(Image: @parkupine via Instagram)
Capitol Hill’s tiny Williams Place Park was the latest public space to be cleared of tents and personal belongings as homeless encampment sweeps continue in Seattle.
The treed square at 15th and John was swept Thursday, Seattle Parks confirms. The park will now be closed through June 17th “in order for Parks and Recreation staff to address any damage to the park and reestablish vegetation,” a spokesperson tells CHS.
Thursday’s clearance follows a mid-May sweep of Broadway Hill Park and a much larger clearance effort in April at Miller Playfield as the nearby Meany Middle School prepared to welcome students back for in-person learning after months of at-home instruction during the COVID-19 crisis.
As it has cleared the parks where encampments formed during the pandemic, the city has also provided public safety justifications for the clearances. At Williams Place Park where camping has been a regular issue in recent years, the city says the Seattle Police Department and the Seattle Fire Department “responded to the general vicinity around the encampment located at Williams Place at least 39 times over the past six months, 19 of these calls were for tent fires, or other illegal burns. Additionally, the Fire Alarm Center was advised of 5 additional illegal burns at the encampment.” CHS reported on one fire at the encampment in March. In January, police investigated a stabbing involving a victim living in the park.
As in the Broadway Hill and Miller sweeps, the city says it stepped up outreach efforts prior to posting notice of Thursday’s work to remove any remaining tents, camp supplies, and garbage from the park:
For over a week, the HOPE Team, a City of Seattle program within the Human Services Department that coordinates homelessness outreach and referrals to shelter, has been coordinating outreach efforts with providers to those living unhoused on Williams Place Park. Shelter resources offered by outreach providers included wraparound services such as behavioral and mental health, case management, and housing navigation, to help end a persons experience with homelessness.
The city spokesperson sasy “five individuals residing onsite” received referrals to shelter — three to the Executive Hotel Pacific, one to the Interbay Tiny Home Village, and one to Bridge Shelter. Seattle’s ongoing “shelter surge” includes leasing rooms in two downtown hotels.
Officials say so far in 2021, the city’s Homelessness Outreach and Provider Ecosystem (HOPE) Team in partnership with outreach providers has made at least 465 referrals to shelter. “A referral indicates that an individual experiencing homelessness has accepted an offer of shelter and they have been connected to an open shelter resource,” the city spokesperson said. Since the end of March, over 225 referrals have been into new hotel-based resources.
City policy requires sweep workers to store two bins of any personal items left behind. “People can retrieve their items by calling 206-459-9949 and the City will work with individuals to make arrangements to deliver items,” the city says.
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It’s about time.
Neat. Explains why the daycare near by had some lovely folks camping out in the doorway that afternoon
This is the right thing to do, that “park” is essentially a hub for the whole area; needs to be a public space for all (not a private space for someone claiming it for months on end)
Good for 15th! The drug use was out of control. The neighborhood needs to heal!
People living on the park wasn’t stopping you from using it. The city closing it for two weeks is stopping you from using.
Those houseless people still exist even if you can’t see them in the park right now. Referrals don’t equal safety and quality of life.
What about everyone else’s safety and quality of life. How many people have to be accosted by violent, mentally ill or drug-addicted homeless people before this misdirected compassion is put to an end. The public sphere is for everyone, and letting the homeless take over our parks and sidewalks isn’t the answer. Just ask the guy who was attacked, robbed, and had his dog kicked to death by a homeless guy downtown. Not to mention the judge who set him free the next day. The city’s entire system is broken.
I never said I didn’t care about the safety and quality of life of everyone. And I never said what the answer was. Of course there is massive complexity. My expression of empathy for the houseless and that referrals are not the all up solution (as proven by the fact that referrals happen yet issues persist), seems have elicited a backlash of anti-empathy. What I also didn’t do was use an unattributed example of a houseless person’s crimes to indict all houseless people by extension. I could now point to hundreds of examples of people with housing who commit vile crimes but that would not be an indictment of people with housing because people in any group are not a monolith.
“Referrals don’t equal safety and quality of life..”
Actually, they do, IF the person actually follows through and gets to the shelter, and stays there to take advantage of the “wrap-around services.”
Unless they aren’t sufficient for that person, in which case they are just an excuse to arrest them. The consequences of that part is on us.
Arrest them for what? SPD has too many other things to deal with to arrest someone not able to get sufficient wraparound services.
HOUSELESS! There, I feel much better now.
Imagine comparing such a minor inconvenience to the hellscape of homelessness. This is why god abandoned us.
Referrals do improve safety and quality of life for all the other residents of our neighborhood, who deserve the opportunity to use that park as it was designed.
I never said I didn’t care about the residents of the neighborhood. The neighborhood includes houseless people.
And I suppose to you being allowed to inhabit parks where they are setting themselves on fire, being stabbed and killing themselves with drugs does equate to safety and quality of life???
You’re putting words in my mouth and yelling at yourself.
nope – that’s exactly what you said…. your form of compassion disgusts me.
Don’t forget trips to Safeway to shoplift.
