Lending A Hand, And Pushing Back

Tonight Twin B started crying because she got shoved by Twin A. I didn't see the incident, but was called upon to dispense some daddy justice in the aftermath. She'd been walking around with a big pink ball, taking what I considered excessive joy in not allowing her sister to play with the thing.

"She pushed me," she wailed.

"Well, baby, when you play keep-away, one of the risks you run is that you might get pushed."

As soon as I said it, I realized the richness of the metaphor.

As Nickelsville continues this weekend in the state-owned parking lot adjacent to the original site, the Mayor is under increasing pressure to do something real to ease the pain of Seattle's homeless. He received a letter recently from a delegation of electeds who attended the Committee to End Homelessness in King County's legislative breakfast this week. The Mayor was there as well. He's all about ending homelessness. Just ask him. But when a few ministers asked him to meet with faith community leaders to discuss Nickelsville and his homeless sweeps policies, the Mayor replied, "Absolutely not. It's going down."

Fortunately, others are working to hold him accountable as well. Here's the letter.

Letter to the Mayor: September 26, 2008
The Honorable Greg Nickels Mayor of Seattle, Seattle City Hall

Dear Mayor Nickels,

As legislators representing districts in the Seattle area, we are calling on you today to enter into discussions with the Church Council of Greater Seattle, Real Change, Veterans for Peace Chapter 92 and other interested parties in order to craft a humane and productive path forward in regards to the real and urgent needs of the homeless and destitute people of Seattle.

The City of Seattle has been an important partner in the state goal to end homelessness. We know you share the desire to substantively address the complex and difficult issues affecting homeless people. As many of us discussed yesterday at the Legislative Breakfast for the King County Coalition to End Homelessness, you have put real resources on the ground to accomplish this goal, just as the state has.

In light of our shared commitment, we feel the positive path forward would be to negotiate with the Church Council for the removal of tents and to enter in to partnership discussions with these organizations to identify both short and long term solutions to help our homeless people, instead of the City of Seattle taking immediate action.

As we approach the winter months where homelessness becomes an even harsher and more difficult reality for many men, women and families, we hope you will quickly and urgently move to bring people together in partnership and dialogue. We appreciate your immediate attention to this request and would be happy to participate in solution-oriented discussions.

Thank you and sincerely,

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, 36th District, Sen. Joe McDermott, 34th District, Rep. Eileen Cody, 34th District, Rep. Sharon Nelson, 34th District, Rep. Bob Hasegawa, 11th District, Rep. Ruth Kagi, 32nd District, Rep. Maralyn Chase, 32nd District, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, 36th District, Rep. Helen Sommers, 36th District, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, 37th District, Rep. Eric Pettigrew, 37th District, Rep. Frank Chopp, 43rd District, Rep. Phyllis Guiterrez Kenney, 46th District

Over the past week, I've seen some remarkable sights. The Chief of the Duwamish tribe standing in solidarity with homeless people. The Governor intervening to give the Church Council more time to find a solution for the encampment. Twenty-two people being arrested rather than give ground. Hundreds of supporters turning out to offer support and solidarity to homeless campers. A media frenzy unlike anything I've ever witnessed (and I was at UMass-Amherst for the Abbie Hoffman/Amy Carter show), with coverage that was almost entirely sympathetic to the campers. A neighborhood community council welcoming the campers into their midst. Homeless people managing a large encampment with what can only be termed grace under fire. People coping with extraordinary personal challenges acting with bravery and commitment, and many, many others pitching in with both hands to help their efforts succeed.

This past week, I witnessed much more than a homeless encampment. I saw a movement, in action, winning. The Mayor's Big Lie that Seattle provides shelter and services to anyone who needs it is less credible than ever, and the pressure is mounting for him to make those words real.

Just tonight, Linda Brill of King5, who has been on this story like white on rice, drove another spike into the Mayor's groin. Some of the Nickelodeans who accepted the city's "guarantee" of shelter, it turns out, didn't get it. The shelters were full. They were turned away from Operation Nightwatch last night with a bus ticket back to Nickelsville.

This, to anyone who is aware of the state of emergency shelter in Seattle, is completely unsurprising.

