Song of Tent City

Since November 27th Seattle Poet Mimi Allin has been living as the Poet In Residence at Tent City 3, one of Seattle’s migratory homeless encampments. Tether Design Gallery volunteered their gallery space for an exhibit based on the experience. The show includes an installation of Mimi's tent, poetry and handwritten journal entries written by homeless people living in Tent City, and audio recordings of Tent City residents.

The opening takes place tonight, January 6th, as part of the First Thursday Pioneer Square art walk. The show runs until January 20th. Read more about Mimi's experiences at her blog Song Of Tent City.

South Park Bridge

I joined about 200 people at the South Park monthly community meeting last night to hear about the fate of the South Park Bridge. South Park is a fascinating little neighborhood on the southern edge of Seattle, mostly built from the 1920's through 1950's to provide homes for the Boeing workers whose factory was in full bloom at the time. Since then the fortunes of Boeing and all of the industries that surrounded it have waxed and waned, and South Park has come through many rough patches. Statistics from the 1970's and 80's suggest that it was Seattle's most dangerous zip code for quite a while, but in recent years the neighborhood has undergone a rennaisance, finally getting a long sought library and community center, and becoming the most ethnically diverse neighborhood in Seattle.

The big problem South Park faces these days is the closure of the bridge that connects the neighborhood with the rest of the city. The bridge across the Duwamish River moves some 20,000 cars and trucks and more than 5,000 bicyclists and pedestrians each day. A 2006 assessment of the bridge showed that one of its piers isn't anchored in stable soil, both piers were built with substandard concrete, and either side could collapse during an earthquake. The Federal Highway Administration has given the bridge the worst safety rating in the state.

King County estimates that it would cost $123 million to replace the bridge, and last month the federal government rejected a grant request for $99 million, leaving the project without a penny. The bridge is scheduled to be closed on June 30th, diverting all traffic to the nearby freeway and cutting off all walking and biking routes to and from the neighborhood. An urban neighborhood on the verge of genuine renewal will be left utterly isolated.

The facts one could gather from the community meeting were nothing but depressing. Despite years of warnings, there is simply NO plan to repair or replace the bridge. Representatives were on hand from the Office of the King County Executive, from the City of the Seattle and from the Port of Seattle, but there was only one message: South Park does not have the money or the clout to force a solution. The locals were up in arms with anger and frustration, but the offical reaction was to express sympathy and shoot down all hope.

Read more about the situation here, and more about yesterday's community meeting here. And if you're in Washington, by all means call your local and State reps and demand that they help this vibrant community maintain its lifeline.

Addict's Almanac

Tye Doudy writes a weekly column for Portland's Street Roots newspaper about life on the streets as a heroin addict. The incredibly powerful and gripping column, called Addict's Almanac, began as a six-week series in August 2008. The columns were picked up by other street papers in the U.S. and in Europe, generating huge responses, positive and negative. On July 24 of this year, Doudy picked the column back up and now writes weekly about living on the streets, the people he meets, the violence he encounters (and is often part of) and wrestling with his addiction.

In the first column in the new series, Doudy describes meeting "Ashes" and going back to his squat to score.

Ashes ...is about as trustworthy as a rented snake, and he is the closest thing I have to a friend at this moment.

My first question is, of course, is he holding and second, can I get him to kick down a little something. Even a rinse would set me straight and buy me some time to make a plan. No junky wants to give up any dope ever, but I have some leverage as he has no hustle and he knows I will make some money today...

In order for me to get the fix, we first have to go back to the squat he shares with some other scumbags under the Jackson Street overpass...The squats that line the freeway overpasses are like catch basins for the refuse of the city. The mentally ill, sexual deviants, illegal immigrants, wanted fugitives, hardcore drunks, prostitutes, crusty train-hopping kids, tweakers, junkies, the unlucky, and the unloved. We all have called these places home. For a night, for a week, even years for some. It's easy to fly below the radar here. No rent, no responsibility, and nothing to worry about besides where the cops are and where your next fix or your next bottle is coming from.

