Please Suh, May I Have Two Please?

This is a world class city? Brad Wong's PI article, City Helps To Warm Homeless, makes me want to scream, or cry, or perhaps curl into a little ball and sleep for a very long time. My favorite quote came from Union Gospel Mission communications staff Sharon Thomas-Hearns, who said the agency helped 100 people with blankets, hot chocolate, and other warm things over Saturday and Sunday.

"People were so cold that they wanted two blankets."

What is this? Fucking Dickens?

According to Wong, the city's opened up the Frye and City Hall to max out their overflow mats. Tents at Nickelsville have snow on them. Mars Hill had 125 people lined up around the block for a sandwich and a coat. And so forth. Real Change even got into the act this weekend and sent a truck full of coats and blankets over to Nickelsville. We neglected to alert the media.

This Tuesday night, a small encampment will be held at City Hall, where some intrepid souls will stay overnight to manage our survival gear giveaway. The stuff's been pouring in, but we've been giving it away almost as fast. Desperate people keep coming in the door saying they're cold, and that the City's stolen their blankets, tents, and sleeping bags and such.

This is too sad and pathetic for words.

Wong's story, I think, is supposed to be about a generous city reaching out to help. Is this the best we can do? Blankets? Hot chocolate? A hundred extra mats on the floor?

It's nice that the homeless people on Wong's story are so grateful, but I think more would probably get done if they were surly and pissed off. God knows they have a right.

The Best Fundraising Pitch Ever

I wrote this as a hybrid editorial/fund drive ask for Real Change this week, and think I'll submit it to The Society of Professional Journalists this year just to see if it's possible to get an editorial writing award for a fundraising pitch. That would be so cool.



Hard, Hard Times
Real Change offers direct opportunity while we push for structural change. Don’t make us choose. Support the Winter Fund Drive

This holiday season, the shopping is subdued. We’re all worried for the future. Things are going to be hard and everybody knows it.

During Real Change’s Winter Fund Drive this year, the stakes are unusually high. We need to reach our $180,000 goal to be able to sustain both our organizing and the increased demand we experience from our vendors. In the past year, the number of vendors we serve has risen by more than twenty percent. The sorts of scenes that were once rare in our office — psychotic episodes, suicide attempts, fights and other threatening behavior — have become almost commonplace.

Homelessness is growing, and the conditions have become unbelievably desperate.

Recent federal cuts to Medicare mean that many disabled people on fixed-incomes now pay $200 or more each month for their healthcare out of their meager social security checks. For these, the choice between healthcare and bare survival is no choice at all. For some, this will mean the end. Their precarious hold on some sort of life with dignity will break. And these are the “deserving” poor.

There is a serious possibility that this February, Washington state will eliminate the GAU program (General Assistance – Unemployable) altogether. For 9,000 people — many of who are waiting the two to three years it often takes to qualify for social security disability benefits — this paltry $339 a month is the difference between life and death. But budgets must be balanced and poor people are not a powerful constituency. The machine rolls on.

Here in Seattle, the many homeless who sleep in public — outside of the at-capacity emergency shelter system — are subject to arrest and the seizure and destruction of their property. This has been happening for more than a year and it’s no longer news, but we see it everyday. People who are barely hanging on come into Real Change out of the cold and tell us their gear has been thrown away, again.

Why? They live with the misfortune of having to be somewhere in a city that has administratively legislated that somewhere out of existence.

We are on a very ugly trajectory. The poor haven’t just been abandoned. That was the eighties and nineties. Now, we’re being ground into the dirt.


Up From the Grassroots

And yet, November brought us hope. Things won’t be easy, but there is a political mandate for a new direction. These are hard, hard times, but for the first time in decades, real change is possible.

And not a moment too soon. Inequality in America has grown for three decades to stratospheric highs and unimaginably abysmal lows.

Change is possible, but only if we make it happen.

Over the past century, we have seen movements for economic justice win gains for both the poor and the broad middle class. None of this came easily. The labor movement and the civil rights movement paid for their gains in blood. Progress was made against poverty over the sixties and seventies when the demand was forcefully made. Without protest politics, there are no real gains.

Economic justice rarely happens just because it’s the right thing to do. Economic justice is a matter of power, and it happens when movements form out of necessity; when the pressures in people’s lives build to the breaking point and need for change is so great that the movements they create force concessions from entrenched power and money.

