Come Out, Come Out ...

The more the City’s crackdown on visible homelessness unfolds, the more I feel like the proverbial blind men feeling up an elephant. The aggressive City-owned property clearances that began last spring have continued unabated after advocates cried foul over brutal tactics and an absence of protocol. City policy that has emerged has more to do with addressing legal vulnerability than meeting public concerns.

Then there’s the Washington State Department of Transportation, with two unintended tragedies on their hands this year: Isaac Palmer, killed by brush clearing machinery last June in his sleeping bag, and now another “transient” dead on a construction site. WSDOT has pursued a shadowy but equally aggressive clearance strategy of its own.

The City has also placed No Parking 2-5 a.m. signs in known car camp areas. As recently as January 30th, Human Services head Patricia McInturff said on KUOW’s The Conversation that there is no real Department of Human Services response to car camping.

Well, someone somewhere has a “response.” What is this? Twenty-fucking-Questions?

Why all the bureaucratic hide and seek? What does it take to arrive at basic accountability? The practice of chasing people from place to place — while throwing away whatever survival gear work crews find — simply deepens the misery of the desperate without offering alternatives.

On March 13, the Real Change Organizing Project will sponsor a day of downtown visibility with morning, lunchtime, and evening rush hour shifts that culminates in a return to City Hall. This time, the goal is to camp on the Plaza 200 strong. Whether you spend the night or the lunch hour, we need to hear from you. Make a commitment to stand for basic human decency. Please email campout_for_change@yahoo.com today.

Another Secret "Policy"

Apparently, the Washington State Department of Transportation has some new draft protocols for clearing homeless encampments. Real Change has seen WSDOT campsite clearances as recently as last week performed with storm trooper-like gusto and no notice, and what appeared to be unbadged cops and unmarked cars. Personnel performing the clearances were told not to talk and the only thing the guy in charge would say was "no questions."

We've been told that there are linkages between WSDOT and city action and policy, but we've yet to find what those are. We're still working on getting the draft policy.

Many will remember Isaac Palmer, the man who died during a WSDOT clearance project early last June. Palmer was in a sleeping bag beneath some blackberry brambles when a brush clearing machine inflicted fatal head injuries. His death occurred at a time when campsite clearances by the city were escalating. While the WSDOT task was to rejoint a stretch of I-5, this came connected to a full-scale campsite clearance project of their own.

Now another transient has died on a WSDOT project, although the details of this are still extremely unclear.

Heavy machinery keeps running over homeless people. If people had better survival alternatives, maybe this wouldn't be happening.

The idea of there being a regional strategy on campsite clearances raises some interesting questions about where this stuff is coming from. Suddenly, homeless people are not to be tolerated. They can live in the shelters, if they can get in. Otherwise, it's open season.

Pat McInturff: High on Crack, or Has Greg's Back?

Recent press on the City of Seattle’s halt to campsite clearances — like this story in the PI, followed by this editorial, and this story in the Seattle Times — says Seattle Human Services Director Patricia McInturff, did not correctly represent the City’s position. In an email to members of the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness Interagency Council and others she clarified what their position actually is, sort of.

“Until an new encampment abatement protocol, that incorporates existing city law, is finalized the City of Seattle will continue to address encampment complaints and removal in the same way that we have for the last several years. The existing protocol provides notification to persons in the encampment, addresses valid public safety and public health concerns, and enforces appropriate laws. Abatement procedures will vary depending on the urgency of the problem and the campsite location. We will continue to evaluate each situation on a case by case basis.

In consultation with the law department we are reviewing all current laws related to encampments. Once that process is concluded [Dept of Neighborhoods Director] Stella Chao and I will invite a group of stakeholders to meet with us and provide input on an updated protocol.

Sorry for the confusion --- the City is committed to a humane and consistent approach.”

Thanks for that Patricia. In other words, the clearances have not been halted. As welcome as this newly found “commitment to a humane and consistent approach” might be, her email is interesting in that it skirts the issue of the City’s documented shift to an illegal and immoral policy last May.

So did the monthly campsite clearances policy then not incorporate city law? Given that city legal is just getting to reviewing this issue now — since it’s blown up in their faces — the answer to that would probably be “no.”

The pretense of consistency is also a bit hard to swallow. Real Change’s FOIA request for City policy on encampment clearances surfaced only a 1996 document that in no way resembles actual practice.

So what she seems to be saying here, really, is “while our lawyers are assessing just how vulnerable our pathetic bureaucratic asses are to litigation over our illegal campsite clearance policy, we have reverted to the previous policy which exists on paper but in actual practice is largely meaningless. We’ll get back to you when we get our shit together.”

Why didn’t she just say that?

In the PI story, Al Poole said the city’s “concern” was motivated by the death of the homeless man who was struck and killed by brush clearing machinery as he slept. Really? The policy started in May. Isaac Palmer was killed in June. Was he the first casualty of an aggressive yet half-assed policy on campsite clearances? You have to wonder.

So this week’s poll is this: Is Seattle Human Services Director Patricia McInturff high on crack, or is she just covering the Mayor's back? As always, you may vote at the top right of the blog.

The results are in, and while the were close, a slim majority said that Patricia McInturff has the Mayor's back, although almost as many said she was high on crack. One astute reader bemoaned that the poll didn't offer the opportunity for both options. I apologize for the mistake.

