“Nickelsville” organizers say the camp’s moving tomorrow night

September 30, 2008 at 10:21 pm | In Highland Park, West Seattle news, West Seattle politics | 9 Comments

nickelsvillesunday.jpgPosted tonight on the Google mail group for the homeless encampment at West Marginal/Highland Park Way: They’re planning to move again at 10 pm tomorrow, but they won’t say till possibly the “very last second” where they will be going. They also say the city has threatened to fine the state unless it gives the campers the boot from the WSDOT land they’ve been on since last Friday afternoon’s city sweep of the original “Nickelsville” site next door. Just an hour before this update was posted, we’d asked the mayor’s communications director Robert Mak if there were any new developments, and he had said no, aside from the city maintaining its stance that the camp was a land-use violation.

9 Comments

  1. am I missing something here? the city is going to sue the state because? what? the city has jurisdiction over state land? can someone smarter than me explain?

    Comment by JanS — 10:28 pm September 30, 2008 #

  2. Good point JanS. Also, it is interesting to note that the city doesn’t seem to mind that the JAIL it is proposing is also a land-use violation… Oh wait, when it is something THEY want, they can just disregard change the zoning in some back room somewhere… Charming.

    Comment by Kat — 10:39 pm September 30, 2008 #

  3. From talking to various parties, it seems to be: The city maintains an encampment like this is illegal, period – in this case, because it’s on industrial land. So anyone who allowed it would be subject to fines for land-use violation. The city owned the original site, so it cleared the encampment off that site – then the state said “hey, you guys can stay here for a few days” but it’s within city limits so the city is telling the state “you’re violating land use laws if you don’t get these folks out of there.”

    Comment by WSB — 11:05 pm September 30, 2008 #

  4. They are not only violating land use laws, which the City of Seattle has every right to enforce, they are in violation of a 2002 Consent Decree that the individuals/group (SHARE/WHEEL) running Nickelsville signed only allowing for one tent city within Seattle.
    The 100 (?) people that are making up the current Nickelsville are homeless individuals that were living at Tent City 3 & 4 and other SHARE/WHEEL shelters. The majority were brought over from those shelters to make this political statement in an attempt to extort public land to replicate the Dignity Village model in Portland.

    Comment by mimi — 8:00 am October 1, 2008 #

  5. nothing wrong with a political statement! more power to them. Homeless people have the same right to empowerment as anyone else, including civil disobedience if they so choose.

    Comment by acemotel — 9:49 am October 1, 2008 #

  6. I’m not familiar with Dignity Village in Portland.
    Can someone enlighten us.
    And, why would it be a bad thing to replicate the Dignity Village model.

    Comment by Jo — 12:17 pm October 1, 2008 #

  7. The Mayor needs to do some looking ahead and reasoning back. Not a good idea to trash people who bring democratic spirited order to the dog-eat-dog existence of homeless. Demonstrations of expertise at doing that are community assets, not expressions of neediness. (pure John McKnight, for all you Obama fans)

    Hard times catch up to Bend

    Comment by freeman — 1:48 pm October 1, 2008 #

  8. If the homeless individuals of SHARE/WHEEL and Nickelsville spent as much time energy and effort into finding jobs, as they do setting up illegal encampments in an attempt to extort public land then they would not be living there in the first place.
    When you have so called “homeless” like Leo Rhodes of SHARE/WHEEL who is quoted here http://www.realchangenews.org/2008/2008_05_21/nickelsville_v15n22.html
    as having been homeless for the last 20 yrs, then there is clearly a problem.

    Comment by mimi — 6:31 pm October 1, 2008 #

  9. part of the motive is to bring publicity to the issue of homelessness, and in that they are doing a brilliant job. It’s very easy for people to criticize and condemn the individuals, but when homelessness is an epidemic there is a systemic problem. Focusing attention on any one particular person does nothing to aid understanding or move towards solution.

    Comment by acemotel — 2:05 am October 2, 2008 #

Sorry, comment time is over.

All contents copyright 2012, A Drink of Water and a Story Interactive. Here's how to contact us.
No photo reuse without permission.
Entries and comments feeds. ^Top^