This winter, we face economic crisis on the national level and budget deficits at all local levels of government. If we let them, these budgets will be balanced on the backs of those hurting most: single moms with kids, the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill, the sick, the addicted.

Change is coming, but it’s not here yet. The stakes are high, and we need your help. Real Change has raised $114,498 toward our goal since November 1 of this year, and we have just three more weeks to raise the rest.


Two Campaigns, One Problem

The problem, simply put, is that inequality in America has become so extreme that the bottom has fallen out of sight. Beyond Seattle’s 5,800 emergency and transitional shelter beds that were available this year, there were at least another 2,300 people who, more or less invisibly, slept outside.

Beyond the official unemployment statistics, which are worse than they’ve been in decades, are the “discouraged” workers who have stopped looking and dropped off the charts. And behind these are those who have been fodder for the more than five-fold increase in incarceration since 1980 — the poor, the black, the brown — an increase that has placed one in ninety-nine Americans behind bars and left an African-American male high school dropout with a two in three chance of being imprisoned by the age of thirty-five. Seattle’s high school graduation rate for African Americans is a mere 52%.

Racial disproportionality in incarceration on this scale leads to the further impoverishment of economically disadvantaged communities. The 2008 homeless One Night Count documents that 58 percent of homeless people in King County are persons of color. Countywide, people of color make up less than 25 percent of the general population. Although Blacks make up just five percent of county residents, they make up 40 percent of King County’s homeless. This number is up four percent from just two years prior.

As inequality widens and urban living becomes the lifestyle choice of the affluent, visible poverty is criminalized. Begging, sitting, lying, sleeping, and even serving free food in public have all been outlawed. City after city has passed laws to drive the unsightly poor out of town and out of sight. When they don’t go, they accumulate citations. These citations are often ignored out of fear and inability to cope, and these become warrants. The warrants turn into jail time.

Eventually, the jails fill and you need more of them. They’re not cheap. The one the Mayor wants will cost $210 million to build and another $19 million annually to operate. Money that could be used to rebuild lives will instead deepen the cycle of poverty for the most disadvantaged in our society

Seattle’s new jail is an expensive commitment to the structural racism that will surely deepen poverty in disadvantaged communities. There are alternatives — but none will happen without a strong and unified struggle for a better way forward.

Real Change is engaged in two related campaigns to defend those who have the least. Since we uncovered the Mayor’s secret homeless sweeps last year, we have been the leading voice for better survival solutions in Seattle. This December 16, our City Hall Campout and Survival Gear Give-away will mark our fourth overnight protest encampment in one year. We’ve mobilized large numbers of people for public hearings, documented consistent violations of the city’s own policy, and backed the Nickelsville survival encampment that has gained the strong support of Seattle’s faith community.

Our No New Jail Campaign has challenged the Mayor’s assertion of inevitability, and elevated the jail issue from a NIMBY-based discussion of site alternatives to a community-wide debate over the role of incarceration in perpetuating race-based inequality. We are organizing a broad-based and powerful coalition to take action on this issue, and will hold a large public forum on the new jail this January.

Real Change is caught between two challenges. On the one hand, we provide a valuable direct service in a time of rising need. On the other, we have a responsibility to push hard for structural change. Both take resources. Real Change needs the capacity to not have to choose one or the other.

Please support the Winter Fund Drive. Our broad and growing base of grassroots support gives us the freedom and clout to play an uncompromised and leading role in demanding the change we all need. Mail your gift to Real Change, 2129 2nd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121, or visit our website at realchangenews.org to make a secure on-line donation. We’re in this together, and we’re playing to win.

Nothing Is Meaningless

I dropped by Nickelsville today hoping to get Aaron Stephen Beaucage reading Nothing Is Meaningless, the spoken word piece he did at the Nickelsville benefit last month, on video. Needless to say, things worked out. He recited the thing from memory, fast. Apparently he's been practicing. Sadly, slam poets and social critics are notoriously underappreciated and underpaid. Afterwards, we went back to his car so he could write down his email adress. As the sidepanel of the white Dodge van slid open, there was his computer and printer sitting on a makeshift desk. His car was a lot cleaner than mine, and he lives in his. What's my excuse?

