West Seattle’s future ‘safe lot’: Update from SPD

| Highland Park | West Seattle news

It’s now been almost seven weeks since the mayor’s announcement that two “safe lots” for RV/car residents would be opened within a month – one in Ballard, which did open on exactly that timeline, and one in Highland Park, where the paved lot at West Marginal Way SW and Highland Park Way remains fenced and empty. We have new information, as mentioned by Southwest Precinct Operations Lt. Ron Smith at last night’s Fauntleroy Community Association meeting:

First, regarding who will use the lot, he said the precinct so far has identified nine RVs currently in the area that would be potentially eligible. The Seattle Fire Department has been evaluating the sites and wanted better spacing, he said, which might affect the capacity, though the last number we heard mentioned for the West Seattle lot was a dozen. Last week, the city Human Services Department told us that the timeline for this lot had slowed so they could “address many of the lessons learned in the first lot before we stand up a second one.” The first one, according to Lt. Smith, is hosting fewer vehicles than expected, so far. As for safety and crime prevention in Highland Park, he also said the precinct has its plan ready, whenever the lot opens.

dcn March 9, 2016 (11:44 am)

I don’t know the numbers, but I wonder at the cost to open up a lot for a dozen families in RV’s. My guess is that it would be cheaper to rent apartments for those families (near amenities) than it is to open and maintain these “safe lots.” Utah has been doing this with some success: http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how.

Now, I know that there will be a flood of “Why provide free housing to the homeless when I work for my housing” comments. And I understand that sentiment. But all I’m saying is that if we are going to spend a lot of money providing shelter for the homeless, it seems more cost-effective, and more desirable for the families living in their RV’s, if we just provide apartments for them. And more cost-effective also means that with the money the city has, they could provide more shelter for more people. If the lot held 50 vehicles, then it might be more cost-effective to have a lot instead of providing apartments. But a dozen? It just doesn’t seem worth the expense.

Ray March 9, 2016 (12:35 pm)

I know this will not be a popular comment, but this effort (these homeless camps/lots) are not about creating solutions, but about doing “something” so our politicians can claim they are doing “something” about these problems.

These solve nothing for these people. It is just political grandstanding and just shuffling these camps/lots around the city when one area gets fed up with them, and then foisting them on another neighborhood.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

NWCommenter March 10, 2016 (4:32 pm)

Agreed. Here in Ballard, it’s a complete s–t hole… Apologies for the language, but even as a liberal, I am disgusted by the city’s lack of action or half-hearted attempts to FIX the problem permanently. I plan to vote this mayor out. I hope others will do the same.

d March 9, 2016 (12:41 pm)

You are exactly right righto Rey

JanS March 9, 2016 (12:52 pm)

well, they do get a roof over their heads, and a bit of safety. And that’s something. Maybe not to you, but to a family down on it’s luck, with small children, sleeping in the outdoors in rainy winter Seattle, that’s something. It’s a small thing, butto that family, it could be almost everything.

Ray March 9, 2016 (1:07 pm)

Jans, I agree that is one outcome, but the reality is that MOST of the homeless in this city are chronic (repeat, if you will) homeless who have been homeless many, many years. A roof over their head is a transitory thing.

This is still not a solution to their problems/situations.

I will refrain from further comments so this does not degenerate into back/forth, and I have said my piece.

Wsea 98116 March 9, 2016 (1:27 pm)

It’s not about a safe roof over a down on luck family, but it also meets that need. MOST of these RV ‘s are used by thieves and drug addicts exploiting a social/legal loophole that allows them to set up residence and do their business whenever they like without impunity. After offering RV residents safe harbor in lots (albeit very restrictive and undesirable), law enforcement can impound rogue RV’s (without fear of displacing down on luck family model), giving relief to neighborhoods victimized and blighted by them. So, the lots are really just a processing formality- or so, it appears to me..

JanS March 10, 2016 (12:42 am)

wsea 98116…you have proof of that, and information that you can provide links to? I’d be curious to read the actual stats. If it’s just your opinion, well…we all have those.

Kara March 9, 2016 (2:31 pm)

So all these chronic homeless people their numbers sure keep going up each year…do we really need to categorize homelessness, homelessness is homelessness and if it wasn’t for my family and a credit card I could have been there too a few years ago. I’ve had other friends on the verge as well, one slept in his car until I made him stay with me for a few months and it was all because he got divorced. Yes, some need more help then others, but they still need help. Our view on homelessness as a society is ridiculous.

Rick March 9, 2016 (3:13 pm)

It’s become a profession and in Seattle, a magnet. Hence;Freattle.
Jakers March 9, 2016 (5:00 pm)

Yes, we absolutely need to categorize homeless people; the longer we don’t the more we are really ignoring the problem and allowing it to fester by throwing pretty bandaids on it.

