officer was able to flee:
On 12-14-2020 at 0730 hours, while assisting the Parks Department with park closure notices, Parks Department, SPD, Outreach, CRT, MHPS were met with immediate resistance regarding our presence. Two signs were posted when suspect 2 assaulted a CRT officer, justifying a disengagement. As resources disengaged, they were followed by park occupants that refused to disengage. During disengagement, suspect 1 ran up and shoved an officer from behind. Subject was arrested after a struggle where he kicked an officer as well. Suspect 2 then circled the arrest scene and punched an officer doing crowd control for the arrest. Suspect 2 was pepper sprayed and fled on foot avoiding arrest.
UPDATE x2: A statement from Seattle Parks says the order to clear Cal Anderson comes as the department is set to begin “a multi-day intensive maintenance and cleaning project.”
“We are providing those residing within the park notice of the work that will happen in the coming days, and a notice that they will need to vacate,” the Parks statement reads.
According to the statement, parks workers required the large presence Monday morning because “recent regular SPR maintenance efforts have been met with threats of physical violence.”
“In recent days, additional protestors have moved to Cal Anderson to occupy the park similar to occupation of the shelter house earlier this year,” the statement sent by a Parks spokesperson to CHS Monday afternoon reads.
Cal Anderson, part of the core of the CHOP occupied Black Lives Matter protests, has continued to be at the center of ongoing protest and anti-police unrest in the city.
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(Image: CHS)
Monday, calls for support swept across social media as activists scrambled to respond to the large police presence. Police left the area after the notices were posted and there were no reports of camp materials being removed.
UPDATE: Activists and organizers are criticizing the city’s announced sweep and have called for support at the park, asking people to bring camp supplies, furniture and objects that can be used as barriers — and themselves to be part of what groups hope will be a large enough occupation to deter any clearance efforts.
It has been a stressful two weeks for the camp areas in the park. December began with Mayor Jenny Durkan telling CHS that the situation in the park and the wall around the East Precinct is “urgent” and that the city was working with community groups and business owners on plans to do outreach and reopen the park while also working to take down the barriers around 12th and Pine.
Video provided to CHS by an activist at scene — CONTAINS LOUD PROFANITY
Cal Anderson has been technically closed by the city since the CHOP occupied protests but has remained a busy core to the neighborhood as well as the staging area for many protests. Tents have also spread through the park and some entrances have been jury-rigged with fences to keep police and city vehicles out. Police have raided and swept the park a handful of times since the CHOP clearance including in September after groups broke into the park’s sheterhouse facility and set up a mutual aid station inside. That structure and the park’s bathrooms remain fenced-off and locked-down. In September, police also surrounded the park to respond to the murder-suicide of two people living in the camps.
UPDATE: The city says there have also been a continued need to send police and Seattle Fire into the park:
Since November 20, the fire department has sent units to incidents at Cal Anderson Park on five different occasions. This included three fire responses (tree on fire and two large illegal burns) and two medical responses. Additionally, the department was advised of two other illegal bonfires that occurred on Dec. 1 and Dec. 13. Seattle PD has responded to 17 calls in Cal Anderson Park since 12/1/20.
“Based on the nature of the calls, it appears that the majority of the calls are demonstration related,” a city spokesperson writes.
Durkan’s current push on Cal Anderson includes an “outreach first” approach, the mayor said, as she rolls out the $5.6 million “temporary surge” Clean Cities initiative including increased trash pick-up’ and “proactive cleaning in parks and open spaces.”
There has been no public announcement from the administration of how that outreach is playing out at Cal Anderson. CHS will update when we learn more.
UPDATE: The city provided details of general outreach ongoing in Cal Anderson and the surrounding area:
There are some individuals living unsheltered at Cal Anderson, so the City has deployed mobile health providers and multiple City-contracted outreach workers have been on site to provide support for unsheltered adults, youth, and individuals in crisis. The City’s goal is to bring those individuals inside into a safer space, and the City’s outreach partners are offering unsheltered individuals a shelter bed, sheltering resources, or temporary assistance. The City contracts with homeless outreach organizations to work with unhoused individuals across the city, to help them meet basic needs and to get them into a safer housing situation. This outreach by providers such as REACH, LEAD, DESC, , and YouthCare has been ongoing at Cal Anderson Park and in the surrounding neighborhood, in coordination with the Human Services Department’s HOPE Team. Public Health – Seattle & King County’s Mobile Medical program was on site on December 10 providing medical services.