My next fix is coming from Ashes and he is unrolling his works from a piece of leather he had up his sleeve.

Doudy's column offers a rare insight into a world that is very seldom seen first hand. His voice is both in your face and humble, poetic yet poisonous. It's not easy reading, but anyone interested in what's happening just out of view on American streets should check it out. You can keep up with the series at the Street Roots blog.

Beyond Prisons

Tomorrow, April 30th, the Race/Knowledge Project is holding a critical dialogue on the planned $220 million Seattle municipal jail project, and the forces which are aligning against it. The conversation, called "Politics Beyond Prisons," takes place from 3:30 to 5:00 at the Simpson Center for the Humanties on the University of Washington's Seattle campus. The event features presentations by a number of local and national experts on incarceration politics, including Chandan Reddy of the University of Washington, Dean Spade of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Sarah White of Street Youth Legal Advocates of Washington and Tim Harris, the publisher of Real Change.

In conjunction with the dialogue, the organizers have arranged a special exhibition of a limited edition print portfolio that addresses issues of incarceration. Activist bloggers Just Seeds commissioned twenty-one artists from the US, Canada, and Mexico to create new work in honor of Critical Resistance's 10 year anniversary. The exhibition will be on display before and after the talk.

Housing First

The American Medical Association just published a study examining one year in the lives of the chronic street drunks who have been given permanent shelter in Seattle's 1811 Eastlake building. The novel and humane program gives homeless alcoholics a place to live without placing restrictions on their drinking or drug use. And according to the study, the program is not only saving lives, but is also saving more than $4 million a year in tax money.

Mary Larimer, a professor of psychiatry and behavior sciences at the University of Washington, worked with a team of researchers who followed 95 chronic alcoholics before and after they moved into the apartment building in downtown Seattle. The study examined records of the time each person spent in detox, in hospitals, in court and in jail, and compared how much government spent on them compared with those still living on the streets. Researchers found that the average monthly cost to taxpayers was $4,832 when each resident lived on the street. Six months after residents moved into supportive housing, those costs dropped to $1,492 per person per month.

People working with homeless populations in Seattle remember that this program received a LOT of resistance when it was proposed and while it was being built. Many different groups and politicians were up in arms about the project, but the two main arguments arguments against the program were: 1) that it "rewards" people often considered to be engaging in bad behavior; and 2) that it would be outrageously expensive.

The careful study by the AMA debunks both of those arguments. First, researchers learned that the non-punitive nature of the program is one of its biggest strengths. People's chances of learning to control their addictions are a lot better when they are in a warm, safe environment with access to care and services. And second, it turns out that the program saves money overall. For the lawmakers who are looking for ways to save money during a cash strapped time, this should be a winning argument for preserving and creating social service programs, but I'm not kidding myself that the world is so reasonable.

We can only hope that programs like 1811, like so many other innovative, useful programs, cost- saving programs, can get the word out about their effectiveness and that we can maintain a little pressure on our representatives to keep their damned priorities straight.

Thank you Jean Luc Weber for the photo!

Seattle General Strike

Exactly 90 years ago this week, the city of Seattle held the first city-wide labor action or “general strike” in American history. The strike began in the Seattle shipyards on January 21, 1919 by workers who had expected a post-war pay hike to make up for two years of strict wage controls imposed by the federal government. Over those same two years, war production contracts had expanded dramatically.

When regulators refused the wage increases, the Metal Trades Council union alliance declared a strike and closed the yards. After an appeal to Seattle’s powerful Central Labor Council for help, most of the city’s 110 local unions voted to join a sympathy walkout. The Seattle General Strike began on February 6, 1919. The Seattle labor establishment closed down the city until February 11. More than 60,000 union members in a city of 300,000 people went on strike, and most of the remaining work force was idled as stores closed and streetcars stopped running.

