It's a late sunny day and the primitive trail down the slope is slick clay, wet with recent rain. A river runs near but hosts no salmon. It is a concrete river, a route of commerce: Interstate 5. Each day, tens of thousands drive by Seattle's last undeveloped forest. For decades it was a hobo jungle, a common phrase from the Great Depression of the 1930s for camps of transients that dotted the American landscape. The name has been shortened, and the western slope of Beacon Hill is now simply known as the Jungle.
Within its green expanse, broadleaf maples hint at a yellow their leaves will soon become. The evergreens that once graced the bluff were logged long ago, and the maples that replaced them are big sixty footers, near the end of their spans. But some big cedars, fir, even a large redwood stand atop the public land along the ridge crest, their branches swaying lightly in the occasional breeze off Puget Sound.
Cedar waxwings and northern juncos flit among branches, down from their summer ranges. Even raccoons and coyotes live here.
An emerald in the rough
Today, the Jungle is transforming into a public forest in the heart of a major city. Over the last year, Seattle, King County, and Washington State fixed the site's criminal problem, and in doing so opened the woods.
In 2002, the city stopped making quarterly sweeps of the Jungle to remove encampments and clean up trash. However, in the spring of 2003, a violent heroin gang filled the power vacuum that the lack of authority provided. Staking a claim from Jose Rizal Park to Holgate, the gang beat up homeless people and prompted an onslaught of drug-related crime in nearby neighborhoods. At one public meeting, an officer confided the gang had automatic weapons, and that the cops were afraid to enter the Jungle. In the face of such intimidating circumstances, the Jungle's neighbors stepped up along with the city.
The Beacon Alliance of Neighbors (BAN) organized large public meetings in the park's amphitheatre. Sometimes, during these community councils, prostitutes, pimps, dealers, and drug addicts would step out of the woods in the middle of the gathering. Dozens of people would then escort them from the park.
Around the same time BAN organized the meetings, Jordan Royer of the city's Neighborhood Action Team organized an interagency taskforce focusing on the Jungle's problems and potentials. BAN also signed on.
A host of agencies came together: Seattle Parks and Recreation, transportation, social services, public utilities, and the Seattle Police Department (SPD). Additionally, King County Corrections, the Washington State Department of Transportation, and Street Outreach Services joined the effort to reform the greenbelt.
"We're continuing to make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand again," said Royer, now serving in the mayor's office. "We made a commitment and we're sticking to it."
As a result, quarterly sweeps now clean up the greenbelt, located north and south of the Holgate Bridge. The SPD and crews from Seattle Parks and Recreation, plus officials and inmates from the King County Department of Corrections, pick up the rubbish. Since last year, close to 50 tons have been hauled away ranging from plastic bags to old fuel tanks and automotive junk.
Warnings are posted in advance for the Jungle's residents, and some of the rousted homeless folks even help gather garbage.
Safety in the forest?
To save this jungle, you need a road. The Washington State Department of Transportation restored a service road, but it's not a thoroughfare. In one taskforce meeting, the DOT supervisor was adamant: "Stay off the road."
The SPD now conducts regular patrols, and parks and recreation can get in via the road. However, using this road means risking prosecution for trespassing on state property.
While trash removal and access is nice, is the Jungle safe today?
According to members of BAN who compare what they see in the Jungle today with what they witnessed in 2003, yes. Still, the Jungle can be a dangerous place.
On a recent foray into the Jungle with a friend, I met a parks and recreation maintenance crew boss who recognized me and implored me to be careful. We did meet one homeless guy, and spied a camp, which is illegal in the area. South of Holgate, neighbors have spotted open pit fires.
Others tell stories of a shed built deep in the woods even further south that caught fire. Inaccessible to the Seattle Fire Department, the shed burned to the ground, and bullets exploded from within.
Rumors abound about the Jungle, and most are just that. For example, city and county officials say there is no evidence hundreds of sex offenders live in the Jungle. Similarly, tales of camps persist, but the taskforce broke up over 50 of them in the past year, which has dropped their numbers drastically.
Even more change is coming. BAN recently applied for restoration grants while working with other groups to open a trail for bicycles and habitat rehabilitation. Volunteers from these groups join in cleanups and invasive plant control, proving that the area's citizens can make a difference, even if a permanent solution to the Jungle's problems may be several years away.
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