The first thing you need to know about Mayor Ed Murray’s new interim action plan on unsheltered homelessness is that it was released after 6 p.m. on a Friday.
When a major policy announcement is timed to bury media response, that’s a sign of something to hide.
It’s also discouraging that the plan consists of measures the mayor’s office can take without Seattle City Council approval. It’s like the mayor’s office is declaring, “Hey, no need to worry. We got this!”
Move along. Emergency handled. Nothing to see here.
All the City Council needs to do to avoid another round of enraged, White, privileged homeowners screaming at them at City Hall is to accept the mayor’s proposal and call this thing done.
The new plan will continue Seattle’s flawed, lazy and unconstitutional policy of extending sweeps protocols only to sites with three tents or more, thus leaving the majority of camps open to closure without the benefit of notification and outreach.
The city will maintain its 72-hour notification policy, as well as its policy of removing “unsafe” or “unsuitable” camps immediately.
There are just two points within the 72-day period that require outreach workers. Once, within a few days of notification, if anyone happens to be there, and another at the end of the three days, as part of the team that clears the camp.
The interim plan also involves police in any encampment removal. Outreach workers have long held that sending cops with outreach workers undermines the relationship-building that makes their work effective.
The latest police killing in The Jungle underlines why this is a bad idea. SPD brought a gun to a knife fight, and someone died who didn’t have to. This doesn’t exactly build trust.
Definitions of unsafe or unsuitable locations — and writing the whole revised sweeps protocol — will be left to a January administrative rule making process controlled by the mayor’s office.
This could preserve and open whole new areas where little to no notification for removal is required.
The mayor’s plan gives us kinder and gentler sweeps, while leaving most of the unnecessary stress and disruption to unsheltered people’s lives in place.
What does kinder and gentler look like? Promises of new authorized encampments, while the ones we already have are understaffed, under-resourced and unattractive to operate. The new encampments would open up authorized space to 200 people, at best.
The new Pathways Navigation Center will get another 75 spaces open. There is money to create another 100 indoor shelter beds. Altogether, that covers about 15 percent of those living outdoors.
There’s good stuff mixed in there, to be sure. Existing shelters will get help in converting to 24/7 operations to function as daytime respite and storage. There will be expanded access to shower facilities through selective use of parks facilities. There will be better prioritizing of camp removals and stronger public health support for camps not immediately slated for clearance.
There is a promise of greater transparency and community involvement, and better coordination of clearances through a dedicated staff working under the mayor.
Also, the number of outreach workers will be more than doubled. This is good, but so long as these workers are focused on chasing people around rather than building relationships, their effectiveness will be limited.
The mayor seems unable to grasp this. This is what happens when you see homeless folks as objects to be managed rather than people to work with.
As is so often the case, this mayor has chosen to go his own way. If the intention of this interim policy is to seriously reform how the city does homeless sweeps, it leaves all the most problematic aspects of our current approach in place.
If, on the other hand, the mayor’s goal is to retain executive control over homeless sweeps and deflect threatened council oversight and intervention, one must admire the handiwork.
And at the end of the day, the office that has been most hostile to sweeps protocol reform will be left in charge of writing the new rules. You’re not supposed to notice that.
Well-played Mayor Murray. Now we’ll see who’s paying attention.