Mayor Ole Hanson, elected the year before with labor support, requested federal troops to break up the strike. 950 sailors and marines were stationed across the city by February 7. At the same time, the Seattle mayor added 600 men to the police force and hired 2,400 special deputies. By the time the Central Labor Council officially declared an end on February 11, police and vigilantes were hard at work rounding up "Reds." The IWW hall and Socialist Party headquarters were raided and leaders arrested. Federal agents also closed the Union Record, the labor-owned daily newspaper, and arrested several of its staff.

Across the country headlines screamed the news that Seattle had been saved, that the revolution had been broken, that, as Mayor Hanson phrased it, “Americanism” had triumphed over “Bolshevism.” According to a statement by the Mayor:

"The so-called sympathetic Seattle strike was an attempted revolution. That there was no violence does not alter the fact . . . The intent, openly and covertly announced, was for the overthrow of the industrial system; here first, then everywhere . . . True, there were no flashing guns, no bombs, no killings. Revolution, I repeat, doesn't need violence. The general strike, as practised in Seattle, is of itself the weapon of revolution, all the more dangerous because quiet. To succeed, it must suspend everything; stop the entire life stream of a community . . . That is to say, it puts the government out of operation. And that is all there is to revolt -- no matter how achieved."

The University of Washington has compiled an excellent archive of photos and contemporary newspaper articles.

No Safety In Numbers

Once again I was asked to be the media coordinator for the annual One Night Count of the Homeless in King County. The Count is quite an impressive undertaking, with more than 800 people across the county volunteering to miss a whole night's sleep for a walk in the cold, during which they do their damnedest to count every person living on the streets.

As before, my task involved writing up the press releases and chatting up the media, but the most interesting part of my work was talking to the volunteers and transcribing their stories. Without fail, the experience has a huge impact on those counters who are volunteering for the first time and have little idea of what to expect. Those of us who work with the homeless day in and day out can forget that this is a population which is essentially invisible, even to huge hearted people who believe in our cause. Through the courtesy of the Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless, these are a few of the quotes from people I spoke with. There are literally hundreds more.

"I was looking under the freeway and I found a wheelchair with a guy sleeping on the ground beside it. It was like a nightmare. How did this guy get under the freeway in his wheelchair? How was he going to get back into his chair? And where was he going to go? I know we weren't supposed to help the people we saw, but man..."

"I heard coughing coming from a porta potty on a construction site. Later I came back to count him. He told me he had been kicked out of a shelter in Everett for smoking pot."

"When we were counting we were approached by three men who wanted information on housing. They just arrived in the country from Southeast Asia and didn't have any work or any income. I didn't know what to tell them."

"In one area there had obviously been a large camp that was posted and swept by the cops on January 27th. There was one person there, and they were sleeping behind all the garbage bags that the city had filled with debris."

"I saw a guy leaning against a wall, sleeping on his bike."

Me? I'm glad I have a bed to sleep in. And that's where I'm headed. Right...now.

Ironies of Pittsburgh

The last few months have brought some harsh crackdowns on Pittsburgh graffiti artists. Just before Christmas, two young men, "Sine One" and "Toaster," students at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, were arrested, and are now facing felony charges. In July, Danny Montano, known as "MFONE," pleaded guilty to 79 counts of criminal vandalism. Montano faced a maximum possible sentence of $300,000 in fines and 130 years in prison. In the end, the judge sentenced him to one of the harshest sentences for graffiti ever in the United States - 2.5 to 5 years in prison and $200,000 in restitution. Interestingly enough, the 22 year-old was arrested at the Mattress Factory, a world-renowned contemporary art museum in Pittsburgh, as he was installing his piece for an exhibition.

Commenters on the blog Just Seeds note that Pittsburgh's hard hit social service budgets and vanishing school art programs have led to a dramatic increase in graffiti in the city. In addition, Pittsburgh's ever-declining tax base means that the police-run graffiti task force simply has not been able to keep up with the ever spreading street art. That fact, plus the plethora of empty buildings, closed down mills and factories, railroad bridges, stairways, alleys and train tunnels have allowed for a flourishing graffiti scene.

