For some of our homeless, why not managed campgrounds?
Many homeless people don't want to be in shelters or the housing officials think they ought to have. So here's an idea: provide campgrounds and revive trailer parks.
There was a time during the westward expansion when the slogan “Go west young man, go west” was often heard. Families and individuals were searching for a future, and the great Northwest offered a new life and opportunity. People came on foot, horseback, by ship and by wagon. They kept coming even after cities were established. They still are.
In the early days most were broke and out of work when they arrived. They camped alongside trails and in wooded areas around town. (As I argue below, there is a lesson in this old practice of informal campgrounds.) They made do as best they could till they found work. With the first pay, boarding houses became temporary home where the bed and fare was simple, but it beat sleeping in Seattle drizzle.
As time passed those who could stand the winter rain found a place in our society, in our culture and economy. A good many started businesses of their own and were the fertilizer that grew the city around them. They didn’t ask for welfare or housing from the city and expected none — which is just as well since there wasn’t any money for civic aid anyway. They changed the culture, even the landscape where we live, not always for the better. Seattle hills were clear-cut of trees and sluiced along with our sewage into Elliott Bay.
The people still come. We no longer have great expanses of ancient timber surrounding our city where the weary immigrant could spread his bedroll. Some have no money and no place to live, and Seattle like most every major city grapples with what to do with such people. Some cities will sweep the streets of the homeless if important visitors or conventions are to occur. Seattle denies the problem part of the time and raids homeless camps under freeways and greenbelts every so often to appear to be doing something.
The most important lesson in dealing with homeless people is to grasp that homelessness exists for many reasons and requires different approaches tailored to these varied populations. Drug addiction, alcoholism, and severe mental problems are just a few of the causes. Others have serious health or physical handicaps. Some may be escaping the law. Others may be like the classic hobo who simply dances to a different drummer and will not live under a roof. There are also far too many folks who have just made a lot of bad decisions and don’t know how to break the cycle. And there are folks who have played by the rules and done everything right but still lost their job and their house and their savings.
There are no simple solutions, just different ones for the different types. Striking a sensible, affordable middle ground between punitive programs and approaches too generous to sustain has seemed to evade our city government. Meanwhile, non profit organizations have created an industry of their own to build and rent low-cost public housing. Government is happy to pass on responsibility to these groups, but few if any of these deal with the true homeless.
The saddest part of all our efforts to deal with homelessness is that we don't understand well enough the differences between the groups. City administrators can’t seem to sit down with the actual homeless people to understand what might work. The most vivid example are tent cities shifting among church yards.
In every group, whether druggies, alcoholics, criminals, or crazy people, there are homeless people we aren’t going to be able to fix. We simply don’t have the tools or money to cure some problems, but we can move on to working with people we can actually help. One category to put first on the list to help is young families with kids who arrive to find jobs, want to work, and get a new start in life.
There are other folks who don’t really want help, not even cash or free apartments to live in. These are folks who have a streak of independence and stubbornness. Some, like those first settlers in an earlier century, simply want to camp out. They can’t stand shelters. There are others who sometimes live in old campers, motor-homes, and converted school buses. Their job options are meager. Sometimes they own dogs and cats to keep them company. Most work as often as they can, but their pay is minimum wage or less. Many are very proud people. Many are very good people. They hate living in group shelters or the kind of housing well-meaning city officials think appropriate for everyone without money. So what should we do for them?
The ones who live in their school buses and campers already believe they live in their own (energy efficient) homes. Some of these folks are transients, others Seattleites like the rest of us. Their presence scares the hell out of Seattle’s new urbanites. Our city and some of our upstanding citizens see their presence as a threat. Without talking to them they assume they are druggies, boozers, criminals, or human trash. Of course there are drug users or alcoholics among this group — in the same proportion as the general population.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Sep 16, 10:07 a.m. inappropriate
When natural disaster makes you homeless you remain respectable. Other causes leave you helpless and outcast. Many respectable, and homeless, Katrina victims are still in government-provided trailer camps. We can do it, when we have the will to do it.
Posted Wed, Sep 16, 10:12 a.m. inappropriate
King County will soon close 39 neighborhood parks in areas ranging from Federal Way to Kirkland, because of a $56 million County budget shortfall. According to a Seattle Times article, "Unless cities, school districts or other public or private agencies agree to take over the parks, ... county workers will put fences around playgrounds, severely reduce maintenance, and lock parking-lot entrances." (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009678437_webparks17m.html)
Instead of closing off the parks to the public, why not invite Nickelsville and other tent cities to move into these parks in return for giving these spaces reliable oversight and a benign human presence?