This afternoon, Revel and I took the girls to Kubota Garden, a magical 20-acre Japanese garden in South Seattle, and swung by Nickelsville on the way home. The Nickelodeons were awash in donated fruit so we were given a bag of pears to take home. The girls were given Dum-dums to suck on and I was handed a stack of kid books as well. Twin A wore her pirate hat and made "aargh" sounds at anyone who cared to listen. Several neighbors came by and let the girls pet their dogs. They had supplies to donate. One was handing out copies of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights that she'd photocopied onto pink paper.

"What do you think is going to happen," asked one of the neighbors?

"Hard to say," I said, "but the Mayor is under a lot of pressure to find a solution."

"I know what he should do," she snorted. "He should open that land back up and let them back in. They aren't bothering anyone."

"I know," I said. "You're right. But this is a guy who's driven by ego. He's not going to admit a mistake."

"Ooh yeah," she smirked. "It takes a real big man to beat up on people who have absolutely nothing."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Nickelsville: In the Pink

As I was leaving Nickelsville this morning, three homeless guys with backpacks crested the hill to behold a sea of 150 fuchsia tents. The oldest of them — tall, gaunt, and weathered as the road itself — beamed at the sight. Snapping a few final photos, I must of looked something like press. "You looking for a headline," he smiled? "How about, "We're in the pink?"

Pink, fuschia, whatever. The 150 tents that were unwittingly donated to Real Change last week by the Girl Scouts of America look a lot like salvation to the hundreds of homeless who have been chased pillar to post in this town since the City began hounding homeless campers more than year ago. Apparently, the use of these tents for their annual Jamboree is a one time deal. Normally, we would have passed these on one at a time to those who have had their survival gear stolen by the city. Due to a happy accident of timing, however, we were able to expedite the process by passing them onto the Nickelsville organizing committee.

When we arrived at slightly after four this morning, the advance guard was still hacking a trail through the blackberry brambles into the Highland Ave and Marginal Way site that led down the hill from the small parking lot. Piles of pink sat in wait, and the tents went up in the dark first by twos and three and then fives and tens as more people arrived. The atmosphere was a bit tense as we raced against the expected arrival of the police. Organizers maintained cover by asking cars that pulled into the lot to discharge their loads and repark elsewhere. As the sun came up, the site was bathed in gold and god rays reached down to kiss the ground with radiant light.

The police never came. Nickelsville supporter and El Centro de la Raza Director Roberto Maestes was one of the first on the scene along with Scott Morrow. The site, he thought, was on Duwamish land. This we speculated, might add an interesting wrinkle to the common expectation that police would soon arrive in force to deliver the standard five minute warning before clearing the area.

I entered a few key numbers into my cel and wandered over to the main intersection to wave in the bewildered media vans who couldn't see shit from the road. My other thought was that if I saw something that looked like a bus full of robocops I might be able to offer a few minutes advance warning. No robocops came, but KOMO soon had their twenty-five foot live transmission tower telescoped into the early morning sky. A news copter circled overhead. After this, the site was easier to find.

By noon, Mayor Nickels had informed an inquiring media that the site would soon be posted for clearance in three days, per city protocol on homeless encampments. I guess the protocols are good for something. In three days, hopefully, enough supporters with plastic in their pockets and little to lose by risking arrest will arrive to act in solidarity with the homeless and help hold the fort.

Please understand that this isn't a "protest." It's a survival strategy for the hundreds of homeless people who have nowhere else to go. This year's one night homeless count found 2,631 homeless people surviving outside after the shelters were full.

To offset the campsite clearances, the city added 55 new beds. For the curious, that's about a 47:1 ratio of outdoor homeless to new beds.

More than a year ago, Mayor Nickels began a ruthless zero tolerance policy of campsite clearances from public land, knowing full well that the shelters are packed like a 358 bus headed north at rush hour. That's the bus that blows past you without stopping after you've waited twenty minutes for it's arrival. Frustrating. But not as bad as showing up for shelter and being turned away with maybe a blanket and a bus ticket once the beds are full.

As I left at around ten, the Honeybuckets were coming off the flatbed and being carried down the hill. Nickelsville was established.

