Thanks to a CHS reader for the picture from the scene
A work crew cleaned out an encampment in Volunteer Park Tuesday. The area had been taped off an marked as a biohazard after a bod was found dead at the camp last week.
According to East Precinct and Seattle Fire radio updates, a dead body was found inside the tent beneath a tree along the park trail just east of the Seattle Asian Art Museum.
Seattle Police were called to the park just before 5 PM Friday and called Seattle Fire to the scene for the “DOA” victim. The area was not locked down as a crime scene which is typical if there are signs of trauma or a suspicious death.
We are following up with SPD, SFD, and the county coroner to learn more about the investigation.
UPDATE: Seattle Fire says the person who died was a 35-year-old man who was “found deceased.”
While unusual, bodies of people camping and living unhoused have occasionally been recovered from Capitol Hill area parks. In 2016, CHS reported on two bodies found in separate areas of Interlaken Park and covered a father’s search for his son who had been struggling with addiction and homelessness that led to the discovery.
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Until there are 0 tents in Seattle, the city should focus on literally nothing else.
0 tent policy needs to be the biggest priority of any elected official.
We need a citywide camping ban and a focus on congregate shelters. The state needs to step up with a lot more beds in mental hospitals and drug treatment facilities.
Yup, and whatever it takes to raise the funds needs to be spent. There’s 0 excuse to allow for this stuff to go on for as long as it has.
Addiction, medical and mental health, all of these are addressable. City can’t do it alone (States can’t either). Needs to be State + federal + local all addressing this, literally before anything else.
Otherwise, we’ll fast turn into the failed states we see in LATAM and others, where Favelas and Gated communities, private securities, etc. are accepted as norm leading to a failed society.
They cannot just play tent whack-a-mole though, they also need to be focused on adding tons of long-term shelter and affordable housing. The current options are often inadequate, many people are only offered a few days in a shelter and no place for any of their belongings. Most people also require much more medical attention (mental health, drug addiction, along with health issues of living on the street) than many of these services can provide.
It will also require addressing the underlying issues that are causing people to camp. Part of it is that we’re still in the middle of the largest pandemic in 100 years after just experiencing the fastest population growth in Seattle since the gold rush. The other part is that homelessness is a regional problem. It’s too early to see if the regional task force will have enough of an impact, but state and federal assistance with social and mental health services would make a big impact.
This is a literally insane take lmao
Thank you for following this story. My condolences to this man’s friends and family.
I talk with many people living on the streets and in parks around Capitol Hill, some are unable or unwilling to talk, but most are more than happy to chat, and many like to share their stories. There’s a common theme in their stories, they feel like outsiders in some way. Many struggle with a world that’s increasingly shifting online/virtual, or with a society that seems more intent on going to space than saving this planet. I met one young man with literal baggage, as many ikea bags as he could carry full of perfectly good items he found in dumpsters that he couldn’t comprehend why they were there. Our greatest strength as a species is our variability of experiences and ideas, and the ability to share them with others and future generations. People living outside and in tents have incredible insight on our societies/communities, and while we should definitely think of it as a public health problem and try to support efforts to house everyone, we need to do so in a way that treats these people with dignity and values their experiences.