Nickelsville as well as tent cities #3 and #4 are all strictly governed by their residents, who enforce regulations to ensure that the community remains peaceful and clean. Required criminal background checks exclude sexual predators. In pairs, residents take turns on security duty, which operates 24/7. The encampments are kept clean and orderly. Residents are prohibited from using alcohol or street drugs within the encampments, and from returning there under the influence after partying elsewhere. Tent city residents work hard in fragile circumstances to be good citizens.
Nickelsville, currently camped on Port property on Marginal Way, has been told to move by September 30. Why shouldn't the residents be offered a long-term stay in one of the parks that King County can no longer operate, in return for a commitment to manage and maintain the space? The residents will benefit from being given a chance to use their skills for the well-being of all in the community.
Posted Wed, Sep 16, 10:15 a.m. inappropriate
State law changed this year to require that RVs be allowed in manufactured home parks, equivalent with residential structures. (Meanwhile, under the building code they aren't.)
I can't necessarily agree with Kammerer that the rate of druggies and alcoholics in this group is the same proportion as the general population. Yes, there are some who make "car camping" their lifestyle choice and some who've fallen back on that as their last vestige before living on the streets. However, there are some for whom this is a consequence of their addiction issues, mental health situation, or other problems - represented at a larger degree than in the general population.
Posted Wed, Sep 16, 5:30 p.m. inappropriate
Legally this might be simplest on nearby US Forest Lands, but the logistics of access are costly.
Posted Wed, Sep 16, 9:14 p.m. inappropriate
This dialogue is the closest to a true dialogue that I have read on Crosscut. It used to be relatively easy to suspend judgment and drag in the pieces of the puzzle. Enough whining. What's exciting is seeing how Kent, Brouhaha and debbalee's pieces fit together.
Brouhaha's asute notice of those intriguing security fences that will go up around abandoned parks in need of maintenance.
debbalee's doubt that mental health issues are the same proportion as in the general population all put points to a similar type of "shape up on our nickel deal as offered certain Seattle drug pushers (who are successfully not homeless and would have one in any event).
Onward Crosscut readers!
Posted Wed, Sep 16, 10:14 p.m. inappropriate
Indeed, afreeman - because Kammerer started it all with a terrific article!
Posted Wed, Sep 16, 11:15 p.m. inappropriate
One of the most important things wherever a camp is located, be it a car camp or a tent camp, is proximity to bus lines. Besides appointments that homeless people occasionally have, many of them--sometimes the majority of Tent City 3 or 4's population at a given time, and also Nickelsville--have jobs to get to. They work. It's always been very hard for encampment residents when they move quite a distance from their jobs. Kind of like it would be for us (although most of us have cars). Thus, allowing an encampment of some sort off in the woods really wouldn't work.
A number of localities around the country have finally offered land for car camps or tent cities, where they can stay semi-permanently. Seattle as a city cannot seem to get to that point. Tent City 3 moves around under the aegis of a consent decree that was worked out after the City initiated a court case against TC and El Centro. Will King County under the current temp, or whoever's next elected, be less stringent? If it's Hutchison, probably not.
Posted Thu, Sep 17, 10:05 a.m. inappropriate
Even Walmart lets homeless people (not to mention bona fide RV-ers) park overnight for free in its parking lots nationwide. The fact is, people are parked in their RVs and converted school buses here and there. I notice some, mostly at night on my way home from work because I can hear their generators or see the flicker of a TV set inside some of these vehicles. There are also increasing numbers of people flat-out camping in tents under the viaduct and in other fringy areas. As unemployment grinds on, this increased number of campers may become the new normal. I support the idea of designated camping areas with sanitation and cooking facilities, and abhor the way Nickelsville is chased from one site to the next in a classic case of bureaucratic "kick the can."
Posted Thu, Sep 17, 10:14 a.m. inappropriate
Here's another idea. Livabording at marinas is another grand vagabond tradition. Why not rent a couple of these ghost ships and park them in Elliott Bay to house the homeless?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession-anchored-just-east-Singapore.html
A little fleet of skiffs could ferry folks back and forth to Coleman Dock, which is within an easy stroll of numerous soup kitchens.
Posted Thu, Sep 17, 2:59 p.m. inappropriate
People who are homeless don't go only to soup kitchens. They go to work; they go to doctor appointments; homeless children go to school. They don't want to be parked in Elliott Bay any more than we do. And the houseboats in Elliott Bay are owned by upper-middle-class people now, not vagabonds; they would probaby have something to say to their elected officials about this idea. Stashing people on boats might have worked 40 years ago but not now. They need buildings, or at the least vehicles, on land.