The city’s statement did not address specific efforts if any related to the current planned clearance at Cal Anderson. UPDATE: A city representative says that since last Wednesday, outreach providers “have had contact with at least 40 individuals” at the park. Outreach providers have made 10 referrals to shelter facilities since Wednesday, a Human Services Department representative said.
Durkan and the city’s handling of encampments so far has followed CDC guidelines guidelines that have recommended allowing people living in under sheltered environments to stay in place during the COVID-19 crisis. But the mayor’s office seems increasingly responsive to business and neighborhood concerns about the camps that also fill Capitol Hill areas like Williams Place Park and the Miller Community Center and Playfield. Focusing fully on the city’s issues including COVID and homelessness is the reason Durkan said she has decided not to seek reelection after her terms runs out in 2021.
According to the Cal Anderson notice, camp materials are slated to be removed starting at 7:30 AM Wednesday.
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Are Williams Place and Denny Park next?
Tashkent Park needs to be. Multiple tents since the Cal Anderson sweep last week
Where should the people in Tashkent Park go?
It would be great if somebody posted these notices on Amazon buildings in SLU.
It’s about damn time. But what is going to keep the campers (and their enablers) from coming back?
Exactly. Certainly not the police ;)
Coming from a Berge enabler. Just BERGE everything up. Genius. LOL.
Upon multiple google searches I have failed to understand what Berge is. I will assume it’s a nice thing however and that you’re a nice person.
Berge was the repeat meth addict who beat his girlfriend to death in her tent and then drowned himself in a pool of bleach in the pumphouse.
Nothing compassionate about letting those type of situations continue in Cal Anderson.
To Nick W: “Those type of situations” unfortunately occur in many populations, including those with homes. What makes things more heinous about it happening in the park is that they were houseless. That houselessness itself was an additional amorality for which overall city/society is culpable. But the murder/suicide would be equally bad had it occurred in housing. Vilifying houseless people for the fact of their houselessness does nothing to help the situation.
Hobos, campers pay a fee to camp in designated areas.
Where should the people in Cal Anderson Park go?
I don’t see what this encampment has to do with BLM at this point as referenced by the article, at this point it just looks like a take over of one of the few remaining community spaces that is available for the residents of Capitol Hill during a time when most are closed due to the pandemic. The camp removals need to happen even if it makes us liberals/progressives uncomfortable – Seattle has some of the best services for unsheltered people in the country but I’m not in favor of ceding all public (for use by everyone) green space to that cause.
Bingo
“Seattle has some of the best services for unsheltered people in the country”
Yes, and which have space right now? Please include space for couples, low barrier, and service animals. Oh, right…because Seattle has also been on top of social distancing and other protective COVID19 measures (especially after an early outbreak among sheltered and shelter staff), capacity is down. There’s rarely room.
And many of our shelters are one night only; in by a deadline in the evening, out by 7 am, whether or not someone has stolen your shoes. Yeah, that’s a side effect heard often.
Liberals/progressives who find camp removals uncomfortable need to examine why. Is it because you don’t want to invite someone to come shelter in your garage? Or the fact that a larger number every day of these folks look like someone you know? Because they do.
Poor people don’t have garages to invite others into. Some poor people don’t have homes at all and live in parks. This is the reality of your society and the only shameful response we have is to “get them out of my view” “don’t want to see this poverty my society creates anymore”. I’m sure it will be a very merry, very warm christmas for you with plenty of food and relaxation. Hopefully jesus will bless you with a stroll through your city without any views of poverty so you won’t have to think at all for one fleeting moment.
Jesus would be ashamed. Poor people need compassion and love. Drug addicts need money and drugs. There is a difference. But hey, he would be proud of you for completely ignoring their real pain and letting them kill themselves in a public space.
Parks and services have reached out to the individuals in Cal Anderson. Not only have they denied services, but they have pelted those reaching out with rocks. I’ve witnessed it. Cal Anderson has been home to many experiencing homelessness for many years. No police intervention was needed before to make the park accessible to everyone. These are different circumstances.
Does “everyone” include the people who are already there right now?
Permanently occupying park space makes the park inherently less accessible for others
Yess!!!!! Finally!!!!!