I Like Pink Live

I Like Pink, loose and very blue. Q Cafe Nickelsville Benefit, Nov. 15, 2008. Performance recorded by Mr. Doug McKeehan

Have Mercy Live

I can't really quite believe I pulled this off in front of an audience. I forgot the bridge and didn't repeat the first two verses at the end, but it's just as well. My fifteen minute set ended at 14:30. Q Cafe, Nickelsville Benefit, Nov. 15, 2008

Dancing Barefoot Live

Revel and I opened the set with this. I started out kind of nervous, but lost myself in the song midway through and recovered. Q Cafe Nickelsville Benefit, Nov. 15, 2008

Nickelsville: The Musical

Here's a slide show/movie with song accompaniment that Revel made for Saturday's Nickelsville Benefit at Q Cafe. Contributors include Tajuan Treamalle, Richard White, Revel, Patricia Gray, Alex Becker, and others. The event raised more than $2,500 for the cause. Kudos to Dustin Cross for organizing a fine event.

Why Protest Politics Matters.

Today was the Real Change breakfast. The slide show above ran at the beginning and close, and is by Revel with music by me.

Sherman ran a lovely and funny extended metaphor that drew upon his ever deepening life as a frequent flyer. John Bayly, the Real Change vendor who made the pitch, did the best job I've ever seen, anywhere. We had about 450 people there and raised at least $71,500. We're still counting.

I talked about hope, reality, and the importance of protest politics.

This is one version of the future, I said: Grassroots activism grows. The political climate changes. There's a major investment in clean energy, and we put people to work. We finally get out of Iraq, and we figure out how to do health care. A bunch of bad executive orders get reversed. We get a few supreme court justices, and so forth.

But then, what about inequality, which has increased steadily since 73. The pace of that is only accelerating, especially at the top and bottom-most ends.

How much political will will it take to decrease inequality, I asked? I mean, ending homelessness; that's one thing we can all get around the table on, but reducing inequality? That's communism. And, as Sherman noted this morning, you're not allowed to call in sick on communism. Too few others are picking up the slack.

Here’s another version of the future, I said. Obama does what he can, but the economy continues to slide. Localities face budget deficits year after year. The war goes on. It turns out to be surprisingly intractable. No meaningful health care reform is passed because people think Obama’s going to do everything for us and they mostly let the insurance and drug companies dictate the terms. Tax reform is mild, and the financial system gets some tweaks, but mostly continues to run without transparency or accountability. Inequality continues to widen. Homelessness grows, as has been the trend since the 70’s. Local budgets are tight. The political will to end homelessness fades and grows more jaded. Poor people are increasingly criminalized. Seattle’s new jail, after just four years, is operating at capacity. Racial disproportionality in the prison and homeless populations keeps increasing. And so forth.

The difference, I said, will depend upon the strength of grassroots organizing.

Last night, I thought about protest politics, and what I was going to say about why the work matters. After all, we haven't exactly stopped the homeless sweeps yet; although we have made the practices a good deal more visible and forced the Mayor to at least a pretense of accountability. But there's been another win that might allow for a win later.

We shifted the frame. Protest politics changes the frame.

City framing on the homeless sweeps issue was clear, if not original: Camping is illegal. The plan is consistent and compassionate. This is a ten year plan, not a two year plan. Hypodermic needles, human feces, and bottles of urine are everywhere. Insert number tons of garbage removed here. The greenbelts have become places of danger and filth, and we should fear the filthy, dangerous people.

We changed that. Right around June 8-9, during Camp4Unity and the arrests in the street, the media was starting to get more critical, and we shoved it over the top. Our own good press sort of astonished us. We were seen as in the right, and the City was shown to have a problem to solve, and the sweeps were not a help.

The city lost control of the frame and a new one was born.

There’s nowhere for people to go. People are doing something to help themselves. Why not help them? Pink tents are cool. Brenden Foster said "They're probably starving, and we should help them." Homelessness is growing. The ripples of the economic meltdown are spreading, and the response is known to be inadequate.

The Mayor is now seen as persecuting homeless people without providing real alternatives. Were he at all accountable, we'd be winning.

With the city poised to ram it's vertical municipal jail down our throats, new feats of reframing are required.

The jail will cost $220M to build and $19M to operate, at minimum. This kind of money is better spent on upstream solutions. Our city jail numbers are down 38% while overall population is up 8%. Yet, the Mayor is slamming it through. the new jail represents the continuation of a failed strategy: reliance upon incarceration for the mitigation of urban ills. It doesn't work. It just deepens poverty. And yet, here we are, poised to spend millions in the service of ruining lives when we should be putting resources into rebuilding them.