I just did an interview on the sidewalk outside Real Change with the omnipresent Linda Brill of King 5. When Brill asked me to respond to the Mayor's assertion that Nickelsville was "political" i said, "It's not political. What's political is the mayor chasing homeless people out of town to make way for downtown condos. This is about survival."

"There will be a standoff, I said, "and the Mayor will have a decision to make."

The story continues.

Photos by Revel, except for Iwo Jima Honeybucket. That one was me.

I Bleed For The Homeless

I am perhaps insane. This thought dawned this morning as I fought my way up a 90 degree incline through waist high thickets of thorns. This was the lower Queen Anne greenbelt. Homeless campsites were being cleared here today. I apparently wanted to be there very, very badly.

My decision to show up was on the spontaneous side. Our organizing project met last night and briefly considered whether we could muster a response within the next twelve hours. We could not. We would put out a press release to try and counter the City spin. That's what we could do. We have other priorities. I agreed to write it. Many affiliations Freeman, Debbie from Jobs with Justice, and David Bloom of the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness all emailed me quotes and contact info. I figured I'd do it in the morning.

I stayed up until two writing. This in itself is not unusual. I am a man obsessed. My cracked molar was bothering me. The infection still hasn't resolved. I seem to be heading toward root canal. Joy. I took a couple of Ibuprofen, swished with my special rinse, and went to bed. Things started seriously throbbing and by three I was up to take my second to last Vicodin. I was very awake.

The morning would be tight, I thought. I'll knock out the press release now. I curled up on the couch with my laptop and a quilt and went to work. By a bit after six, I was wrapping up. It had been light for awhile. The Queen Anne press event was at 7:30. I could print the thing out, arrive in time for the circus and hand it to reporters directly. I shaved so as not to frighten people, made coffee, popped my Adderall, and was on the road by 7:15. Within a half hour, I was parked in the Super Supplements lot on Elliott Avenue and heading up a trail.

Three homeless people were sitting on lawn chairs and a blanket, enjoying the industrial lookout over Puget Sound. There was a Latino guy who spoke decent English, a heavy-set late-middle-aged woman, and a rangy toothless old fart in the lawn chair. I asked if they'd seen any one. They had not.

"Hey, I know you," growled the toothless one. "You're that Real Change guy. I seen your picture. I wanna ask you something. Why you gotta be making money off the homeless? Money, money, it's all you want. It's all you care about."

"Dude," I said, "you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. We have staff. They like to get paid. We run on a shoestring."

"No, I see it in the paper. You want donations, donations, donations. You shouldn't have your hand out all the time. Take, take, take. You know what I say to you?" He raised a finger to point at me. "GET A GOD-DAMN JOB!"

This pretty much made my morning. The others were laughing. So was I. "OK then," I said. "I'm going to see if I can find anyone." I headed up a trail toward several small nests of camps. The trail ended and I climbed through brush. When I crested onto the back yards of some really nice houses, I decided to head back down and try heading north and then up. As I passed my employment counselor, I handed him a press release. In an hour or two, his camp would be history. Rarely are press releases so prescient.

I went all the way down and a few blocks over and picked up a trail. It petered out into thick brush covered in thorns. I'd been here before and knew that if I just headed up and north, I'd again encounter well-defined trails and the upper encampments. This was where City officials and the press had to be. By then it was getting toward 8:30. I was late. My inner bulldog took over. I was fighting my way up the steep and muddy incline, sometimes on hands and knees. My hands were bleeding from multiple tiny cuts. My cardigan was covered with thorny plant bits that had gotten caught. I was drenched in sweat and not smelling so good.

"I must really love the fucking homeless," I thought. I found the trail. My stomach felt as though I'd just sprinted two miles. I gasped for breath. I puked my morning coffee and frozen waffle to the side of the trail in about five quick gushes.

"I must really love the fucking homeless," I thought again. This amused me to no end. I saw trucks and men in full haz-mat suits with respirators and goggles. I had arrived.