This City needs to be managed for the benefit of all its citizens. Clearing out the squatters in Cal Anderson is just the start, hopefully, in bring our City back to its law abideing citizens. It is about time!
Shame on you. If the city was managed for the benefit of all its citizens we wouldn’t have impoverished citizens, unhoused living in parks now would we?
Those “impoverished citizens” choose to live unhoused in a park. They could go live in a shelter, but would have to give up their drug habit. Choices.
I don’t get your scare quotes around impoverished citizens, that is literally what they are. Addiction is a disease that needs treatment and shelters and public housing don’t fix it. My mom has relapsed in public housing and gotten evicted because of predatory dealers. I think the state should choose rehabilitation over oppression and exploitation.
What I mean to say is that it generally isn’t a choice. The best situation is shelter and treatment provided to people who are incapacitated by mental illness and lack resources. Sweeps are the worst situation.
the city is managed for the benefit of taxpayers and we decide who to help. Poor sober people are not living in that park. Stop enabling junkies. you are killing them.
Addiction is a disorder that happens to a person, not an identity, and it can be treated. Which disabilities do you think are worth treatment? Don’t call people junkies. It’s dehumanizing, which is the root of the problem.
I misread this, sorry for the hostile tone. That word just really bothers me.
Don’t shame us Ghost, shame on you. Our city is one giant trash heap and this camping has to stop. It’s not helping anyone to hand them a sleeping bag or other such bullshit to enable them to continue living outside in a squalid, downward spiral. Do you know anyone who is an addict? If you did you would know that relying on an addict to make a good decison is a total fantasy. This has gone on far too long. Good bye campers!!!!
Never thought I’d support the sweeps or actions of SPD so quickly again, but man does a disgusting takeover of the only large nearby park change views.
What a shameful solution to poverty; Get it out of my view.. Shame on you.
Replying to everyone with the shame comments isn’t going to get people to magically accept that empathizing with poverty means we have to accept loss of community space, aggressive confrontations from tent people, robbed homes and vehicles, increased crime (murder/suicide in this particular encampment), etc. Seattle can’t solve the nationwide crisis and it’s irresponsible to try by selling out everyone else in the city, that is just going to lose voters for other progressive causes.
First of all.. Yes, there should be a lot of shame felt by people who are demanding poor people leave a public park weeks ahead of christmas and at the violent hands of the police. Asking for that to happen is literally asking for humans to be hurt, possibly killed and then forcing them to roam the city when they otherwise wouldn’t have to. All of which requires homeless people to do way more work to survive than anyone in these comments can even imagine.
And then to answer your question, yes we should accept all of this. This is our fate as the disgusting society we are as exemplified by these comments. We don’t care about people and we don’t care about society. So we’re left with this hell hole where poor people roam and murder and scrounge to survive and then we have rich people blowing snot rockets at them and snapping their fingers for the police to take em away.
It’s not that someone is “selling out everyone else in the city” it’s that we’re ALL IN THE SAME SINKING BOAT!
Except one of those boats is full of meth addicts beating people to death in the park, and the other boat is having a public space that everyone can safely use while finding other compassionate solutions to mental illness, drug use, and yes, homelessness.
You think it’s different boats, but it’s not
shame on you for for enabling and telling us what services these people need. you know nothing of these issues. progressive solutions include tough love. go talk to an addict about it.
Weeks ahead of Christmas??? LOL So how about after Christmas? No, we can’t do that because new years eve and then Easter is right around the corner. Get a grip.
What a pathetic display of inhumanity in these comments. Shame on all of you who “want the park back” while it provides for so many people in our community right now. Others in our society may not be as #blessed as you are to have a warm home and computer to hurl inhumane comments into a community blog thread but hey who cares right? Just get em out of your way. True american spirit on display here right before another very american christmas.
I assume you’ll be welcoming them into your home then.
No, I’ll let them have the park.
Is the guilt trip one way, because I think you’re on one.
I’m not guilting of snidely wishing the violent removal of poor people from a public park a couple weeks from Christmas in a global pandemic, no. The shame is all yours.
Question, why do they get to be there and not, say, area’s outside an extremely population dense area? They WANT to be here for their own enjoyment, not because they need to be.
