Fenced-off a decade later, Seven Hills Park debuted in 2015 (Image: Mithun)
Banners mocking the Seven Hills closure briefly went up behind the fences in October
The city will begin a public planning process next week to reshape two Capitol Hill parks where officials say concerns over homeless encampments, drug use, and “bouts of negative park activity” call for new approaches to Seattle public space.
Seattle Parks and Recreation is holding meetings next week to discuss priorities and identify “community activation partners and new potential users” for three District 3 parks where complaints over camping and crime have sparked the planned overhauls. One of the parks — Capitol Hill’s Seven Hills Park — has been fenced-off and closed since September over the issues. The other — Broadway Hill Park — remains open but has been a center of complaints and Seattle Police Department activity, officials say.
“This community-centered initiative invites residents, businesses, and organizations on Capitol Hill to come together to enhance the safety, vitality, and inclusivity of these neighborhood parks,” the parks department announced about Wednesday’s planned session. “This activation strategy seeks to address ongoing challenges such as safety concerns, accessibility barriers, and park misuse by fostering open dialogue and transparent partnerships.”
Thursday night, parks officials will hold a separate meeting to discuss similar issues at the Central District’s Dr. Blanche Lavizzo Park.
CHS reported in September on the surprise closure of Seven Hills after District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth reportedly met with neighbors and the city made an attempt to sweep the park of campers in August.
The city said the shutdown was needed “in order for Seattle Parks and Recreation to assess possible amenity changes and/or upgrades.”
The public space is adjacent the Sanctuary condos developed inside the former First Church of Christ Scientist just north of the lawn area, BBQ pits, eight benches, three picnic tables, and trees that make up the small park just off 15th Ave E.
Officials have not announced a reopening date.
The closure comes on the fifteenth anniversary of Seven Hills Park. The project debuted in September 2010 around its central art element depicting the “original” seven hills of Seattle. The city acquired the property with funding from the 2000 Pro Parks Levy and King County Conservation Futures tax revenues.
It has faced encampment challenges before. In the winter of 2022, CHS reported on the aftermath of a major sweep that cleared the park of campers as Seven Hills became a flashpoint in Mayor Bruce Harrell’s efforts to step up clearance and shelter outreach work in the city. One immediate outcome of that sweep was the growth of nearby encampments in other nearby parks.
Broadway Hill Park as it first took shape in 2016. The kids playing on the grass? Perhaps a bit staged (Image: SiteWorkshop)
Broadway Hill Park, meanwhile, opened with 12,000 square feet of grass, benches, community gardening space, and a BBQ grill in 2016 after the city acquired the land at the corner for Federal and Republican in 2010 for $2 million when a townhome project slated for the property fell through.
A decade later, the challenges for both spaces have piled up. Other smaller area parks may also bring action including concerns at Boylston Ave’s Tashkent Park.
Capitol Hill’s core parkland has also been the center of public safety and activation efforts. Hollingsworth says she is backing multiple efforts to address crime, drug use, and homelessness around the Broadway and Pike/Pine core including investments “reinvigorating” Cal Anderson Park.
The city is also struggling with its court-ordered response to public safety complaints around the Denny Blaine Park nude beach.
Meanwhile, the city is moving cautiously forward on developing a new park on 1.6 acres of land and a 70-year-old landmark home on the northwest slopes of Capitol Hill in the prestigious Harvard-Belmont Landmark District left to the city after the death of philanthropist Kay Bullitt. Seattle Parks has said it will not have funding to develop the park until 2029 at the earliest.
In the Seattle City Council’s ongoing 2026 budget process, Hollingsworth has requested an additional $50,000 in Seattle Parks spending to the overhaul Seven Hills. Additional parks funding — and potential partnerships — could also be in play as the city sets out to reshape Seven Hills and Broadway Hill.
