(Image: CHS)

The city has acted quickly to clear the camp of asylum seekers that has filled the Central District’s Powell Barnett Park for the past week.

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office said Tuesday most of the remaining families had already moved out of the park and that any remaining tents and material were to be cleared by 8 AM Thursday morning:

This morning, about 30-35 people were in the park, including mutual aid workers and other people who are helping to break down tents. Our Unified Care Team posted notice that all individuals will need to leave the park by 8 am this Thursday. UCT will provide anyone still remaining at the site at 8 a.m. on Thursday with the option to store any personal belongings and will conduct a thorough cleaning of the site.

Next will come clean-up and any any needed repairs. “Following resolution, the Parks Department will evaluate the park for environmental and hygienic impacts, cleaning and restoring it as necessary to ensure it is available to the broader community for its intended purpose,” the mayor’s office statement reads. Continue reading →

(Image: CHS)

Neighbors, members of the Leschi Community Council, and descendants of the man the park is named for are calling on Mayor Bruce Harrell and the city to act quickly to address health and safety concerns that have grown at the asylum-seeker encampment that formed late last month in the Central District’s Powell Barnett Park.

“How does the city deal with this sort of the emergency?,” Maisha Barnett, granddaughter of Powell S. Barnett asked during a Monday press conference organized to present a call from the community group for the city to provide an immediate response to sanitation and health needs at the park.

“We’re not here to decide whether they need shelter,” Barnett said, trying to put aside larger questions and frustrations that have complicated efforts to help the campers.

The group that spoke Monday is asking the city to act now to bring resources like portable toilets and sinks, better solutions for garbage, and more efforts to coordinate the camp immediately to Powell Barnett while larger questions about immigration and the bureaucratic grind that has created the camp to continue to play out.

UPDATE 4:45 PM: The mayor’s office says it has already started clearing out the camp and is working to remove “families and single adults still remaining. In the statement, the mayor’s office says about 150 people “transitioned from the park and into shelter and housing over the weekend.” The city says it has identified shelter for 40 families from the park. “Following this, we will evaluate the park for environmental and hygienic impacts, cleaning and restoring it as necessary to ensure it is available to the broader community for its intended purpose,” the statement reads.

Continue reading →

The Central District’s Powell Barnett has become the latest landing spot for asylum seekers from Congo, Angola, and Venezuela who have been shuttled from temporary camps to county and donor-supported motel rooms and back again while local governments try to sort out more permanent shelter.

Mutual aid groups announced the new camp location as tents were set up Monday in this Central District park along MLK Way. The new camp is a few blocks east of Garfield Community Center where the group briefly set up tents on the campus tennis courts earlier this month in what turned out to be a one-day camp thanks to a private donation securing enough funding to pay for more nights at the Quality Inn in Kent.

With funds again short, organizers say the group needs tents, blankets, and tarps to make the Powell Barnett camp livable. Continue reading →