Yeah, because it’s real humane to allow people to live in the filth and squalor that is Cal Anderson park right now. It’s real cool for a group of private citizens to take over public space while threatening the workers that need to provide upkeep to said space. Just ignore them, let them do what they want, and be sure to march every night with your vague agendas, no solutions, and violent actions. That’s sure to solve the issue.
Speaking of warm home and computer access, how many of the homeless in the park have you invited into your home? How many are you giving access to your privileged life? Or are you only self-righteous in the comments section of a community blog?
You’re welcome to house them yourself. Or they could go to shelters.
Instead they destroy community property that belongs to all.
If the Proud Boys took over a park and held 24/7 Trump rallies, I imagine you’d say something different.
Bingo.
All are offered services.
You know, it was an idea to set up a huge tented shelter that was run by the national guard during covid. but people whose mom and dad or husband pay their way said that was “warehousing” and want people to live in feces, without any of the services and utilities of a tented shelter at scale that is policed so people aren’t raped or stabbed or shot. For Democrats, this is a way to funnel money to unaudited organizations for graft by people who want government to be open and audited. Outsource for less accountability. And hide where the money goes and what it is used for. For Democrats, this is a way to not spend money too. Tents are cheap, taking over parkland is cheap. Actual management of a huge tented shelter would be hard and have accountability for the health of the people. Tented people: ah, not their responsibility if someone dies and they get approval cookies for their nonresponsibility. It’s so tired and old to actually do a thing and be measured. Better to have slogans. And if you don’t count a crime, the crime didn’t happen, so: cheaper. It’s a way to say you care, but you don’t. Screw the neighborhood and the local businesses, they have been offered as tribute as the city council turns their back. But don’t worry. Amazon, who was not stupid enough to base their business on storefronts, is doing fine. It’s your local business whose stock is offered as tribute with free shoplifting without penalty and whose business is repeatedly damaged while the police are told to turn their backs and let it happen – you see, they are offered as tribute. But don’t worry Amazon is doing just fine, in fact, better. Who would patronize a local business in this climate? Especially one with shit on their doorstep, broken windows and people threatening you? Even churches are destroyed and stolen from. But don’t worry, the biggest businesses of them all are doing better now. And people leaving Seattle and businesses leaving, but don’t worry, you’ll have Amazon delivery. The Real Estate will still be high – Asian investors don’tcha know. They will just get richer. But no one will make it livable for decades. People will show pictures of Seattle 5 years ago to disbelieving people. Someday in museums they will show screaming people – seeming proud of themselves spitting on cops. I do so hope that photo identity will be top notch then so we can easily know the old people so proud of destroying the livability of a once great town and being against cops. They will have moved out as soon as they had kids. And pictures of decay and shit will be their legacy while other countries and other states who didn’t allow this will be the fun cultural centers. As it is, some artists just don’t want to come here any more like they once did. And that was before Covid. Seattle will be mold.
Waaahhh….Waahh…Stop your pathetic virtue signaling and let them stay at your house then…But we both know you won’t
Quit whining and virtue signaling. you aren’t doing anything other than making noise on the internet.
One of the issues that I think forced this to happen is that there have been daily illegal burns in the park. The smoke is thick and getting into the homes of people that live close by. This is a health hazard, especially during a respiratory pandemic. Like everywhere, some of the people that live in homes here have chronic lung conditions and can not live in a situation with chronic smoke.
So like.. why aren’t you concerned for the health of actual homeless people if you’re concerned about public health? It’s so bizarre to see people waxing poetic about “possible issues” when actual un-housed citizens are literally making the best they can out of being an impoverished person in our society and the mob just wants them out cuz “they’re dirty”. Shame, shame, shame.
Best they can? They’re littering the park with hard drugs, trash, blocking exits, and committing murder-suicides.
There’s not an issue with the un-housed living in Cal Anderson. If it was possible to keep it sanitary and provide good housing there (e.g. taking up half the park), we should do it. That’s what the supporters of the cal anderson community said they would do, and have clearly failed at.
There’s an issue with the un-housed making the entirety of the park unsafe for anyone else, and unsafe for surrounding residents.
I have a limited data point — the drug addict living in the park 7 years ago who, with other addicts, ransacked my house to such an extent that it made international news (stealing / destroying far too many irreplaceable family memories for me to even contemplate.)