Not all homeless people are created equal; not all ended up where they are for the same reason, not all stay where they are for the same reasons, not all need the same things, not all will be able to find stability in the same ways, not all have the same capabilities, and not all have the same willingness to change.

When this is ignored and by and large everyone gets treated the same it makes for great soundbites…and doesn’t do a bit of good.

So yes, we absolutely need to categorize homeless people if there is ever going to be a halfway decent solution.

You are right though; our view on the homeless as a society is ridiculous. Of course the first step in fixing that won’t fit in with the Seattlite mentality.
- Kara March 12, 2016 (1:44 pm)
  
  Again, I shouldn’t comment anymore, but I meant categorize by lumping the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ together.

Melissa March 9, 2016 (3:57 pm)

I am curious, what do people see as some of the solutions to homelessness?

I feel like we need to hold the developers more accountable and do a better job of preserving low income housing.

We also need to do a better job of providing housing with wrap around services.

I am interested in DCN comment. Does anyone know how much this is going to cost the City per RV?

WSB March 9, 2016 (4:00 pm)

Please see some of the previous comment threads (two previous stories are linked in this one). There is no “cost per RV,” because, as one person pointed out, it’s not that they will allow x number of RVs in and those are the RVs there forever, so you can’t cut up any cost amount by, say, 12 RVs – theoretically people would rotate in and out.
- Jakers March 9, 2016 (4:54 pm)
  
  I’m sorry, but that is complete and utter BS and everyone should be aware if it. And, everyone should not forget that either. It will be very easy to figure out what the cost per RV per month (or any other unit of time) will be, it just isn’t known up front.
  
  The amount of money sunk into these failures is easy to track, and, if the city is actually to be believed, the number of residents and number of vehicles will also be tracked. So in 6 months it’ll be pretty easy to look back and say that that average cost for 1 RV for a 1 month stay was…something.
  
  People, do not forget this. When the 6 month period is up, before the city extends it to 1 year (which is almost guaranteed to happen) there needs to be an accounting for the real cost of these lots and other options that are comparable/cheaper need to be considered.

Eric March 9, 2016 (4:05 pm)

What makes people think that all of the RV’s rolling around Seattle are just families down on their luck?

Look at the Magnolia issue with the people upset because a group of RV’s are/were in that area and crime went up. Residents even saw some of their stolen goods in these RV circles and when confronting the people in the RV’s were threatened. And the police did nothing about it.

There have been RV’s around the Westwood area leaving trash when they leave, and I have personally seen people at 3:30 in the morning on my way to work, getting out of these RV’s and getting on bikes with backpacks on. What, are they going to work too at that hour of the morning? I seriously doubt it. They’re probably going “shopping” throughout the neighborhood.

We just had an issue with an RV parked at my work. But since there is that loophole and it was next to the building (where we all park) which was technically public property, we couldn’t do anything. We finally told them on the 3rd day (today) they had to leave. Oh they left alright, but not before leaving garbage, a stripped motorcycle, and hypodermic needles. Yeah, they’re just down on their luck.

I have little to no empathy for these people. Families genuinely going through a hard time? Yes, but like others have said. This is just a way for junkie criminals to get their fix in their mobile “motel room” while stealing from people to get their fix. And where in the hell are these people getting these RV’s anyway?

WSB March 9, 2016 (4:19 pm)

If you can’t afford $1,000+ month of rent, let alone a mortgage, you might wind up in a trailer.

Please stop with the generalizations, people. Especially the ones that the same people repeat over and over again. Yeah, obviously, some RVs are drug dens. We reported on the one that was over on Marginal Place. That doesn’t mean they all are. Do you really have so much money in the bank that you think you are completely immune to ever losing it all?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-mystery-of-why-the-best-african-american-figure-skater-in-history-went-bankrupt-and-lives-in-a-trailer/2016/02/25/a191972c-ce99-11e5-abc9-ea152f0b9561_story.html

Eric March 9, 2016 (4:33 pm)

Well Tracy you have your point of view and I have mine. Yeah, me and my wife have both lost our jobs twice due to the economy. We busted our butt to do what we could to make it work. To the point where I worked two jobs to make ends meet.

There are people who have gone through hard times and legitimately got caught under the the current of bad fortune and I feel bad for them, but I do not feel bad for people who make choices that put them in the position they are in. Period.

People who struggle with income because they have 5 kids, should think about stop having kids. I can’t afford 5 kids, so I don’t have 5 kids. People who are drug addicts and choose the lifestyle they live. That’s on them. Why should society keep having to pay for other people’s bad decisions?