The tragedy is that while a whole range of circumstances have led Pittsburgh kids to adopt street art as a means toward empowerment and self-expression, the beleaguered police force has pushed for ever harsher penalties for graffiti, with the horrible result of teenagers being faced with the prospect of spending a good chunk of their adolescence in prison.

The same drama is playing out in cities across the country, and it remains to be seen how these never ending tensions between street art and gallery art, the use of public and private space, and the consequences from a nebulous concept of "property damage" will play out.

The bitchin' photo above was taken outside the Heinz factory by Niemster and harvested from the Pittsburgh Graffiti photo pool.

Spuistraat Squats

Through a lucky series of events, we had a cup of tea on Spuistraat in one of the last remaining squats in Amsterdam. From the early 70's until the mid 2000´s, Amsterdam had a loud and vibrant culture of occupation. A liberal interpretation of property rights and an unusually open period of police communication resulted in a code of laws that benefited the young people who entered and repaired abandoned buildings.

In recent years however, a series of lawsuits and standoffs with the authorities had caused a decline in the number of squatted houses, until finally just this one block of apartments remained. Like the other squats on Spuistraat, the building we visited had been vacant for some 20 years before being occupied. The three-story home had been completely cleaned up, pigeons and rats were removed, timbers replaced, brickwork patched, and the house was painted inside and out by artists from around the world.

Sjoerd, the bouncer/squatter/graffiti artist who explained all of this to us hinted that he knew of a few more sites scattered around the city, but they had all adopted a low profile in the hopes that it would keep them alive a little longer.

Sjoerd was proud of what he and a few dozen colleagues had accomplished, but was philosophical about the general nature of squats. "All housing is temporary." he said, "You may sign some kind of contract, but no one keeps a home forever. Squatters just get more aggressive notice when it's time to move on."

Nickelsville

Last night I headed out to Nickelsville to lend a hand and take a look around.

Nickelsville is a homeless camp that appeared early in the morning of Sept. 22, on a vacant lot in the industrial lands south of Seattle. Using tents donated by the girl scouts and the Race for the Cure, the makeshift city had some 200 tents in place by dawn. By the end of that day the City of Seattle had covered the site with No Trespassing signs and 72-hour eviction notices.

For a "city" that was built overnight, Nickelsville is impressively efficient and well-organized. Tents are arranged in distinct groups, with a small group of Port-a-potties behind each group. At the entrance to the camp a set of tables beneath tarps serves as a check-in point, first aid station and camp kitchen.

While I was there, a team of volunteer builders, led by UW engineering student Joe Taylor, was constructing an administrative building from palettes and donated scraps of lumber. SHARE/WHEEL, the organization responsible for organizing the Tent Cities that roam Seattle and the East Side, was a major force behind getting Nickelsville up and organized. Many of the campers had been living in the two nomadic Tent Cities.

Mayor Nickels (for whom the camp is named) has been consistent in describing the camp as a political demonstration - which it is, to a certain extent - but much more importantly it's abundantly clear that the camp is full of genuinely neglected people who need a safe and supportive place to stay.

As advocates have pointed out again and again and again, 2,631 people were counted sleeping outside on a freezing January night this year. The Post-Intelligencer reported that 24 people were turned away from Operation Nightwatch on the very night that Nickelsville went up owing to a lack of shelter beds. The fact is indisputable - there just isn't enough shelter in Seattle.

The word in the camp is that clearances may begin this morning. The City is due to arrive between 6 and 7 am today, with bulldozers. Send an email to Mayor Nickels to let him know what you think, and keep an eye on Real Change news or Tim Harris' blog Apesma's Lament for updates.

Different Approaches to Mass Transit

Very interesting story in the NYTimes today about the transit system in Rochester, New York. It seems the Rochester transit system just cut fares, thus increasing ridership and ultimately making more income.

"The Rochester system, which expects to run a surplus for the third year in a row, has been able to reduce its one-ride fare in part by eliminating some low-trafficked routes, avoiding debt and aggressively raising revenues from other sources. The fare fell to $1 from $1.25 on Sept. 1."

