The City of Seattle has officially signed on to the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness. In doing so, our municipal government, led by Mayor Greg Nickels, recognizes that "people experiencing homelessness are at immediate personal risk and have a basic right to safety, as do all members of our community."
The plan, which the Mayor touts at every opportunity, makes this explicit: "Interim survival mechanisms -- services focused on keeping people alive -- that respect the rights of all community members and neighborhoods are necessary until such time that affordable permanent housing is available to all."
At the moment, Seattle is woefully lacking in both affordable housing and interim survival mechanisms. These conditions certainly aren't unique. The same patterns are played out across the country, and we have come to realize that none of our "leaders" are serious about ending homelessness anytime soon. To keep people alive tonight, a group of homeless and formerly homeless people will raise up a shantytown, Nickelsville, sometime between September 17 and 24. The more people who stand with us -- and bring building materials -- the more people we can keep alive.
So far this year, 17 homeless people have died while living outside in the city, including three homicides. Every one of these individuals and their deaths represents the City of Seattle's dismal failure to meet the affordable housing needs of all indigent citizens.
Since the city clearly does not have an adequate supply of affordable housing, it is imperative that safe, secure, and clean shelter be made available in order to help economically marginalized citizens survive while awaiting affordable housing. Failure to provide enough suitable emergency shelter for currently homeless people constitutes a blatant violation of the city's signed commitment to the Ten Year Plan.
Mayor Greg Nickels further violates the 10-Year Plan by harassing homeless people who camp in public spaces. The city has funded an additional 55 shelter spaces for people forced out of encampments. This is the first instance of newly funded shelter in three years. Mayor Nickels estimates there are 300 homeless campers; those who regularly work with homeless people would estimate higher. Even if there are only 300, offering 55 indoor shelter spaces as an alternative is as compassionate as giving a starving man a stick of gum. Sugarless gum.
Mayor Nickels claims that the encampment sweeps are justified because:
CLAIM: Encampments are a danger to public health and safety, for neighbors and for homeless people themselves.
REALITY: The City of Seattle spends tens of thousands of dollars on each encampment sweep, without providing any additional garbage collection or hygiene facilities for either the campers who are chased out or anyone else who comes through that area.
CLAIM: There is shelter space available, campers just refuse to go there, so for their own good they must be coerced.
REALITY: The City of Seattle's own estimates indicate that there are more homeless people in our city than there are shelter spaces to accommodate them. This past January's "One Night Count" found 2,631 homeless men, women, and children living outside after all available shelters had filled up. In July alone, Operation Nightwatch turned away women seeking emergency shelter on 176 different occasions. Operation Nightwatch is the last-chance, late-night shelter referral agency of last resort for many on the street. There is not enough shelter for the total need, and there is not enough shelter for each particular need: that of families, couples, working persons youths, or those who have a pet. In the City of Seattle, there is simply not enough shelter. Period.
CLAIM: "We are working to end homelessness by creating more housing."
REALITY: The Seattle Displacement Coalition has documented that the City continues to lose affordable housing faster than it is created. The overall supply of housing affordable to low-income people is less now than it was at the start of the "10-Year Plan." According to 2008's One Night Count, 80 percent of the homeless in King County became homeless when their housing in King County became unaffordable. There is nothing in the Ten Year Plan to stem the loss of affordable housing. Until there is, the supply will continue to hemorrhage, and the number of homeless people here will continue to rise.
Nickelsville will provide shelter, waste and hygiene facilities. Homeless people in Nickelsville will have the safety that numbers can provide along with the civilized order of a peer-supervised village. Privacy will be respected. Independence within the parameters of agreed-upon rules will ensure the safety and dignity of all participants. Homeless people who join the village will have the opportunity to regain control of their own lives. Service agencies can do outreach to hundreds of people at Nickelsville with far less time and expense than contacting hundreds of people scattered along the edges of survival now.
What do we ask of Mayor Nickels and the rest of our municipal government?
We ask simply that you leave Nickelsville alone! It will cost the city nothing.
Let homeless people help themselves, and each other.