The city frame is that the jail is inevitable. The downward trends in jail population, they argue, are unsustainable, and will reverse. There’s no alternative. The question is before the electorate is merely one of where to put the thing.

The new jail is a bricks and mortar commitment to a dismal future for the poor. 1 in 99 Americans is already behind bars. 1 in 9 Black males aged 20-24 are in jail. A Black male high school drop-out has a 2 in 3 chance of landing in prison by age 35. These sorts of numbers decimate communities, and create ever deepening spirals of poverty.

We have a narrow window where we can still say enough is enough and change the frame. And it won't be done by asking quietly. You can bet on that.

Have Some Mercy, Will Ya?

OK. I'll be honest. This is so good it's fucking scary. I've been practicing this one for the Nickelsville Benefit on Saturday, and I think I've broken through to the other side. It's just 4:22, but it feels longer. I'd of kept going, but that knock you hear toward the end is my neighbor, at 11. Oops. I guess I was being loud.

Learning From Brenden Foster

Eleven year-old Brenden Foster is a boy dying of leukemia who wishes things were better for homeless people. He has asked that people do what they can to support Nickelsville. On Friday, KOMO reports, a group came by the homeless camp with sandwiches to fulfill Brenden's wish.

"I was coming back from one of my clinic appoints and I saw this big thing of homeless people, and then I thought I should just get them something. ... They're probably starving, so, give them a chance."

I'm no sap, but this video, with the dying Brenden being so matter of fact about how people who need help should get it, moves me to tears every time. At eleven, he's grasped what should be obvious to us all. We're a community, and should care for each other. What could be more elementary? May the spirit of Brenden live on in all of us.

Have Mercy, Live

On November 15th I'll be playing a couple of tunes at the Nickelsville Benefit, which means actually learning my songs. I mostly forget them as soon as they're made up. It's a fairly ineffective means of building a repertoire. This one's starting to feel ready.

My First "Gig."

Hey! Someone actually invited me to play music, like, in front of people. I'm expected to play the anthemic "I Like Pink," and maybe a couple of other songs, which means I'll have to actually learn them. I record songs and usually forget them immediately. Play some chords, ad lib a vocal track once or twice, maybe throw on a lead, and it's done. Usually by the time I want to play the thing again, if I ever want to play the thing again, I've forgotten the chords. Maybe I should practice? You should come. It'll be fun. And it's $10 for Nickelsville. God knows they need your ten dollars worse that you do. Nov. 15, 7 pm, Q Cafe, 3233 15th Ave., W. Seattle.

Nickelsville Talks Back To Mayor Greg Nickels

Astonishingly, Mayor Greg Nickels went to the Seattle Channel's Ask The Mayor to say that the people staying at Nickelsville aren't even homeless. They're mostly "advocates," he said, who have homes of their own. The incredulous expression on C.R. Douglas' face is worth the price of admission alone. Revel and I went to Nickelsville the next day in search of the fake homeless.

Family Campground

Moises Mendoza at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer posted a video of the Nickelsville tour he recently received from Nickelodeon Robert Brenot. "This is something that homeless people did, by ourselves. Yeah, we're homeless, but this turned into a big family."

Shrewd, Desperate, or Stupid?

Just a friendly Apesma's Lament reminder. You have until about 10 pm this evening to add your few cents to the weighty subject of Mayor Nickels and his policy on Nickelsville. Steve Scher cornered him on KUOW Monday. Maybe I'm biased, but I think Nickels came off as the meanspirited, vindictive, pool of snake-oil that he is. Not that I'm trying to skew the poll, or even that the poll matters. It doesn't. This is just how I keep laughing, as opposed to dissolving into a smoldering pit of frustration and rage.

By the way, the shrewd option has strangely come from behind over the past day. At least someone gives a crap. Vote at top right.

The Poll Is Closed: The Mayor's tack on Nickelsville is mostly stupid, somewhat desperate, and yet, a bit shrewd. 37 people voted.

Flogging the "Dissent Decree."

The Mayor got flushed out on Nickelsville today on Steve Scher's Weekday. Phone calls from reporters have been unreturned, but Steve gets him for a standing monthly gig and was happy to press hard. The thing was so fucking entertaining I transcribed it, with commentary. The flattering photo is from today. I recognize KUOW's wall. They put him up against the wall and shot him. This is long, so I'll tell you now: the point is somewhere in the last three paragraphs.