In next week’s public meeting, Seattle Parks says it hopes to gather feedback on how best to “support the community, activate the spaces through recreational and community activities, and enhance public safety” and said officials will “discuss future potential permanent fencing and useful park infrastructure” at Seven Hills and Broadway Hill.
- On Wednesday, November 19, 2025 from 5:30 to 7 PM at Garfield Community Center, 2323 E. Cherry St., we will collaborate on the future of South Capitol Hill Parks — Broadway Hill, Tashkent and Seven Hills Park. Seven Hills Park is currently closed and SPR will extend the closure until December 27, 2025.
- On Thursday, November 20, 2025, from 6 to 7:45 PM at Garfield Community Center, 2323 E. Cherry St., we will collaborate on the future of Dr. Blanche Lavizzo Park Shelter Area. The shelter area is currently closed and SPR will extend the closure until December 27, 2025.
“We recognize that these parks have been impacted by activities incompatible with their intended use,” the parks department statement reads. “We are working to ensure that all parks are clean, safe, and welcoming.”
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Why are they holding a community meeting for Capitol Hill parks at Garfield Community Center, in the middle of the CD? Miller Community Center or the Seattle Public Library on Capitol Hill would have made much more sense.
Perhaps neither space was available at the meeting time the city desired? Its not an excuse by any means, but it may be an explanation. Meetings about Capitol Hill specific issues should take place in Capitol Hill. Full stop.
This is such bullshit. Why is SPR’s only response fencing? The current fencing at Seven Hills hasn’t exactly stopped tents. They now just get pitched just outside the fence. Nothing is being solved. Problems are only being moved elsewhere. I saw tents in Volunteer Park this weekend. Better fence that park off too!
Before closing Seven Hills, SPR had just given up on maintenance for years. The grass was always dead and mostly weeds in the summer. The trees never get trimmed so they block the sidewalk for anyone over 5 feet tall. All of the benches were surrounded by cigarette butts. Leaves don’t get cleared from the sidewalk. The park doesn’t need to be redesigned, it needs Seattle Parks to use their maintenance budget for actual maintenance, not sweeps, and the City needs real, evidence-based solutions to homelessness, not just sweeps.
“and the City needs real, evidence-based solutions to homelessness, not just sweeps.”
People keep saying this like its obvious what these solutions are and we just need to do it. We have had a declared homeless emergency for over a decade now and have spent billions of dollars during that time and absolutely nothing has changed. It hasn’t even improved. In the meantime the rest of us are not allowed to use the parks we pay for because they have been taken over or are trashed and unusable. I’m tired of hearing about evidence based solutions when the only evidence is there is not a solution for issues related to chronic addition and mental illness. The best you can do is use different tactics to address the overarching problems caused by these things that take into account both individuals experiences issues and the community at large.
>>> We have had a declared homeless emergency for over a decade now
Don’t forget we’re also in the 20th year of the 10-year-plan-to-end-homelessness that started in 2005…
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorial-refocus-ten-year-plan-to-end-homelessness-in-king-county/
The 10-year plan to end homelessness is where this all began. It brought funding for progressive policies around drugs and homelessness that were not in fact “evidenced-based” but were actually grounded in magical thinking. Rather than learn from the failed approach, we doubled down by pushing billions towards progressive harm-reduction, housing first policies for years. This approach grew the homeless industrial complex as a political force and the number of encampments grew accordingly as these failed approaches attracted thousands of drug addicts to come to Seattle and camp in our public spaces free of “stigma”.
Naw…Bruce was using the Jumpstart taxes for cops and personal projects. 309 million dollars gone.
I hear you but I think part of it is moving on from totally ineffective tactics like sweeps and fences. They literally do nothing. That’s money and time that could be better spent elsewhere. Don’t forget the police budget has gone up and up and money for things like recovery centers and mental health courts has had to be fought for at every step.