Concurrently, the Rochester system made some creative arrangements with local public schools, colleges and private businesses, all of whom have students or employees who use the system extensively, to help subsidize transit operations.

In contrast, this morning King County Metro announced that it will be adding new bus routes and more frequent service to keep up with rising transit demand, and “revising” bus service for 22 other routes. To support the service expansion Metro has already had to raise fares 25 cents, and another 50-cent increase is in the works. As Rochester's approach demonstrates, higher fares lead to lower ridership, bringing lower revenues, which launches us once again into the vicious cycle of crowded buses, unreliable schedules, and a less pleasant bus experience.

Obviously there are great differences of scale - Rochester’s Regional Transit Service carries 15 million riders a year, which is a fraction of the King County ridership. But as economic hard times have reduced tax revenues and increased demand for government transit subsidies, Rochester's unusual approach to transit may provide valuable lessons for larger cities that are having trouble balancing increasing demand with reasonable fares. Like Seattle.

Thanks to RocBike for the sweet photo taken on a Rochester bus.

Twilight Zoning

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels recently rolled out his latest proposal to increase development in the City of Seattle while ostensibly benefiting the affected communities. The plan creates a structure for a voluntary trade off: developers would be asked to create or pay for new affordable housing in exchange for lucrative land-use changes. Basically, the proposal would require developers to convert 11% of increased height into affordable housing. The legislation won't change building heights anywhere, but it would establish how developers can take advantage of greater building height allowances in the future.

Puget Sound SAGE (Seattle Alliance for Good Jobs and Housing for Everyone) called a community meeting last Friday, September 11, to dissect the proposed plan. SAGE, an up-and-coming coalition of labor, faith and community organizations, is coming off of a successful three-year effort which created the landmark Community Benefits Agreement guaranteeing culturally sensitive development and 200 units of affordable-housing in the rapidly changing Little Saigon neighborhood.

Around 75 people showed up at the Columbia City Library to learn about incentive zoning from local development experts, and to hear a detailed analysis of the Mayor's proposal. The organizers made it perfectly clear that while they support increasing density as an important means of creating urban communities, curbing traffic and reducing greenhouse gases, the City could do much more for its citizens in exchange for instituting zoning changes that make development far more lucrative.

The general feeling at the meeting was that the Mayor's proposed incentive program does very little to create affordable housing in neighborhoods where it's most needed. Given the option, most developers will make the choice that least affects their bottom line - either paying a fee to build low-income housing in distant locations, or designing smaller projects to avoid the costs altogether. Unsurprisingly, many developers are arguing that any legislated community benefit is too much. In cities where zoning has worked well to create affordable housing - including New York City, San Francisco, and Boston - the rules have not been voluntary but rather require that a given share of new construction be affordable to people with low to moderate incomes.

Adding insult to injury, Mayor Nickels' current proposal provides primarily "workforce housing," or homes for people making up to 100% of Seattle's median income - around $77,000. By any measure there is already an abundance of such housing in Seattle. What we really need is a strategy to build housing for poor people within existing communities.

Seattle area developers will make a presentation to the Seattle City Council on Sept. 24, and the only public hearing on the matter is scheduled for October 7. Every Seattle resident who has an interest in the future of their neighborhood and who believes that the creation of affordable housing is a necessity, should come to this meeting to demand that any new laws work to meet the housing needs of people in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, and don't just open up further opportunities for massive give-aways to powerful developers.

Stuff that Trash

After a brief lull, the City of Seattle's aggressive attack on homeless encampments is raging forward once again. This morning, a crew of city parks employees wearing haz-mat suits with respirators and goggles tramped through the greenbelt on the west slope of Queen Anne Hill to clear three homeless encampments at which an estimated 35 people were living. To read the story in the Seattle P-I you'd never know that these encampments had been the homes of human beings. Rather, the story refers repeatedly to "debris such as old mattresses and tarps, open cans of rotting food, bottles of urine and countless used syringe needles."

