While Mayor Ed Murray delivered a live televised address on Jan. 26 on how he plans to handle the growing homelessness problem in Seattle, three teenage brothers allegedly killed two people and shot three others while trying to collect a $500 drug debt for their mother in the area known as “The Jungle.”
During a press conference about the charges levied against the shooting suspects, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg called for the full closure of the unsanctioned homeless encampment on the west hillside of Beacon Hill under Interstate 5, citing its unsanitary and dangerous environment.
“It’s worse than Third World conditions,” he said.
The Jungle wasn’t even included in the recent One Night Count of the homeless because it was considered too dangerous for volunteers to enter, especially only days after the shootings.
The violence stemming from The Jungle substantiates neighbors’ opposition to having homeless services in their “backyard,” that such violence and criminal activity that takes place in The Jungle could come to their neighborhoods, as well.
But the shootings are emblematic of what has become of the often-ignored area. The Jungle has been problematic for neighbors and city officials for decades. In 2003, Mayor Greg Nickels’ administration tackled it with regular patrols, social services, cleanups twice a year and warrants for burglaries, prostitution and drugs, related Jordan Royer, the public safety adviser at the time, to KIRO FM.
Another major cleanup was done in 2012, during Mayor Mike McGinn’s tenure, after reports of gunfire, McGinn told the radio station.
It wasn’t until residents started complaining en masse in more recent months about the homeless in rundown RV campers parked throughout the city and offering their own suggestions for them that Murray started addressing the larger issue. And, still, none of his solutions included any means to directly handle The Jungle; instead, he called for state and federal assistance for housing and mental health services.
As a longtime state legislator, Murray should know the speed at which any such assistance arrives. With current state lawmakers playing partisan politics with transportation issues and the Department of Corrections — ignoring a years-long struggle to fully fund public education, despite a state Supreme Court mandate and a daily fine of $100,000 — that help won’t come more locally than the county and city.
The Jungle may lie on state property under Interstate 5, but it’s the city that’s facing the brunt of its seedier side, with gang members and others still committing such crimes as drug dealing, prostitution and thefts, often of other homeless people and addicts. That’s why previous administrations conducted “sweeps” of The Jungle.
Homeless advocates say closing The Jungle through “sweeps” just forces its residents to move elsewhere and without their belongings, but two formerly homeless people told The Seattle Times’ Danny Westneat that keeping The Jungle open was just enabling the drug addicts, who are the majority there.
“Why else would you subject yourself to that environment?” said one of Westneat’s sources.
If that’s the case, then frequent announced “sweeps” of The Jungle could likely deter people from returning, much like a persistent focus on preventing crime in certain neighborhoods should or repeatedly painting over graffiti deters some vandals.
Murray needs to stop trying to placate both homeless advocates and frustrated citizens and waiting for state and federal help to come — it won’t happen. Closing The Jungle and directing its residents to the services he’s implementing can be done more quickly, and it will send a solid, transparent message that he is committed to and adept at addressing Seattle’s growing crisis.