Except that people who live near problem spots eventually have enough… neighbors to camps shouldn’t be expected to be stuck forever with an unrelieved shit show just because the city hasn’t been able to ‘solve’ the problem and especially because there are roadblocks to an actual solution including the inability to require people to either accept services or leave the city entirely.
Do remember that only about 20% of people approached at encampments accept services. Until /unless we discover the will to not allow antisocial behavior we will always be forced to keep spending money over and over on cleaning up after the same relatively small group of people. It’s an exercise in futility. Sorry, but no…. We do not *owe* people their ultimate ideal situation… you shouldn’t get to demand a private, pets allowed, rule free accommodation, in your preferred neighborhood before you deign to stop making a mess wherever you please.
Sweeps do not “literally do nothing.” They do something. First, for some percentage of the people, they go to shelter for at least some time. More days in shelter make it more likely over time that the person rejoins normal life. Second, if every public property were methodically swept every day, not all but many of our unhoused population would decide that shacking up with friends in cheap apartments, living with mom or dad, etc. is a better choice. Everyone makes choices weighing pros and cons and right now there are few cons to pitching your tent in a city park and living there for free.
Cheap apts? Please please tell me where I can find one of those that I can rent. I’m in my mid-70s living on $1, 280 social security have to move from a studio I’ve lived in for years and I’m about to become homeless because I cannot find a place to rent that I can afford.
I’ve worked my whole life into my seventies but due to severe arthritis and unable to at the moment until surgery which I can’t get until I have a new place to live. Thanks to the Doge sweeps people who are qualified to help me find a place have been let go and they’re a waiting lists in sliding scale apartments even for senior citizens. I’ve lived here for 40 years and worked here that whole time.
We need ed to manage our budget and a better way if all these people on the street are being offered places to live why can’t I find a place before I become homeless in a month or two?
Sweeps are effective, you just have to continue to do so until moving elsewhere until the next sweep is no longer an attractive alternative.
Other cities have different approaches to the problem than we do. They also have laws that allow involuntary commitment for the mentally ill and rehab beds for drug diversion. Why we spend billions on things other than these two solutions is a mystery…
There is lots of evidence, but our city and regional elected officials haven’t been following it. Homelessness is at its root, a housing problem. You can read the book Homeslessness is a Housing Problem if you want to see all the data. Tight housing markets with high rents have the highest rates of homelessness. More housing across the city and the whole region is the solution. If you want a short explainer video: https://www.seattlechannel.org/misc-video?videoid=x139824
There’s also no evidence that sweeps, camping bans, fencing off parks, closing public restrooms, or otherwise making cities more hostile to homeless people actually reduces homelessness. These strategies just make cities crueler places for everyone.
Well good news for you. Now that Wilson is going to be mayor sweeps will be a thing of the past and we’ll go back to letting our unhoused neighbors rot and die outside while we look for the $4B annually needed to build the requisite housing. Congrats on your Pyrrhic victory.
Go back to? What do you think is happening now? This spring, I literally watched people get swept from down the street and then set up in Seven Hills Park. This is after Harrell made a big deal about sweeping Seven Hills at the very start of his administration in 2022. The unhoused population kept increasing with Harrell as mayor, while he slow walked and watered down the Comprehensive Plan to the point that it’s basically just reaffirming the status quo. So yeah, it’s time for a change in strategy.
I don’t know how long you have been around but do you recall The Jungle? That was a homeless encampment that was allowed to remain in place. It ultimately destroyed the environment around it, led to numerous crimes, including murder and basically did more harm to the people who “lived” there. This is what you are advocating for.
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2016/05/city-state-take-steps-to-clear-decades-old-jungle-encampment/
The comprehensive plan is not going to change anything with regard to the unhoused population. Construction is already slowing down in WA due to the high interest rates and the policies passed by both the city and the state. This in turn is putting more pressure on budgets. If you think Wilson is going to be able to crank up the jumpstart tax to fund public housing, keep in mind Amazon just laid off 14k people and another wave is coming in January. While you continually focus on the unhoused you ignore the rest of the community who are not allowed to use public spaces, have to deal with anti social behavior and drug use and small business owners who continue to struggle as WA now leads the nation in retail theft. You can change the strategy but if you think things can’t get worse you are going to be in for a big shock.
