Mayor Ed Murray issued an executive order on Jan. 19 to expedite two “safe” lots, which will be used to provide space for homeless individuals living in RVs, campers, trailers and other vehicles. The Seattle City Council adopted this order on Thursday, Jan. 21 during a specially called meeting. The order also provides for the creation of a third homeless encampment.
In addition, vehicles being used by homeless individuals and families were granted permission to park on city-owned rights of way until the safe lots are ready for use.
“As we all know, the mayor has issued an executive order [and] civil emergency order, and the council can do a few things,” council president Bruce Harrell said in describing the purpose of the meeting. “The requirements are that we endeavor to act within 48 hours, but it’s sort of wide open on what ‘endeavor to act’ means. So, we could do nothing, in which case the order would remain in place, but we are certainly not a do-nothing council. We can affirm the resolution and executive order. We could reject it or we can modify, amend and, dare I say, improve it,” he said.
Harrell said that he was suspending the rules to allow staff to answer questions, beginning with the need and purpose of the new order. Staff said the new order created the safe parking areas and temporary parking on city rights-of-way. In addition, the order also authorized the third encampment, which would be used to house tents for the homeless.
According to the mayor’s order, temporary parking zones had been designated in Ballard, on Northwest 45th Street at 14th Avenue Northwest; in Interbay, on West Armory Way at 15th Avenue West; and in SODO, on Third Avenue South, south of Edgar Martinez Drive South. These sites are reserved for homeless individuals living in RVs, campers, trailers and other vehicles until the safe parking lots can be established.
One of safe parking lots will be in Ballard, in the former Yankee Diner parking lot on Shilshole Avenue Northwest and 24th Avenue Northwest. The second site is under negotiations between the Washington State Department of Transportation and Seattle Department of Transportation, located near the Glass Yard lot on West Marginal Way and Highland Parkway Southwest in Delridge. Temporary parking will be permitted for 30 days.
Compass Housing Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing services and is contracted with the city, will conduct outreach and assistance by connecting individuals using the temporary parking sites with needed services and a “pathway to housing,” the mayor’s announcement stated. Once established, the safe lots will feature 50 spaces each, with garbage and waste services, hygiene maintenance and case management.
Increased homelessness, crime
The number of illegal camps has significantly increased, from 80 in 2012 to more than 500 in 2015. While the mayor’s office said that the city had added 300 beds to emergency shelters citywide, the last Point-in-Time homeless count had revealed 3,772 individuals sleeping on the streets.
The idea for safe lots surfaced during a Neighborhood Safety Alliance (NSA) meeting on Jan. 6, where frustrated residents of four neighborhoods voiced their anger over increasing homelessness and crime. The NSA included presentations from Queen Anne, Magnolia, Ballard and North Seattle pleading for city officials and law enforcement to put a stop to what they described as a rampant uptick in property damage crime and drug dealing.
Several residents of Magnolia, Queen Anne and Ballard reported that the number of RVs, campers, vans and vehicles being used as shelter by homeless individuals were overwhelming their neighborhoods. With the increase in RVs was also an increase in the amount of crime, from home break-ins, car prowls, and property stolen often out of the yard, to suspected drug dealing.
In addition, residents spoke of finding hypodermic needles and other drug paraphernalia, often in yards, around illegally parked RVs and along streets. Concern for children finding such items, as well as the public health threat posed, ran high.
The idea of a designated parking lot for RVs and other vehicles was introduced during the meeting, in addition to a call for a moratorium on all RVs, campers and other vehicles in an effort to remove the rising threat.
Homeless ‘sweeps’
However, during public comment at the Jan. 21 emergency meeting, several concerns were raised, particularly around citywide cleanup efforts, also called “sweeps” of unauthorized tent encampments and places where homeless are living, a process based on complaints.
During the council meeting, both members of the public and the council voiced concerns that the citywide sweeps were causing more harm by forcing homeless individuals who already had no place to go to relocate somewhere else without addressing their needs or providing them with an option.
Council members also mentioned that the need for homeless shelters far outstripped what being provided or planned in terms of shelter beds, encampments and services. One man who said he was an attorney pointed out that people were losing personal items in the sweeps as city departments dispose of everything found.
“Opening the new safe lots will occur along with additional trash pickups in neighborhoods, as well as renewed enforcement of the city’s existing parking rules and addressing public safety issues that have arisen in recent months,” the mayor’s office said.
“What you have asked for is exactly what we need and what our human services department is looking toward, because we’ve got to have the data and we need to know who are the people, what are their individual needs that we are helping,” City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw said of the reporting requirements for homeless individuals using the safe lot sites. Participants are required to follow a strict code of conduct to reside at the sites. “To know that they are safe, and again, to the extent we can coordinate our efforts with our public health department so we know that individuals are safe and neighborhoods are safe.”
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