West Seattle Hipster March 9, 2016 (5:22 pm)

Good for you and your wife for persevering through tough times. Some folks want to be self sufficient, some just want to rely on the generosity and gullibility of others. I think establishing Murrayvilles throughout Seattle will be our Mayor’s lasting legacy.

http://www.magnoliavoice.com/2016/02/19/magnolia-bridge-clean-up-a-slog-through-filth/

Eric March 9, 2016 (4:34 pm)

And the most horrible part of it is the children who get caught up in “parents” who make bad choices

Eric March 9, 2016 (4:40 pm)

Wow an anecdotal article

Kara March 9, 2016 (5:02 pm)

I’m glad you two made it through that hard time. It’s definitely not easy.

Joe March 9, 2016 (5:32 pm)

Eric, great points. Thank you for being you.

heather March 9, 2016 (6:25 pm)

I would highly recommend PBS Frontline – Heroin. It is filmed in and about Seattle. I was unfamiliar with many of the procedures that are already in place in this city. After watching, I firmly believe that many of our cities homeless were previously in a rotation of in/out of jail, those arrested for drug related charges were held in jail for 90 days, but as our approach has changed this is no longer true. This may partially be one reason for the increase in people on the street. I used to feel that we should provide some form of housing that helps people get back on their feet. I now believe that is not an appropriate solution for people dealing with addiction. So, yes, it’s important that we understand ‘who’ is homeless (categorize) so that we can address the need reasonably. After all, a (non drug using) family with children living in an RV isn’t really very safe amongst RV’s that house active addicts – even within a “safe lot”.

Eric March 9, 2016 (6:37 pm)

Exactly Heather. Exactly.

Eric March 9, 2016 (6:44 pm)

You’re right Kara, it’s not easy, but sometimes life’s not easy. We even put our house on the market, because instead of “losing” our home to a forecloser, we decided to be pro active and sell it. At the same time I busted my butt to find a job and found one where I took a 4 dollar an hour pay cut. I then busted my butt and got promoted to making what I made at my other job. My wife also found a job and luckily we didn’t have to sell the house.

Kara March 12, 2016 (1:34 pm)

I hope my comment wasn’t taken the wrong way, I honestly meant what I said. I should know by now not to write comments cause tone can never be conveyed. :/

heather March 9, 2016 (9:54 pm)

Let me just add. I do think we should provide facilities for the homeless. I however do not think housing intended to help people get back on their feet is an appropriate type of facility for the severely addicted.

Eric, I too was hit incredibly hard by the recession and understand your comments. However, I think that the type of homeless situation we have in Seattle is more akin to a public health crisis. So many people without toilet facilities in an urban area, exposed to the elements, at risk of viruses and disease, using public transportation and standing next to you at the light … we could very easily be faced with some kind of awful rampant city wide health virus.

Matt S. March 9, 2016 (11:44 pm)

I would very much vote for whatever Eric and Heather could arrive at as a solution, or even a step in the right direction. I have a tough time understanding what that might be.

Eric March 10, 2016 (5:16 am)

Matt, that is such an in depth conversation that even if I had some solution, this blog is not the platform to be able to write it. There are just so many aspects to the whole.

There’s the mental health issue, but our state makes involuntary commitment almost impossible. There are quite a few homeless who have mental health issues.

It is atrocious that in this country people can become homeless just because they got sick. Our healthcare system needs to be revamped. I don’t think people should merely be treated as just another commodity when it comes to health. We have a bloated medical system where the same MRI in one part of the country costs $3,000, while in another part, it costs $300. My co-worker tells me constantly about his wife who is in the medical field, and all the unnecessary spending her hospital does.

We have a pharmaceutical industry that is in the practice of cannibal capitalism, where the average person is gouged for their medication and where we spend on average 3x as much on the same medication as other countries.

Health insurance is in my opinion, a conflict of interest, because their first priority is not your health. It’s making money.

But the problem also is that it is not always about the external. How do you find a solution for people to stop making bad choices? At some point, personal responsibility also has to play a role.

If you’re family is struggling financially, and you have multiple kids, do you have another one? Do you buy a flashy car that is clearly taking up most of your finances to pay off, only to have to go to the food bank, because you can’t afford much else?

And the treatment of addiction is not all that great. I took chemical addiction and Bob Groeschell, who ran the dept at Seattle Central at the time, told the whole class on the first day that only about 7% of people who overcome addiction, do so through counseling and treatment. Most people who quit, quit on their own. That’s not all that promising when pushing treatment options.

I’ll tell you something from my personal experience while getting my certification and degree there. The teachers always made it seem like everything was a systemic failure. Whatever the problem seemed to be, it was because of the system. It was to the point where personal responsibility was thrown completely out the window.