The Jungle was actually great. Let them setup out of the neighborhoods and parks. Who cares if they’re under some freeways? You’re not their parents and don’t get to decide for them that it’s an unsafe place for them.
oh paleeeez! That is not the situation. Jumpstart and the city centers/transit housing will be built for a couple decades.
Closing public bathrooms causes shit. Literal shit on the streets because most homeless don’t wear diapers or shit themselves.
By that logic, it sounds like public bathrooms that have been closed down should be reopened. The city will have to pay to keep the bathrooms cleaned and maintained, but the same can be said for the streets. Is the city really saving anything by closing public bathrooms?
That, or the ones close to Broadway use the (formerly charming, now stinky and disgusting) library as public cesspool. Just another example of how yet another valuable public resource has systematically been destroyed by years and years of inaction against this problem.
Maybe for the (as someone else on here mentioned, not sure if the number is exact) 20% that do accept referrals, and even then it’s probably only temporary. The ones I see on a day to day basis are largely always the same group (with variations over time) that will not be served by “let’s build more housing” (unless you’re willing to entertain an involuntary commitment policy). That may prevent someone in the future from becoming homeless. But we also need solutions for the issues we have now, something a lot more comprehensive. Sure, sweeps alone aren’t the solution – but I also don’t want to see our parks and other pieces of land taken over by a group of people who cause misery for everyone else around them. They also make cities a cruel place to live in.
There are obvious solutions, but they aren’t solutions most people are even willing to consider. It has to get a lot worse first, pushing people to desperation.
There are already laws on the books making encampments, panhandling, public drug use etc illegal. All we have to do is elect people that will enforce them. But the culture if Seattle is such a woke clown show that our elected leaders get continually more soft on crime, fantasizing that somehow more publicly-funded housing and services is going to fix things.
I’m probably the only commenter here that has been homeless, for years, and I know street culture quite well. Homeless people have their own kind of expertise that your average amazon cubicle worker doesn’t. They know how to beat the system, taking advantage of it’s weakness and the naivete of average middle class people.
I’ve seen all the scams they run and I see easily fooled people handing them money all day long. The gypsy panhandling gangs, a plague in eastern Europe, make huge amounts of money tugging heartstrings in front if grocery stores with their kids out in the cold or heat all day, kids that are unlawfully not in school and CPS roes nothing. They sometimes have fake babies wrapped in cloth or under a blanket in a stroller, or fake pregnancy costumes. Some are fake street musicians, pretending to play violin or accordion aling with a recorded track coming through a speaker. Any time you see a white sign with capitol letters, they’re part of this professional panhandling mafia.
Others sit in wheelchairs when they aren’t disabled. I see them get up to go pee in the alley then come back. One wheelchair guy I remember would drop his cup of change as a well dressed woman walked by. She’d of course stop and pick it up, get an earful of his BS and hand him a wad of bills, with his partner waiting nearby for the dope money. A crack addict I knew would pretend to be shivering and say he just needed $20 more for a hotel room. A lot of the women just cry, that’s all, and dumb idiots come running to help, end up giving them money, buying them cigarettes, whatever.
The reason Seattle is overrun with homeless from all over the world is because there are weak-minded, gullible people here, easy prey. They prey on your kindness, your humanity. But they themselves have none. They’re sociopaths, always seeking the path if least resistance.
Thank you for your unique, eye opening insight.
lock the drug users up – that’s the solution. get them treatment after they’re locked up and not destroying parks/streets or killing themselves. that is compassion.
So in your “compassionate” world, what will you do with the homeless people left over who aren’t addicted to drugs?
build housing obviously. lock up the drug users.