Zach, what are you talking about? A referral indicates that an individual has accepted an offer for housing. They are invited to move into a hotel purchased by the city. Their room has electricity, hot water, heat/ac. Furthermore they are provided with opportunities to take advantage of multiple support and counseling services. Actually these sweeps result in much more humane treatment of suffering people.
Referrals are a start, not a guarantee. And not everyone gets a referral.
The part you are calling humane has nothing to do with sweeps. It’s just happening, in a limited way, at the same time as them. One does not require the other.
What about the rest of f us? No compassion?
You need compassion?
“Referrals don’t equal safety and quality of life”. Neither does living in a city park. I spotted the person who stole some expensive items from a local business, living in the park (they were caught on camera). Is this quality of life? Living in ruined and unsanitary city parks is your solution?
Living in a tent in a park does not equal safety and quality of life. What was your point, again?
They were already moving back in as of 5PM Thursday (yes the same day as the sweep). Unless there is constant pressure to keep people out they will all be back soon.
This is long overdue. It is insane that the city let a bunch of drug addicts, most of whom arrived in Seattle homeless, privatize and destroy the parks. We need new leadership in this city.
Spot on!
Exactly
So happy to have the park back.
You don’t have the park back! The city literally closed the park!
Well, as you should know if you were at all informed, the closure is a temporary measure until the park can be cleaned up and the grass re-planted.
long overdue. parks are for everyone, not for people to live in.
Are the people living in the park not part of everyone? Do you think this sweep has solved homelessness and people will stop living in parks because the city threw five people’s belongings into the trash?
As you should know if you were at all informed, the City’s policy is to store all personal belongings at a location where they can be retrieved by the homeless person.
Unfortunately they frequently do not follow through, despite this policy.
That’s too bad. I hope they find another place nearby.
I hope they leave Seattle and go back where they came from.
Really intelligent comment…if you would actually bother to take a look at the statistics, you would find out that a significant number of “they” (the people that you’d prefer to just disappear) are actually from Seattle/King County. Where “they came from” doesn’t exist/is not affordable anymore.
In a way, I agree. Let red states deal with them.
….you mean.. Seattle?
Man, this is really messed up. This does not do anything to actually solve the problem of houselessness. Provide actual housing for houseless people or leave them the f alone. All you people applauding sweeps are disgusting. You’re actively applauding the displacement of people in poverty trying to survive. The city provides bullshit propped up programs that don’t actually work as any long term solution and just use the number of referrals to act like they’re trying, but they’re not. Trying would be giving houseless people housing. The amount of stories I’ve heard of houseless people constantly moved and having their belongings (including medication, food, necessities) tossed in the trash or moved to these sad excuses of “storage” they say they’re providing. Sometimes people have medical conditions and literally cannot walk to the nearby shelters. Many people don’t want to be on the street. Wake the fuck up, sweeps are only hurting your neighbors. And yes, the people in poverty on the street ARE your neighbors
Same lecture different day.
Reminds me of nuns smacking children with rulers. “Submit, submit. Feel guilty. Submit.”
You know where my compassion lies? With the 67 year old man whose dog was kicked to death last week by a homeless man. The older man said in a Seattle Times article that the dog “was all he had”.
Enough of this fantasy game some of you are playing where you ignore the very real negative impact these homeless encampments our having in our neighborhoods.
No. The City of Seattle has no obligation to house anyone beyond those convicted of crimes. No — applauding sweeps is humane, not disgusting. No – these urban campers are hurting my neighbors. And no — by definition these people are transients, not neighbors. These transients need help. Some back into productive society. Some into society’s safety nets. Encampments of growing lawless squalor are not productive and they are not safe. Protecting public spaces from private takings is humane and reasonable.
And from whence should they expect this help to arrive? We aren’t offering sufficient help of the type you are describing. We just say we are. That isn’t the same thing. You mention safety nets. Those nets are torn and frayed. It’s one of the reasons people end up resorting to desperate situations. The safety nets don’t do what we need them to do because they don’t exist. Fix that first, then worry about “protecting” spaces.
Seattle needs to put in place and enforce a no camping policy like Denver. Get people into emergency shelters with services and on a path toward housing and stable lives. Fifty percent will not like that there is no longer a right to occupy city parks, green belts and business districts and will move back to their city of origin or think twice about coming here in the first place. This will free up resources to rapidly re-house the other fifty percent. Seattle is a wealthy and compassionate city, but no amount of money will solve the homelessness and drug crisis on the current path. The USA is a broken society, but Seattle and west coast cities cannot and should not act as the emergency room for the entire country. It is unsustainable.
giving houseless people housing would probably create tens of thousands of newly “houseless” people, don’t you think?
I do not understand how providing former hotel rooms for people living in tents in a park with no toilet facilities is messed up. A private room with a bathroom sure sounds superior to a tent or underpass for anyone, especially those with medical conditions that cannot walk to a shelter. What do you propose…a single family home in the suburbs?
“ This does not do anything to actually solve the problem of houselessness.”
How specifically does letting people privatize our public assets by claiming park space for privately owned tents solve the problem? The answer is it doesn’t. So if I’m left choose between not solving the problem and reclaiming our public parks or not solving the problem and letting what in many cases are violent criminals trash our parks I’ll choose the former.
