With reporting by Alex Garland

You might forgive Seattle residents circa 2023 for being a little skeptical. Some community efforts in the city reek of politics and preying on the city’s least fortunate to make the case for crackdowns and arrests.

But Caring for Capitol Hill is no Safe Seattle or any of the other groups in the city that have emerged from the pandemic mixing public safety activism with volunteer efforts.

Sunday, CHS found volunteers with the loosely organized Caring for Capitol Hill group working with neighbors and a few representatives from nearby businesses and buildings to clean up the area around Nagle Place and Cal Anderson Park.

Matt Bechle, a graduate research assistant at the University of Washington, was there and said he started picking up trash around the park during the pandemic and with support from Seattle Public Utilities has turned the clean-ups into regular community events. Bechle says he mostly focuses on trash but occasionally finds something hazardous like needles that needs to be safely removed or reported. Sometimes people looking for work ask him if he is hiring. Sometimes he says the volunteers can help connect someone who needs help to services. But, mostly, it’s about picking up wrappers and cans and putting them in Audobon Society-provided trash bags.

Unlike the activist community groups that have proliferated with social media efforts used as a platform for distributing everything from screeds against the Seattle City Council to bizarre put-downs of celebrities like Madonna, the Caring for Capitol Hill Facebook Group is used pretty much only for organizing clean-ups. Anybody can join. And, so far, at least, nobody has posted about Madonna.

Bechle and the volunteers were joined Sunday by employees from Capitol Hill developer and property manager Hunters Capital. For some in the city and for those part of the CHOP protest camps around Cal Anderson, that might also put Caring for Capitol Hill into a skeptical light but Bechle said that it made sense to combine efforts as Hunters adopted Nagle Place for its own community clean-up efforts. The overlooked street adjacent the Hunters-owned Broadway Building has remained mostly neglected by the city despite new development stretching along Broadway and Capitol Hill Station that was hoped to transform it to a friendlier, more walkable environment.

While groups like Safe Seattle, Unified Seattle, and Neighborhood Safety Alliance have gained attention for their activism, other community groups have made real differences in small ways to help a city that struggles with enough resources. Last month, CHS checked in with one example as Seattle Street Fixers set about clearing pedestrian space and bike lanes from overgrowth of plants, roots, leaves, and debris along E Madison.

As for Caring for Capitol Hill, the group has grown to about 30 members. Clean-ups of Cal Anderson and the nearby are planned to continue on second Sundays. There is room, of course, for you to get involved.

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.