The ones that aren’t addicted or mentally ill aren’t the ones trashing parks…
We all must remember that homeless is a catch all term and includes people doubling up with relatives, couch surfing, using temporary accommodations like long stay hotels, quietly sleeping in cars or vans.. while it may be true that taken as a whole only about 33% are there due to addiction and/or mental health problems, when you separate out the chronically unsheltered- those living in tents in the park that figure shoots up to the 90’s…
That’d be a much shorter list of people than I think anyone realizes. Or they’re ignoring the obvious in favor of feeling good about ‘compassion.’
You mention the problems leaves, garbage… and I agree. Then say no sweeps, when a lot of the problems you mentions are caused by the camps or time is spent cleaning the camps. How about we enforce that the parks are to be used as designed. And keep them safe and clean.
What is so challenging about arresting individuals opening breaking the law in our parks? The problem persists because there are absolutely zero consequences.
Sending them to jail doesn’t do anything. They’ll get booked in, get out, then go right back to the park. It’s a waste of taxpayer money.
If you ride the buses and hang out at food banks, and so forth, you will find that there is actually a “Grapevine“. People do know what’s up, and when they hear enough stories of people being jailed, it does make a difference in deterring people, I hear it all the time on the bus and at the food bank.
It’s not the solution, but don’t count those measures out.
Okay…that happens everywhere. People are not dumb. Of course it’s a deterrent. But the homeless care not.
“ I hear it all the time on the bus and at the food bank.”
I’ve not heard that ever on the bus or food banks or any other place except here and elsewhere in comment sections.
Of course the people poor and on the street know where the resources are. Of course a small percent causes all the crime. Very very very small amount per capita. Theft isn’t killing anyone over Cheeto and pop. It’s not the priority some in comment sections think it should be. Cops would tell you the same.
So, it’s okay to steal from small business owners now, many of whom are immigrants? Just because it’s supposedly a ‘small percentage’ of the drug addicted doing it and the businesses losses don’t affect you? No, the actual theft isn’t killing anyone per se, but it did put at least one senior convenience store owner in the hospital with very serious injuries, and the day to day, month to month, decade to decade grind of that doesn’t bode well for businesses, or the mental health of the owners, workers, or customers. But I guess that’s the price to pay for coddling in the name of equality the ‘small percentage’ of less fortunate psycho drug addicts among us.
Don’t let them out. Force them into rehab or in-patient mental health treatment. This will cost billions, but we’re wasting billions now…
How very chilling that is.
chyaaaaa…lol No kiddin’. But this is the social consciousness on display.
I really don’t know what’s so chilling about this – unless you interpret that in a way that any form of forced treatment has to be under harsh and inhumane conditions. Which it doesn’t have to be – but if that’s what you WANT to read into other people’s comments, that’s your problem.
I agree with the idea of getting those who need rehab or in-paitent mental health treatment the services they need. But I don’t agree with the idea of locking them up forever. Let them out when they have successfully completed their treatment and have housing, employment, and a plan for ongoing care and support lined up.
I’m for building more prisons and/or mental institutions. Many of these people are feral and should be separated from society until they can be rehabilitated.
it gets them in jail and not destroying the parks. that’s something.
as joe points out, what is challenging is our jails and courts are overflowing and there is simply no time or space to prosecute and incarcerate non-violent drug users, however little we like having them using on the corner. There’s genuinely just no solution, which is why this is a problem in every major city, not just Seattle.
There’s a solution but the city and state are to weak to do what needs to be done.
crime is going down.
the city routinely has hundreds of open jail spots. the jails are not overflowing. lock these people up and force them into help.
How is fencing possibly going to stop people from setting up tents in public parks? I wish people thought through logistics for two seconds.
Can we put up the permanent fencing while they’re in the park?
Let’s follow NYC, make all the buses free, run them over night. Homeless problem ?