If if anyone needs to “wake the fuck up” it is you. These are not our neighbors, they a predatory criminals who migrate here because they know they can commit just about any crime they want without penalty. They come here from Reno, Alaska, Idaho, California and other places specifically because they know the politicians and homeless advocates will protect their right to victimize. They can prowl cars and break into houses and businesses with impunity. The police won’t investigate those crimes and even if they are caught in the act Pete Holmes won’t prosecute. They have a target rich environment to steal and use the money to feed their addictions. They don’t even have to use their ill gotten gains for basic necessities because they can just steal from the grocery stores and employees and businesses are helpless to do anything.
The reason seattle has a massively disproportionate number of homeless for our population size when compared to other major cities isn’t because of Amazon or any of the BS we are fed. It’s directly tied to the decisions being made by our politicians. Hard working law abiding citizens are being left to fend for ourselves as our idiot politicians and profiteers in the homeless industrial complex allow us to be repeatedly victimized for their personal political or financial gain.
So yes it is time to for a lot of people to “wake the fuck up” but it’s not those who understand what’s really happening and it’s not those who have been victimized by these encampment dwellers.
Tucker? Is that you?
Yeah, it’s totally Tucker, you caught me.
Want to know my presidential voting record, Clinton (Bill, second term), Al Gore, John Kerry, Obama 2X, Clinton (Hillary, reluctantly) and Joe Biden. It’s insane that I am being accused of being aligned with Tucker now. Shows how far off the rails this city has gone. I really wish the Democrats weren’t in such a rush to follow the Republicans down the rat hole of ideological purity. Purging different view points worked so well for them didn’t it?
The reality of this situation is that it’s going to take a variety of strategies to both help people and protect our citizens. The carrots are there to the tune of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars every year but we refuse to use the stick at all. At what point do voters start to pull their heads out of their collective asses and ask, do these people actually have a solution? Hundreds of millions of dollars, 5+ years of the same council, same activists, same non-profits and leadership and yet the problem is worse now. More homeless on our streets, more garbage in our parks, more property crimes, and more violence committed by transients. Can you really tell me the policies being pursued by the SCC and Pete Holmes are working?
We’ll never fix these problems if just over half the city voters (looking at council elections its about 55%) won’t even look up and acknowledge that there are real problems with these encampments and that our leadership is continually failing us.
Your comment is spot-on!
Apparently, all the homeless have come here from Reno and they are predatory…
And you don’t like CHOP…
Thanks for that…
Homelessness/poverty has only one solution. Steal it from those who have and give it to those who don’t. Societies that try to implement this solution, always implode. Adversity breeds resilience. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help people, but there’s a limit and that help should be given by choice, not mandated.
The military industrial complex has stolen trillions and trillions. Many people disagree it but nothing has been done to stop the stealing.
The ground in the park is now completely bare dirt as a result of the extended camping. Since it’s a shaded area, it’s going to take a long time for the grass to grow back in, if it even does.
I only just caught the bus there yesterday and saw the state of it the park: one person was wrapped in a blanket sleeping on a bench, and another had a shop set up opposite the hospital. Otherwise, the park looked pretty worn, and there was still a dumpster and additional bin off to the side, as well as leftover “caution” tape / streamers fluttering in the breeze.
I hope that the people who accepted placement and services are treated well and get a better chance. As bad as it is being outside when it’s cold, it’s starting to heat up and that has it’s own issues. Eek.
I’ve never been homeless and here’s hoping I never am. While I was sad about the encampment, the idea of being homeless during a pandemic was more horrifying than it usually is.
And while the park will be prettier in a bit, I’ve been more likely to see people who don’t seem sober, or possibly homeless, making use of it over the years than not. The tent village was new to me, but not all that surprising considering.
Still, here’s hoping that the folks who accepted referrals make it through the system for the better, and that said system gets tweaked for improvement as time goes on.
We need legal campgrounds, with kitchen and sanitation facilities on site. I normally am skeptical of sweeps, but camping in this park was especially dangerous due to its small size and dense surroundings (including a supermarket with its attendant rats). When people don’t have access to proper cooking appliances they are going to improvise them with Sterno and the like, and an out-of-control fire in this tightly surrounded space could be catastrophic. Give people who want to camp a place to go that’s safe, spacious and well-managed, and the vast majority of park campers will go there. This dismal pocket-park could not possibly be a comfortable place to camp, even for those few who actually enjoy urban camping.
I guess this explains the sudden new influx of people in Tashkent Park.
And the tents are back…
I can’t think of any another wealthy country that allows people to camp in parks while also putting them up in hotels. Or what on earth the reason could be to live in a park vs a hotel.
Sadly, two tents are already back up. (Seen today, Sunday.) I hope they are promptly cleared so that the park can be reclaimed for public use.
Yea that didn’t last long. Two big tents at the park today
Those that refuse services should get a bus ticket back to their home city handed out by the the dump truck driver that clears the park.
How do you know they’re from out of town? Have you talked to them or are there other clues?