Three notes on what remains the most-discussed issue of the day:
PANEL DISCUSSION AT HPAC TOMORROW: Wednesday night at 7 pm, the Highland Park Action Committee‘s monthly meeting will be devoted to a panel discussion about homelessness. From HPAC’s website:
This panel is being created in response to local concerns, creating a common understanding of homelessness, the challenges some may face accessing housing, and ways we can help. Speaking on the panel will be Ruth Herold, Executive Director, Elizabeth Gregory Home; Polly Trout, Ph.D., Founder, Patacara Community Services; and a member of Camp Second Chance’s leadership team. The panel is moderated by Gunner Scott, Chair of HPAC.
Goals for the discussion include dispelling stereotypes, demystify homelessness, and to lay the groundwork for greater communication, understanding and involvement between all neighbors – housed and unhoused. There will be time for Q & A.
Everyone is welcome.
(Camp Second Chance is the encampment just inside the entrance to the Myers Way Parcels.) HPAC meets at Highland Park Improvement Club, 12th SW/SW Holden.
MAYOR’S PROPOSALS: As the City Council tabled its discussion of changing the “protocols” for encampments – when and where they can and can’t be removed – Mayor Ed Murray went public last Friday night with details on his interim plan. If you haven’t yet read about it, here’s the news release; here’s the plan. Some details are still pending, such as what locations will be proposed for the four sanctioned encampments the mayor wants to set up to get hundreds of people out of unsanctioned ones.
COUNCILMEMBER HERBOLD’S THOUGHTS: Last Thursday night, City Councilmember Lisa Herbold was a late addition to the agenda at the Alki Community Council. She talked extensively about the ongoing budget process, and then was asked about the encampment-legislation controversy, which she acknowledged was a “flashpoint.” Our notes:
She said that 25,000 renters are on the brink of homelessness because they pay more than half their income for rent; 2,500 renters are on the waiting list for Seattle Housing Authority subsidized housing; 3,000 people are sleeping unsheltered each night; 3,000 people are in shelters every night; “it takes time to build housing.” Every week, she says, she hears “somebody who is two degrees of separation from me” who has had to move out of the city because it’s too expensive.
An attendee asks the question about “where are the homeless people from?” and Herbold affirms, “the vast majority are from King County. … their last known address before accessing services is from King County.” She also was asked about an editorial suggesting that service providers are failing because they aren’t matching more people. She talked about the barriers to shelter for some people – having to leave behind their partners, their pets, having to get sober before they can move inside.
One attendee pointed out that you don’t give up your right to privacy because you have lost housing.
So what is real about the discussion of use of parks for camping? she was asked.
“There are people sleeping in parks now,” said Herbold. “We were trying to identify what would be unsafe locations, hazardous, and what would be unsuitable – parks weren’t in the unsafe or unsuitable definition, but we weren’t trying to say that it would be suitable for people to sleep there – we were trying to say that the city should prioritize clearing the places that are unsafe/unsuitable. … My motivation is that, right now we have 600 known encampments in the city with three or more tents … in the last year we’ve removed 400+ of them, and 95 percent of them have been reoccupied.” That’s a huge waste of resources, she said. “The intent was never about endorsing sleeping outside, it was trying to find a way to manage our public space …I believe the reason we have 600 encampments right now, is because of the way we do things right now … All that said, we have tabled the legislation we’ve been working on because the mayor is proposing a new approach, we’re waiting to see how that goes, we’re expecting to see something in the next week or so,” including a plan for four more sanctioned encampments. “We’ll see what the mayor proposes and see if it’s a better approach in the interim … I want to be sure we’re doing an assessment and evaluation of the new approach, and see if we’re actually reducing the number of encampments.”
Rather than take up the tabled bill again, she suggests community-by-community conversations. She said people understand the problem – but need to understand what’s contributing to it, before they get to how to create policy to deal with it. The legislation was a “flashpoint,” she said.
Those four encampments, though, will only help up to about 400 people, she acknowledges. And: “The reason we’re in this problem is that we don’t have enough of what meets people’s very unique needs.” And she talked about the dangers of living outside, and the pain of living outside leading some to self-medicate (they’re not necessarily homeless because of substance use, for example, but the substance use might stem from their shelterlessness).
Again, this discussion with the Alki Community Council was about 24 hours before the mayor’s interim plan was made public. There’s been no followup discussion in a council meeting because they’re now back to fully focusing on the budget.
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