The City pulled a similar stunt last fall when crews went through the same area destroying tents and throwing out belongings without posting notice, but leaving mountains of trash behind. They then invited press to see and photograph the trash, which was used to justify their actions. By every account, there are simply not enough beds in the city's shelters to absorb the people whose camps are being "cleaned up" - not that the city made an effort to place them. The propaganda issued by the Mayor's Office, and repeated uncritically by the city's news outlets, simply references the trash and the cleanup, and rarely mentions the people whose meager belongings have now been destroyed.

Tim Harris, the publisher of Real Change newspaper, has gone to heroic lengths to put a human face to this story. As the city's media machine churns out a stream of lies and half-truths, Tim's blog, Apesma's Lament, has become the single most vital source for accurate and timely information about this situation.

In protest of the City's policies, Tim and Real Change are organizing a tent city at Seattle City Hall on June 8-9. Download the flier here and spread the word.

Tales from the Count

I was up all night on the 25th, writing the press releases for the Annual One Night Count of the Homeless, and transcribing the stories of the volunteers who did the counting. Between myself and three other writers, we gathered hundreds of stories, only a tiny handful of which made it into the official press. The most interesting people to speak with are the ones who have heard about the count from friends or through the media, and are volunteering for the first time. They really have very little idea of what to expect, and have no clue as to how many people they are going to see on the streets or what kinds of makeshift provisions they've made for themselves. These are some random quotes from counters. There are literally hundreds more.

I didn't expect to see anyone, but I found a man in a doorway sleeping in a sleeping bag. He asked me for an aspirin.

We talked to a walker and he asked us what we were doing,. When we told him, he wanted us to tell him whether it was going to help him to get housing. He's upset at all the condos that are being built, but no affordable housing. "When we lay down we're harassed by peole who tell you to move somewhere else. And there are markets being built around the condos, by Paul Allen, but those aren't for us."

We were counting under a freeway, and we found a guy, then we realized that it was one of our clients. He invited us back to his campsite. He had a mattress, sleeping bag, some boxes of food and other belongings, it was pretty well stocked. There are other people living in that area in other campsites, and there's an agreement among them that they won't touch each other's stuff. So they go off during the day, and no one messes with their stuff. He said "you're my first guests." He said that they all need more services, and we had the impression that if he had other options, he would definitely not be living there.

In one area near a freeway there was a D.O.T. sign that said "no trespassing." On it someone had written "Fuck you D.O.T., I want my stuff back."

We counted someone on the premises of a building, and the building security guard said "oh yeah, I let them sleep here. I just tell them they have to get out in the morning, even though I know that building management doesn't want them around."

I found most of the people in loading docks. I didn't see people where I expected to, in parks and places like that. I found them in loading docks.

I was counting in a wooded area where I checked one week ago, with lots of bushes with campsites behind them. I went last night, and the bushes have been cleared and there are no more campsites. I found 2 people's ID's and food stamp cards that had been placed up on a concrete wall, so that when people came back they could find them. I found tarps and tennis shoes, but the place has been cleared.

I was going along and didn't think I'd see many people, but when I finished I counted 32 people spread out through the area.

I saw one kid who looked about 15 years old.

One guy had his electric blanket plugged in at a construction site. That was pretty smart.

John Iwasaki, a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer joined one of the Count teams and wrote a positive, sensitive and unusually accurate report about the Count for the morning paper. Thanks to Scott Eklund of the P-I for the photo.

Counting the Uncounted

Gurldogg is one of the 700 volunteers who will be out on streets on the early morning of January 25th in an attempt to count the number of homeless people sleeping outside in King County. Since 1980, the local non-profit Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness (SKCCH) has organized the annual One Night Count in order to establish the actual number of homeless individuals and families who are sleeping unsheltered. On the same night, the King County Department of Community Services coordinates a survey of all homeless people utilizing shelters and transitional housing, to capture the number of all people using overnight services.

The numbers can vary from year to year for any number of reasons, but usually hover around the 10,000 mark. That is, on any given sub-freezing January night, there are about 10,000 people sleeping unsheltered in King County. Being part of the Count, and attaching human beings to the often abstract statistics surrounding homelessness, is a profound experience.

