(Image: City of Seattle)
The City of Seattle has announced it will remove any remaining tents and personal items from a Central District park Thursday marking the latest public space to be cleared in a series of encampment sweeps across the reopening city.
The notice at Pratt Park comes due to an “encampment impeding public park use,” a Seattle Parks representative tells CHS.
“On June 15, Seattle Parks and Recreation staff posted a notice that any remaining or abandoned belongings, must be removed by, June 17,” the statement reads. “Seattle Parks and Recreation staff identified approximately 5 tents with in the park and the HOPE Team and outreach providers identified 3 individuals currently residing at the location. As of this morning, none of the individuals have accepted referrals to shelter.”
The clearance of the 20th Ave S at E Yesler park follows recent sweeps reported by CHS on Capitol Hill including the latest at 15th and John’s Williams Place Park earlier this month.
In its statement on the planned Pratt sweep, the parks department also included public safety statistics as it has prior to earlier clearances, saying that over the last six months, the Seattle Fire Department and Seattle Police Department sent units “to the general area around Pratt Park” more 35 times.
Seattle Parks says the city’s Homelessness Outreach and Provider Ecosystem (HOPE) Team, the Human Services Department program that coordinates outreach and referrals to shelter, has been “onsite and working with outreach providers such as Urban League to connect individuals at the site with services and shelter as available.”
The HOPE process typically includes offering shelter resources including wraparound services like behavioral and mental health case management, as well as housing navigation to, officials say, “help end a person’s experience with homelessness.”
The city’s statement does not mention mutual aid providers who have been active in the park. One, the Give A Damn Collective, says it is planning a “direct aid pop-up” on Saturday providing “tents, tarps, sleeping bags, sunscreen, and bug spray.”
Meanwhile, the city say its teams have made 505 referrals to shelter so far in 2021, and since the end of March, more than 240 of those referrals have been to the city’s new hotel-based shelter resources.
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“None of the individuals have accepted referrals to shelter.” What’s the point of all this outreach then? I support the encampment removals, but it seems we have the wrong strategy for actually getting the campers the help they need.
Maybe jail then?
What can you do when people wanna continue their “freedom” and taking drugs?
These people are as bad as “those” Republicans… Only their freedom and rights matter, it doesn’t matter their actions trample others’ rights.
You’ve got an odd view of the world if you see an equivalency between chronicly homeless people and republicans, but okay. Once they’re in jail, are you going to grouse about them leeching the system and *your* tax dollars?
Happy to pay my tax dollars to put drug traffickers and addicts, criminals hiding in tents pretending to be homeless… All of them in jail.
Then you can really identify real homeless and help them.
“Meanwhile, the city say its teams have made 505 referrals to shelter so far in 2021, and since the end of March, more than 240 of those referrals have been to the city’s new hotel-based shelter resources.”
Of the 505 referrals, how many individuals actually made their way to the shelter? And for those who do, how many accept the wrap-around services that have a chance of keeping them from returning to homelessness?
And what of all the politicians who claim that the way to solve this is by building housing. People who don’t accept housing will just stay homeless so even building housing doesn’t cure the problem. Some homeless look able bodied enough to have a job – maybe we should try tough love – enforcement of no camping in parks or on sidewalks – no camping in RV’s along city streets. See what happens.
I agree, but you will have to wait ’til the cows come home for this to happen in permissive/enabling Seattle.