Attentive readers of the Seattle Times may have seen the Nov. 12 editorial entitled “Refocus Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness in King County.” The op-ed notes that the number of homeless people in King County has risen since the plan commenced in 2006, and it applauds a proposal from United Way to supplement long-term strategies with more immediate mitigation efforts.
“Under pressure from advocates,” the editorial states, “the Committee to End Homelessness … is wisely re-evaluating its strategy to reduce the count of unsheltered homeless people and improve conditions in emergency shelter.”
Part of that pressure has been the Occupy CEHKC campaign that began two years ago.
Every three months, the governing board of the Committee to End Homelessness King County holds a meeting, attended by the top leadership of the public-private partnership in charge of the Ten Year Plan. And nearly every one of these has been attended by large, dissatisfied groups of activists who have marched there from their encampment in a downtown public park the night before.
The first time Real Change filed a permit to camp out in Westlake Park, we were less than a year out from the “illegal” Occupy encampments, and we did not anticipate that our request would be well received. We could hold our protest, said the parks department, but regulations clearly state no overnight camping is allowed.
Oddly, we could have legally slept on the sidewalks across the street in front of Nordstrom, and we were prepared to do that if push came to shove. But we believe that public parks are not just sites for recreational events. We believe that parks are also meant for speech and that a public protest encampment was First Amendment activity.
A small group of lawyers, led by the indefatigable Lisa Daugaard of The Defender Association, worked feverishly to have a federal court brief prepared so that we were ready when the parks denial came. Just days before our event, Braden Pence stood before Judge Richard Jones in U.S. District Court to argue Real Change vs. City of Seattle.
Braden was up against three lawyers for the city and a federal court judge, and the ink on his own law degree was hardly dry.
Truth, however, will sometimes prevail, and against all apparent odds, we won. Judge Jones issued a Temporary Restraining Order to allow our protest encampment. Every three months thereafter, the Parks Department granted similar requests for protest encampments while further litigation was pending.
Braden soon found a job as a public defender, and the Washington ACLU stepped in to quietly finish the work he and others began. We entered into settlement negotiations, and overnight presence in parks may now be considered “expressive activity.”
The new downtown parks use-management guidelines allow protest encampments in downtown parks for up to 48 consecutive hours, not to exceed once every 30 days at any one park, with a maximum of five canopies, not to exceed 10-by-10 feet. These rule changes went into effect last month.
We’re delighted that, with the help of the ACLU and the cooperation of the Parks Department and the city, we have expanded free speech rights in the City of Seattle. We’re also happy to have spared all concerned the time and expense of further litigation.
And, finally, we’re happy to see that protest works and that the encampments, the marches, the silent vigils, and the steady pressure kept up over time has finally gotten the message across: “Without Shelter, People Die.”
The change we’re looking for isn’t here yet, but bit by bit, one small step at a time, it’s coming.