Tim Harris of Real Change newspaper is one of the most consistently eloquent advocates for the rights of homeless people in our city. He has a new blog posting referencing the count and urging Seattle residents to attend a public hearing on January 28 against new City of Seattle regulations which would further de-humanize the people in the most dire need of help. From Tim:

“It is unacceptable to allow the work of ending homelessness to be confused with the systematic practice of eradicating the evidence. By harassing homeless campers out of the city, we only deepen their misery and decrease the odds that they will ever find the services they need. This week, Seattle will hold the Annual One Night Homeless Count. More than 700 volunteers will fan out through the city in the middle of the night to assess whether we’re winning or losing the war. By turning the fight against homelessness into an attack upon the homeless themselves, the Mayor has undermined the integrity of the longest-running, most sophisticated homeless count effort in the nation.This is profoundly sad. And sadder still if he gets away with it.”

This blog entry from 2007 gives a summary of last year's Count, and a passionate explanation of why it matters.

Belltown Now & Then

Local scribe Clark Humphrey, the redoubtable Seattle scholar behind Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story and the essential Seattle blog miscmedia, has now published "Seattle's Belltown." The book is the latest title in the Images of America series (celebrating "the history of neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country") and features hundreds of historical photographs of this ever-changing neighborhood on the edge of Seattle's downtown. Humphey, a Belltown resident, doesn't lament a vanished past so much as he takes a long view of this restless quarter. "Alexander Calder's Eagle sculpture may have landed here, but Belltown's official metallic bird is still the crane of the construction variety."

Part skeptic, part optimist, and always carefully observant, Belltown is fortunate to have a resident chronicler like Humphrey. This Friday, January 11, he is giving a talk and showing images from the new book at the Form/Space Atelier, 2407 1st Ave., in Belltown. 6:00 pm.

“Cleaning Up” the Homeless

A rapidly evolving story in the City of Seattle has been the stepped-up campaign to rid the city's greenbelts and parks of homeless encampments by destroying or dumping the residents' personal belongings.

The Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness says it has received reports from a dozen sites where people's belongings were destroyed, sometimes without notice. Adding insult to injury, the notices that were posted at the camps had an non-functioning city phone number to contact for help.

Alison Eisinger, the Director of the Seattle King County Coalition for the Homeless said that "people who were camped out in several different locations had everything they needed for survival, their tents, their sleeping bags, cooking equipment, removed and destroyed. It is immoral to evict people from where they are struggling to survive without providing meaningful alternatives."

Real Change, Seattle’s street newspaper, is circulating a petition against the city’s “clean up” activities which they are going to present to the city council on Monday. Sign it here and pass it on.

On Thursday, City of Seattle Human Services Director Patricia McInturff clarified the city’s position. Sort of. “Until an new encampment abatement protocol, that incorporates existing city law, is finalized the City of Seattle will continue to address encampment complaints and removal in the same way that we have for the last several years…Abatement procedures will vary depending on the urgency of the problem and the campsite location. We will continue to evaluate each situation on a case by case basis.

In consultation with the law department we are reviewing all current laws related to encampments. Once that process is concluded [Dept of Neighborhoods Director] Stella Chao and I will invite a group of stakeholders to meet with us and provide input on an updated protocol. Sorry for the confusion --- the City is committed to a humane and consistent approach.”

In his typically smart and bitter manner, blogger Tim Harris responds by taking a poll on his website “apesma’s lament,” asking if McInturff is “high on crack” or “has the mayor’s back.” Vote here.

It is simply unconscionable that Seattle's homeless people should lose their few worldly possessions in the name of neighborhood “clean-ups.” Throwing away the sad remnants of someone’s life is cruel and heartless, offering no hope and no help for the people who need it most.

As this editorial in the Seattle P-I explains: “We hope the new plan of action will reflect that Seattle is better than this. After all, how a city treats its least fortunate speaks volumes about its true nature -- more so than an endless row of shiny skyscrapers, big-deal parades and the swankiest of amenities ever could.”