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Dispatch from the Seattle Homeless Scene
For months, residents of Seattle’s Northgate neighborhood have been lodging complaints with the city about a homeless “camp” by the side of Interstate 5 near an onramp. More than one fire has occurred at that location and nearby businesses have been threatened by “campers.” KOMO News has a story on the cleanup of the camp [emphasis mine]:
Seattle’s Navigation Team spearheaded the cleanup with help from WSDOT crews and Seattle Police. They arrived at 9 a.m. Wednesday and cleared the lot by the early afternoon, offering resources to the campers who were forced to leave.
“I have a lot of anxiety,” Benjamin Eddy said. He’s been living in the Northgate encampment since it started. He’s been homeless for four years, battling drug addiction.
“I’m used to this,” he said. “They come here and they sweep the camps, and then we squish like a ketchup packet, and then we somehow come back together again. They need to find some better solutions, I know that.”
But many neighbors were excited to see the cleanup.
“It’s a big relief,” Jessie Singh said. He owns the Chevron across the street and says campers trespassed, harassed customers and one even threatened him.
“I asked him to leave, but instead of leaving he pulled a knife on me,” Singh said.
Neighbors complained to the City for weeks, some feeling ignored. But the City says planning a cleanup like this takes time. They had to bring in several agencies and special crews to clear needles, hazardous waste and trash. They even scraped the soil to clear waste.
…Under City rules, the Navigation Team had shelter beds available to every person cleared out of the encampment. They say, as of Wednesday afternoon, only one person took them up on that offer.
Some neighbors are concerned the campers will come back to that empty lot or another nearby. Eddy agreed, saying he would join them if the tents return.
“Not right away,” he said. “But I probably would if I knew I could get away with it.”
The main reason this got cleaned up was that it was on Washington state DOT property.
Very polite, those members of Seattle’s Navigation Team. If a vagrant does not agree to go to a shelter, he cannot be made to. No consequences.
Published in Culture
City Journal has an excellent article on the Seattle Homeless problem:
Seattle Under Siege
Record numbers of homeless people are occupying the city’s public spaces, despite massive government spending to fight the problem.
Christopher F. Rufo
Autumn 2018
” the Seattle metro area spends more than $1 billion fighting homelessness every year. That’s nearly $100,000 for every homeless man, woman, and child in King County, yet the crisis seems only to have deepened, with more addiction, more crime, and more tent encampments in residential neighborhoods.”
The author appeared on a City Journal 10 Blocks Podcast here on Ricochet:
http://ricochet.com/podcast/city-journal-10-blocks/seattles-homeless-challenge/
My son lives in Seattle and periodically rides his bike down here. I then drive him home. Those brief exposures to Seattle are usually sufficient to remind me why I love the sanctuary of my dirt road and few neighbors. There are unquestionably good people in Seattle, not the least the ones who belong to Ricochet, However, there are just too many people for my tastes. I moved to Seattle in 1969. I had an apartment on Alki Point (on the waterside) for 5 years during which time I paid $150/month in rent. In 1975 when my son as born I bought a house in Madison Park for $28K. My ex has that house. It is currently worth somewhere north of $2 Million. There is something completely unappealing about that environment and the lunacy that has grown beginning in the early 1980s, not the least being the insanity of the city council and mayor.
Eugene, it looks like we will have to schedule another meetup in Centralia for the Portland and Seattle folks. The last one was great fun. In April, I will be driving down the Oregon coast on vacation, and maybe we could have a mini meetup somewhere.
I was in Seattle on Monday. It was actually pretty nice. Traffic wasn’t bad, the sky was blue. But you know what? I used the lady’s restroom. Because in Seattle, there is no gender.
I was correct again!! Here’s a link to the story describing how the “campers” are starting to return to the previously “cleaned-up” camp near Northgate. Some interesting links inside that story, too, about how members of the City Council are sabotaging the cleanup efforts. These people, elected by the citizens of Seattle, are borderline evil.
Sounds good to me. I am in the Bonney Lake area, east of Tacoma.
You ever go over the Naches Trail?
I used to hike that in winter on occasion on cross country skis, at least when the snowmobiles weren’t too prevalent.