There were also quite a few people in my dept who were on financial aid and other social services. There is an area in this dept. where people can get together and socialize and/or (what I did a lot of) work on writing your papers in between classes. I used to listen to people complain all the time that even though their cell phone plan was paid for, that they didn’t have the newest and latest phone out there. I heard people who got free laptops through social programs complain about them. I listened to people who received financial aid for their classes talk about the scams they ran in which they would sign up for certain classes, and then after the financial aid would go through, there was a window in which you could drop out of that class. These people would then drop out, receive the refund and then use the money on (according to the people bragging) buying new fashion boots, clothes, iPods, and even drugs.

So it’s pretty disheartening to listen to people complain about getting free things when you’re sitting there with your laptop and cell phone that you had to pay for and work hard because not only were you going to school, but working at the same time.

I’m not against social services, but there needs to be an over haul. There needs to be more oversight. Money is being wasted and people are taking advantage of it.

There has to be some middle ground here. You have the far right that wants to take just about everything away and you have the far left who truly believe that people are in the position they are in simply because of a systemic failure. It is a combination of the two.

And I’m sorry, but treating this RV epidemic like it’s just about people who ran into some back luck is not the answer. The people who were at my work clearly made the choice. They weren’t merely a victim of circumstance. There are multiple articles from news outlets showing the problem of a lot of these RV homeless people. It is a trend. Remember when you first saw someone sitting on a corner with a sign. I thought, not a bad idea. Other homeless people saw the results as people were giving them money and followed suit. Now the trend is the RV’s. People see that hey, there is a loophole. We can just travel from one place to another. It’s a mobile motel room to do drugs. I’ve seen it around my area, and I’ve seen it at my work, with the RV leaving needles behind after they left.

Yes, not every person who is living in an RV is merely a drug addict, but many of them are.

BTW, I personally, I would have rather spent the $500,000 on social services rather than painting a bus lane red on the bridge. That’s just one tiny small example of how I think our money is being spent unwisely.

T Rex March 10, 2016 (10:36 am)

Well said Eric.

As I have stated before, I work in this area. I have NEVER seen one child in or around one of these RV’s.

Take a drive by the Waste Management location right now. There is an RV that is parked on the north side of the building. There is a growing PILE of garbage that is accumulating around that RV now. The windows are BLOCKED with garbage. This is not how a family down on their luck lives.

Pile-o-Rox March 10, 2016 (11:52 am)

WSB – I don’t think anyone thinks they are immune to losing it all. What people are rationally trying to say is that there are different kinds of homelessness, and they should be treated differently.

I can’t imagine anyone taking issue with solutions like an RV lot or tent city, or whatever, so long as the use of such facilities is conditioned on the inhabitants trying to change their circumstance – i.e., take part in addiction counseling and/or job search activities.

The reality is that a huge portion of the homeless population could care less to better themselves. I don’t want to regurgitate the oft-cited recent Seattle times article, but as part of a recent outreach effort, 0 out of 80 people accepted an offer of 6 months of shelter because it was conditioned on drug abuse counseling participation.

The above group and others of their ilk should definitely be treated different that the down on your luck victim of circumstance, who is willing to do anything and everything to change their life for the better.

With regard to the former, we need them out of our community – they are a blight and a cancer. They can either go to jail or to a mental facility (hence, forced detox and treatment for those with mental illness) or move along somewhere else. If they want shelter, its here – but with conditions (the aforementioned drug addiction counseling, job placement service, prohibition on guns, drugs, alcohol).

With regard to the latter, we need to address them with open arms and take reasonable, cost-effective measures to help get them back on their feet. At a bare minimum, this means shelters, tent cities, and RV parks, as well as counseling and job placement services. Notably, those facilities would be much safer and effective without the former group.

Wsea 98116 March 10, 2016 (1:32 pm)

Pile-o-rox, you say it far more eloquently than I can. I don’t think anyone wants to drag down on luck family farther down- there are services in place for those seeking help, and we can still do better, and more effectively. This does not alter the fact that we also must protect our communities from junkies and thieves who seem to have discovered that living in an RV brings with it a sort of legal immunity to deal, use, steal, and litter. Helping this opportunistic group to do as they wish, does not really help any of us.

WSince86 March 10, 2016 (2:59 pm)

Eric- That is seriously the best, most well thought out comment I have ever read on the blog. I could not agree with you more.

Born on Alki 59 March 12, 2016 (8:45 am)

Yep Eric, life is all about choices and personal responsibility. We are now on the third generation of kids raised “PC” with no consequences for their bad behaviors. Hows that seem to be working out for us?

Sorry, comment time is over.