Re: “run them over night.” I’m confused. Run the buses throughout the night or run over the homeless at night? Not sure what you mean here.
Sleep on the bus.
That will definitely improve ridership among commuters in the morning.
I suspect it would turn commuters off, and persuade many to drive their personal vehicles. As if traffic wasn’t bad enough already.
Ah yes, sanction destroying another public service for the few, so that the many (the commuters, the people who support the city and economy) can’t even use the busses.
NYC hasn’t actually done this yet, though Mamdani has promised to do so. Locally, Olympia has already made their buses free. Seems to be working for them. The busses don’t run overnight, but housing the homeless on buses running routes overnight is hardly a good solution to the homelessness problem.
Olympia’s bus system appears to lean heavily on federal subsidies to run, federal subsidies that may not continue, If they lose that money, it does look like their bus system only has enough funds to run free for about a year and a half further.
That could be a problem in the current political climate. Fares may have to be reinstated, taxes may have to go up, and/or service may have to be cut in order to keep the most important buses running.
When the answer to people being homeless is closing and fencing parks, the wrong people are making decisions.
Fencing is the worst idea ever. Be real. It’s a flippin’ PARK! Fences are not kids and family friendly. Toys and landscape and art are though. Let’s focus on those AND? Security patrols contracted by the city. All they do is go from state property to the next reporting campers.
Then? The CARE teams spring into action! Get them to move and possibly seek housing, medical care, drug and alky treatment, mental health etc. etc. etc.
Just slowly start chipping away at the problem the right way. The most inexpensive way. No need for 250K a year cops to be breaking out brooms and chasing the homeless from the yards. The courts as well as jails are relieved of some business. It just saves money and lives. As opposed to mass surveillances and a flood of cops that do practically nothing that will break the city come pension time 40 years from now. 40%+ over 5 years raise in wages in unsustainable. They will want even more next contract of they will quit. AGAIN! These dedicated to serve the people of Seattle.
Riiiiiight…Under fed watch 13 years. Still can’t police your own with new chief noseeums. Oh? The dude in charge of the LBGTQ team is anti LGBTQ and everything else? I did not know that says the chief. Who personally appointed him. So he was not vetted? You didn’t read his file? Nope or chief is lying. I think it’s a lie based on the fact they are both cops and nothing more. Other than common sense.
Thank goodness Katie and the new people in office will have a REAL plan that will work because it’s proven.
I am homeless. 67 years old and on social security. Too rich for low income housing, ( under about 1,800 to 2300 a month) And way to poor to afford a one bedroom apartment at at least 1350 a month. How is drug / alcohol rehab going to help me?
That’s a great question, Rhonda. A lot of people on here assume you and others in your situation became homeless BECAUSE you were addicted to drugs first. It’s sick.
They just want to blindly believe all people suffering homelessness deserve it, because the truth about exorbitantly expensive housing markets and the commodification of housing as an investment asset rather than being used primarily as housing is either too complicated for their simple sadistic minds, or more cynically, they feel that addressing housing costs is a zero-sum game and feel like their home equity and therefore wealth will be negatively affected if we do the solution that works–housing first policies, as done all over Europe (with much success).
Long story short, it’s their way of saying that it’s your fault for ending up in this terrible situation–that way, they can wash their hands of any responsibility for their bad decisions, like voting for Rachel Savage or Bruce Harrell. They need a psychologist if they’re going to see your point of view, unfortunately.
I can only speak for myself, but one can hold two thoughts in their head at once – this is the biggest issue we face as a society, both left and right, the idea that it all has to be black or white, with no nuances of gray. For example, I’m a lifelong liberal, but I would like to see the drugged out denizens of 12th and Jackson rounded up and sent on their way – either jail, rehab or put on a bus out of town. They have literally destroyed a neighborhood.