What she needed was what she got: she was sent to jail for the first time, and given the chance to get her sh*t together. And that started with moving out of Seattle, and back to whereever-the-hell she came from in the midwest where she had a community and fewer bad influences.
From a quick curiosity social media check, she seems to be as much of an unaccountable, pathetic loser as she was when she got addicted to drugs and trashed my house. But it sounds like she’s managed to at least stay clean — and stay out Seattle.
So, yes, people need to be held accountable, and it’s in everyone’s best interest.
>>> why aren’t you concerned for the health of actual homeless people
Just how concerned *are* the park campers about their *own* health?
About time for every park, not just this one. Shelter options should be available but on the terms of the city. This need not include low barrier where one can use, keep your stolen stuff, or whatever terms are imposed by the individual who has been desecrating our parks. We do all a major disservice by the false narrative of victimhood for all. This is not about being poor or homeless. In large part it is about being addicted. For those who want to perpetuate this, please open up your own homes, perhaps a couch. But hide your valuables. There is a new documentary called “Fight for the Soul of Seattle”. Available on Youtube. Released on Saturday and it has about 50,000 views and growting. Well worth watching. It clearly shows what we all see. And the Park features in it, as does the East Precinct. Be assured that many on the Hill and the entire region are sick of enablers of death, which allowing this to happen is more about, than the capitalist system or other externalities.
In russia, propaganda come 2 u.
How is this propaganda? You’re really the queen of spouting your emotional arguments with zero facts to back anything up.
Your citing of KOMO’s neolib propaganda as “a new documentary” reveals more about you than your rambling comment
I took a quick scan through that documentary and it doesn’t seem that bad / propaganda – the conclusion is basically involuntary treatment needs to be thing.
“Involuntary treatment” is doublespeak for incarceration. It may be in a psychiatric institution but the results are the same. Forcing someone into treatment only attacks the symptoms of the problem, and even then there’s no guarantee the person will take to treatment, which ultimately must come voluntarily to work.
OK, then what is your solution, jonathanz? Treatment does not just look at symptoms, it also looks at the root causes of the addiction.
It’s time for the sweeps, at Miller also. It’s time for the city to make some tough decisions for these campers suffering from metal and drug/drinking addition. Forced treatment should be talked about. Living in a childrens playground section of a city park is not what that playground was built for, it’s not what we want for our most needy citizens.
I walk through the park multiple times a week and I’d estimate 85% of the homeless need metal and drug/drinking treatment. I’d also say the overwhelming majority will not take it upon themselves to get help. So we need to push them to help, into facilities that can give them a chance at a new life.
Tough choices ahead, will our city have the leadership to make them?
FINALLY. That park belongs to ALL of us, not just drug dealers and criminals. It’s NOT a campground. The public (who paid for this park) has the right to walk and enjoy it without being attacked (verbally and physically) by drug addicts and criminals. NOW that we can start getting COVID vaccinations, in 2021 we can start arresting and jailing many of these violent folks again (who have only been allowed to cause damage because our jails are ‘full’ because of COVID).
ANYONE is free to walk up and down the street and protest for whatever you want (just last weekend there were Jesus freaks screaming down at Pike Place Market). NO ONE is stopping you! Please DO SUPPORT BLM. But that’s different than CAMPING and shooting drugs in the damn park!
If supposedly concerned people want a homeless area, then vote to raise your taxes and BUILD a proper homeless camp (with social support, property bathrooms with showers/etc) somewhere in the city. But this cowardly lazy stupid “pretend caring” of just giving up parks, city buses and libraries to become de facto homeless camps is CRUEL. Those facilities can’t handle or care for them, because that’s not their purpose or the skills of the employees (at the library or bus drivers). Build REAL homeless camps or shelters if you’re concerned, but stop DEFAULTING to letting people just literally SHIT in Cal Anderson park. STOP IT!
Good. The mayor’s office SHOULD be “increasingly responsive to business and neighborhood concerns” about the camps that have overtaken many public parks and made them dangerous and unusable. The encampment at Ballard Commons has chronic drug activity, stolen goods being stored, threatening and erratic behaviors by campers and rampant theft at surrounding businesses. It is a serious public health and safety hazard and should be immediately removed. Like other parks and public spaces around the city, it has become unusable for neighborhood residents. City leaders are failing in their paramount responsibility to ensure safe and clean public spaces for everyone to use.