The Sock Puppet Rebellion

The Consumer Advisory Council (CAC) of the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness is going ape-shit this week because, with all due respect and I say this as a friend, Bill Block sometimes has the political sensitivity of a turnip.

First, a little background. The Committee to End Homelessness in King County has three main groups that meet. There's the mucky-muck Governing Board, which has a few rich business people, some top level human services administrators, a handful of electeds, a United Way President, and a former Governor. They make the decisions. Then you have the Interagency Council. Other than homeless people themselves, these people have the most knowledge and experience because they work in it everyday. They advise the Governing Board, but mostly lack the means to hold them accountable. Then there's the Consumer Advisory Council, made up of those who have actually been homeless. No one has to listen to them at all, but everyone agrees they're an important part of the plan.

Listening to the voice of the homeless is a key piece of Ten Year Planning efforts everywhere. Philip Mangano does it all the time. It lends an aura of saintliness, which he finds useful in numerous situations.

But having a voice and having power are different things entirely. More on that later.

You may have noticed that I used the phrase "the homeless" just now. That was wrong of me. I know this because I've been working in this issue for twenty years and realize that some people find that phraseology to be objectifying and prefer the term "homeless people," or the more cumbersome, "those experiencing homelessness." I also know it because it's in the 15 page handout Bill Block gave members of the Consumer Advisory Council to help them talk about this issue.

The CAC has been feeling kind of stabby over their obviously tokenistic role for awhile. They have no defined relationship, for example, to the Interagency Council, which is where, supposedly, recommendations get formed. Until a few months ago, they had no representation on the Governing Board either. They meet with Bill, and Bill conveys their concerns.

The CAC decided awhile ago that this arrangement lacked a certain, shall we say, formality, and the Governing Board responded by selecting a formerly homeless person to represent them. This person had everything she needed to be effective in this role except any real relationship to the CAC. So that just pissed them off more.

So then the Governing Board said, "OK, we can handle two consumer representatives on our 24 person board. We hand picked the first one. Send us three choices, and we'll hand pick another from those. If we don't like any of the choices, you'll have to send us more candidates from which to hand pick."

That was the deal. The CAC, ingrates that they are, have rebelled against the colonial overlords to insist on choosing their own representative. Dr. Wes Browning, who is probably smarter than anyone on the Governing Board except for Ron Sims, who is really fucking smart, is smart enough to be mostly amused by all of this, but also pissed enough to want to quit the CAC if CEHKC doesn't stop treating them like the total tokens that they probably are.

But that's not why people are freaking out. Apparently, a homeless speakers bureau is forming out of the CAC, and Bill Block helpfully provided them 15 pages of talking points, along with a CEHKC PowerPoint that he'd like them to use. This is where the turnip analogy comes up.

When Paul Boden of the Western Regional Advocacy Project was here recently, he told a story about when he was homeless and some advocates invited him to speak at a rally. He talked to his friends, and prepared for his big moment. When it was time, he was handed his speech.

This is sort of like that. But it's worse. Because in his turnipy way, Bill has managed to piss off not only the CAC, but also SHARE and WHEEL, who run the Tent City encampments as well as numerous other homeless self-managed shelters. Here's sample Question and Answer #2 (out of 24). This being a blog and not a book, I won't get into a critique of the whole handout.

Q: Tent city isn't a long-term solution. Why is this?

A: The purpose of the plan is to change from just providing shelter to providing long-term housing. There won't be a necessity for shelters or tent cities when the plan succeeds. I should also note that, in context, the tent cities are only a small fraction of the shelter beds in our system. The two tent cities only house 150-200 people (of 2,500 in the shelter system). So in some ways tent city is not really about shelter. What tent city has accomplished is educating communities that homeless people not just "are like us," they are us. Community members have the opportunity to realize that the people living in tent cities are moms, dads, and grandmas just like us. There is extensive testimony from people who have recognized that people who have become homeless are not a different "species." Viewing homeless people as neighbors has been a productive part of tent city.

So, if you're wondering what's wrong with this, it's not the "people who are experiencing homelessness are people too" rap that starts about half way through. The part that has people doing the war dance is the denial that Tent City is anything other than a public education campaign.

Here's the thing. If CEHKC was listening to homeless people at all, they'd know that when planners talk about closing shelters, it freaks people out. That's because there is presently a 2:1 ration of people needing shelter to available beds, and little to no evidence that homelessness is actually being reduced.

People who stay at Tent City do not regard themselves as props. They are people who would otherwise not be sheltered at all. This is especially true in this Brave New 10YP World in which no new shelter is politically possible.

But that's not in the script, is it?

In other news, here's something from yesterday's Seattle Times.

Isaac Palmer, 62, was apparently inside a sleeping bag concealed by blackberry bushes in South Seattle when he was run over by a state Department of Transportation (DOT) contract worker. The King County Medical Examiner's Office said Tuesday that the death was caused by tractor-mounted brush-clearing machinery. ...

After striking Palmer, the subcontractor saw his body roll out of the blackberry brambles toward an access road, according to a Seattle police report. Palmer died almost immediately after the 11:40 a.m. Saturday accident, the report said.

"Everybody believed the site was clear," East said, adding that the area is popular with transients. "This person had crawled into a sleeping bag and burrowed his way amongst the blackberry bushes. He wasn't visible to anybody."

In the days before the accident, police, DOT employees and contract crews were in the area working and advising transients about the upcoming work, East said. They were told to abide by the no-trespassing signs and leave the DOT-owned area.