On the other hand, I can recognize that there also people like Rhonda above who shouldn’t be painted with the same brush and need actual housing and services. The drug addicts are most likely a menace to her way more than they’d ever be to me or my family. Is it fair to put her into housing along with whacked out rent or meth addicts who just continue their path of destruction but now with a breeze free place to do drugs instead of the bus stop? I would think not. So we need carrots and sticks. My fear is Wilson is only bringing the carrots, and carrots are great for Rhonda above, but no match for the power fentanyl and meth hold, which is the core of the day to day madness many of us witness with our own eyes.
Right on. Thank you for your coherent comment.
It absolutely won’t. Most people in your situation move somewhere cheaper. So should others who can’t afford to live here.
log a find it/fix it entry on the city’s app for yourself. when service providers arrive, accept the help.
Have you considered relocating to somewhere less expensive? I know, it does seem crazy, but it’s a thought.
It wouldn’t. Safe, clean, and comfortable housing at a price you can afford would help, but if $1,350 a month is too much, that is going to be very difficult to overcome in this city and in much of this region. The cost of rent is simply too high, and the willingness of many landlords to charge even a dollar less than they feel they can get away with is sorely lacking. I wish you the absolute best in finding housing.
You should move somewhere cheaper. There are vast swaths of this country, acres upon acres, with nice small towns and small cities and housing that is so much cheaper than here. They also are not overrun with too many inhabitants and might be really excited about a new resident.
Having a hard time figuring out how, if you cannot afford $1350 in rent how you don’t qualify for subsidies… the current amount you can make and be eligible for senior housing is something around $88,000/year… above that and 30% of your monthly income, a typical rent budget, would be around $2,000… the biggest problem with SHA is the wait time.
And FWIW, there seem to be a fair number of studio apts available in Seattle at $1300 or less..
The person in charge of the LGBTQ team is anti LGBTQ? Sounds like a change in leadership is needed there. If you’re team is intended to help the LGBTQ community, it cannot be led by someone who is against the very existence of the LGBTQ community as that doesn’t help. It only hurts.
> The kids playing on the grass? Perhaps a bit staged
Whoever came up with that comment obviously isn’t around that park much. It’s not an everyday thing, but it does happen. Could we see more activity at the park? Absolutely. But it’s not as empty and void of activity as that comment suggests.
one week of advance notice about this meeting after 2+ months of closure and no notice of direction(s) forward. we deserve more from SPR.
breaking the news the day before a federal holiday too. what a joke.
Stop being so nice. Stop feeling guilty. Stop saying yes to disastrous anti-social behavior.
No more drug use, no more dealing, no more camping. Arrest, expell, imprison. Repeat until the city no longer has the problem.
amen
I live near Broadway Hill Park and it’s been a nuisance for years. Clearing the homeless encampments is a near daily routine. It’s often covered in trash, the benches have scorch marks from fire, and it’s a very uninviting place for residents in the ar. It started to improve recently, but we’ll see if the newly elected mayor maintains this momentum.
We, the people without hones, also have no garbage service. We, the homeless would put our trash in your dumpster if said dumpsters weren’t locked to prevent us from doing so. I would even pay a small fee to do so. We the people who have no homes would Love to use a real toilet instead of the sidewalk, but we are shut out from that simple act of human necessity,so the alley it is. I would even pay a quarter per use for the toilet. 30 bucks a month to defecate with dignity.I like that . Defecate with dignity.
Someone mentioned this briefly below, but camping and associated problems aside, the parks department is simply NOT DOING MAINTENANCE. Many of us who have moved here from other places or who travel a lot see city parks MUCH, MUCH more vibrant than these parks all over the country. Atlanta or Denver just two examples I’ve seen but there are dozens more. Lush maintained grass, maintained trees, maintained benches and bathrooms, pressure washed concrete areas. Seattle Parks should be EMBARRASSED at what some of the locations have degenerated into. Cal Anderson, too. At least reseed the damn grass!