Provide people with housing and basic services and these concerns would not exist.
We need more housing, higher density housing, low income housing, housing first policy, and easy to access mental health and substance abuse programs.
These things cost money. The taxpayer ( you and I) are on the hook for this. If we choose not to pay for these community services, we sacrifice our streets, parks, and City.
So choose one. Pay more taxes or let the homeless and mentally ill live on the streets and parks.
Let’s properly fund our community.
Exactly. Let them live in parks and other public places or be prepared to pay more taxes to build housing and provide mental health service for them.
And how much are we spending right now to enable them to destroy the city….. plenty. While we may need more, money is there, though a lot of it is being wasted on programs that simply keep people supported in a slow spiral of self destruction.
I’ve been saying for years that we need to stop calling allowing people to gradually kill themselves in public compassionate. Some people, due to addiction, mental illness or some combination of both are unable to make rational decisions for themselves. They need treatment that does not rely on their voluntary cooperation. They need supervision, not a shelter that coaxes them in by allowing them to do whatever they want to and makes it quickly intolerable even for other shelter residents…
Seattle voters approved the creation of the Parks District and taxed themselves to fund it. Shockingly, they expect to be able to use their parks.
Seattle has a huge tax base that generates more funds than the majority of cities. What we’re missing is any sense of accountability and that our tax dollars could be spent much better. This is a broken city.
Jenny, get out of town and take the CHOP with you. How about moving them into one of your homes?
Took long enough…at least they are now doing something
Absolutely sickened by this. How dare we remove folkx from cal anderson during a PANDEMIC when there are no other places to go? Cal anderson should be turned into a community and welcoming space for those experiencing housing uncertainty. I’ve been a cap hill resident for many years and have not been bothered but the camps at Cal Anderson – you know why? Because I make an effort to get to know my neighbors including those at the park. They are fine people that have been systemically abused by our capitalist system and Jeff bezos taking over our city.
People in this thread happy about the sweep should feel awful with themselves and check their privilege before wishing possible death on our homeless friends and neighbors. You are only enabling the destruction of the character of our neighborhood – removing decent people down on their luck to placate the wealthy mostly cis white tech working demo.
Also know that by sweeping cal anderson the homeless will have to go to other parts of the city that are much less friendly to these folks. The capitalist sympathizing residents in magnolia, green lake, ballard, laurelhurst, etc will only increase the suffering of the homeless society is trying to cast away. Shame on all of you
Maintaining a certain level of crime is so important to neighborhood character.
Theres no point in arguing with someone screaming about the capitalist patriarchy – just treat them like your racist uncle at a bbq, nod politely and walk away.
Why haven’t the homeless given Volunteer Park a try? Nice view and there is plenty of space.
The homeless are in Volunteer Park by the reservoir, large 6 person tent with killer city and territorial view.
Or the Arboretum? A lot more space and wooded privacy there.
Excellent news!
People who start fires in the park do not care for the homeless. That park needs to be cleared.
Ive been homeless and can speak from experience. When you are homeless you depend on the community and so, if you’re honorable, you become a little humble. You’ve made some bad choices in your life, you’ve become an addict perhaps, you’ve lost your way and you need support. You learn to show respect for the left leaning tax base that is now supporting you and paying for the services you use. Youre not paying rent, youre not paying taxes, youre not contributing… you are a taker (temporarily). In return you show respect, you don’t choose to camp in the most densely populated neighborhood in the city, you don’t have bbqs and party into the night, you accept good faith help, you don’t whine and you try not to be self pitying.
I sure wish more homeless people/addicts shared your view and acted accordingly, but unfortunately they do not. It’s all about “me,” and wallowing in victimhood.
YES YES YES. Common decency. I work with the homeless directly the people set up in Cal Anderson are abusers of the community. They aren’t trying to be accepted they are trying to be pushed out.
For political activists to rush to the barricades to maintain a public park in the state of lawless depraved desperation is the politics of hate at the expense of the vulnerable. Dark times.
In the homelessness discourse, we need to distinguish between poor people who are unemployed or down on their luck and the junkies that are terrorizing our public spaces and refuse the services that taxpayers fund to help them. I think we all know which category the campers in Cal Anderson, Denny, Miller, etc are in.
Finally!!!