There was Mayoral press flak David Takami, some guy from the Queen Anne Community Council, a woman I didn't recognize who glared daggers, the Parks facilities manager I met on my last tour through, and Sgt. Paul Gracy from West Precinct. They regarded me as one might an annoying but potentially dangerous rodent. Gracy was the first to ask who I was. "Tim Harris from Real Change," I said. "And you're Sgt. Gracy." He admitted to the fact. I said something about all the equipment and personnel and he said something about how very expensive this clean-up would be. About $150,000 to $200,000 before it was over.

This is roughly the sum that has been devoted to outreach and twenty additional shelter beds. Sort of puts it in perspective.

I walked up the hill and saw Linda Brill from King 5. She'd just interviewed me in my office last week. She went to shake my bloody hand and thought better of it. I told her about puking on the side of the trail and made a joke about needing a breath mint. This turned out to be a conversation stopper. She was out of there. Four television stations had arrived, got their shots, and gone. This sort of penetrating journalism apparently doesn't take very long. I fell in with the photographers with the Seattle Times and the PI. They were complaining about how limited their access was, which was weird, since this was a media event. They brushed through to where the action was and I followed.

We pushed into a trail where a well-sealed cold weather dome tent sat at the end. It was a nicely maintained camp. One of the haz-mat guys sliced it open with a machete. "Haven't these people ever heard of a fucking zipper," I thought? We snapped away. A Parks guy began to bellow that all non-Parks personnel needed to leave the area immediately for our own safety. There were just the three of us and we were only a few feet from him. It seemed rude. We kept shooting as we backed out.

Down the trail, a number a haz-mat guys milled. PI-guy asked one a question and he said, "You know we're not supposed to talk to you." I asked if this was a Department of Corrections work crew and the floodgates blew open.

"No," he spat. We're all Parks employees, we all have other jobs, and we're being rotated into this away from our work. I'm a certified arborist. I should be nurturing plants and identifying species." Then he started talking about how his encounters with homeless people in parks had undermined his sympathy. They were crazy, addicted, drunk, and rude. Other than this, he seemed like a nice guy. He wandered away to sit on a log with another worker. He asked that he speak to him in his native Bulgarian.

P-I guy and I walked down the trail to an encampment that had largely pulled up stakes and gone. A blue tarp lay on the ground with other random items. Some tent poles. A cheap IKEA-looking bookshelf. I made a joke about not expecting to encounter Swedish architecture.

We made our way back up the trail where a half-dozen personnel focused on clearing the tent that had been macheted open. Garbage bags were piling up. On top was a color pencil drawing. I asked the Parks Supervisor if this was garbage and if I could have it. She said yes. The other photographers and I marveled at its artistry, and speculated whether this was a self-portrait. A man with a worn face, surrounded by nature.

No one knew what the resident looked like. He had been uninterested in offers of help from outreach workers. That morning he'd been told at 7 a.m. he had to go. His entire life now laid in garbage bags at our feet. There were three bags that had been deemed personal items. These went to storage. There were around twenty that had been defined as trash. These went into a garbage truck.

Someone had made the choice to carefully lay the artwork face-up on top of the piles of garbage bags. There was an African-American man who seemed unhappier about all of this than the rest, and no one looked much like they were enjoying themselves. He didn't want to be photographed. I suspected him.

"There's your next cover for Real Change," he said.

PI guy gave me a ride to my car. He was cool. My hands stung and my fingers were numbed by what felt like hundreds of microscopic nettles. On the way home, I stopped at a drugstore. Faced with a bewildering array of ointments, I asked a pharmacist for advice. He said nothing would help much. I basically just had to wait it out.

Charles Brown, the reporter from the Times, called to ask what I'd seen. We argued about whether full haz-mat suits with respirators and goggles were necessary. I said this was part of the media show. I found myself close to tears as I described what it was like to watch a human being's entire existence disappear into twenty garbage bags. This was, I said, a person, not some variety of exotic hazardous waste. He didn't use any of this. His story followed the standard format for these things, which is to uncritically accept the City's framing and to prominently reference bottles of urine and hypodermic needles.

He did, however, plug the June 8-9 Tent City we're organizing at City Hall, and for that I am grateful. I have photos. I'm well past 40 hours with no sleep. I'll post them tomorrow.