Part The First: Only One Allowed!

OK. Some more questions. I'm going to let Shirley ask this question, to get me started. Shirley's in Everett. Hi Shirley?

Hi, I was going to ask they Mayor when he's planning to meet the people at Nickelsville. They're not on city property any longer, and in light of all the economic situations, we only know that the plight of the homeless is going to increase, and we also know that these people are anxious to help themselves. Their tents are easy to maintain, and they'd really like to talk to the Mayor about a permanent site that they can use to help people be safe and off the streets. Thank you.

Well, I have offered to meet with the Church Council, and also the funders of the shelter services that are available in Seattle and King County, and I think it's good that we're going to have a broader conversation about shelter. 94% of all the shelter beds that are in King County are in Seattle. And we think that it is long past time that this is shared more equally throughout our county and throughout our region because homelessness is not something that starts or ends in the City of Seattle. (What? Is this a slam on Everett? No. This is the standard city transferal of responsibility talking point, but if he does meet with the Church Council, it will be the first time the Nickels administration has ever met with advocates to dialogue on the issue of homeless encampments and the city sweeps. This makes it a bit of an occasion, and kind of a big deal, if it's true.)

We currently have an, um, ahh, agreement, a court approved agreement with the folks who have organized this encampment that says that there will be one tent city in the City of Seattle. And when they have lived up to their, uh, part of the agreement, then we will be happy to sit down with the advocates who are behind this protest (pronounces word advocates as though it tastes sour). But while they are still illegally encamping, whether it's on public or private property, we're not gonna engage directly with 'em. (What? He doesn't negotiate with terrorists? He doesn't negotiate. Period.)

Why not?

Because, aghhh, you know, I think, we all respect the (pause) political process, the ability of people to commit civil disobedience. I don't think that that's the time you talk about these issues. You talk about these issues in a respectful manner while everyone is observing the rules that are in place. (There are points at which the interview veers into the surreal.)

I notice you don't want to call it Nickelsville. (Gets anguished chuckle from Mayor). Um, they're in our neighborhood. They're just down the street. Is there a place, in this modern time, for semi-permanent shantytowns?

Well, you know, the protests here are about what we have done in terms of the illegal encampments in greenbelts and in parks that we have been cleaning up. And it started almost a year ago when we took a look at the city's practices. The city's been cleaning up those encampments for years, and what we discovered was that there weren't any rules, there weren't any guidelines for how you do it. Each department kind of went out and cleaned up their own property and it was kind of hit or miss, whether everyone got noticed, or whether anyones belongings were kept, so I thought it was important that everyone understand what the rules are. We'll give 72 hours notice, we'll offer everyone shelter and services so that they can reconnect to the community, and we'll collect personal valuables and keep them in a central location for a period of time so that people can come and collect them. We thought that was much more humane than what had been going on prior to that. (Unreal. The city policy was about belated legal diligence and ass covering when they were called on systematically targeting camps for removal without notice, assistance, or accountability.)

So now, the argument is that we should allow encampments as a permanent part of our community. And , and, and I just don't think that it is humane to allow people camping out, ah, in that fashion. I think that we have a responsibility, certainly, for immediate shelter for human beings. And I am adding a million dollars to this budget on top of the fo-o-orty million that we put into homeless services.

We are building housing through the third Seattle Housing levy, and I will be leading the effort next year. We are particularly concerned about housing the people who have been on the streets for a long time. People who are chronic alcoholics, people who are mentally ill or addicted to other substances. And I think that permanent housing is the humane approach, and Seattle has been incredibly compassionate in that regard. (Grows agitated). I don't think that it is a good idea to have semi-permanent camps! In our parks or our other public places. (To the Mayor's credit, he actually answers the question in the last sentence.)

When we come back, I want to come back to the question of whether there is room for a controlled camp along the lines of tent city.

And there is one. One! One! And that's the agreement, and we're not going to negotiate beyond that, until people are following the agreements they made previously. (Yeah. You already said that.)

Okay, you and I will negotiate. We'll negotiate here.

(Break. Steve pitches the fund drive, and the Mayor gets all loose and cracks a joke about not wanting to encourage civil disobedience).


Part the Second: Would You Just Die Already?

Let me read you this email. "The homeless encampment Nickelsville is now located on a church lot in the University District. What's the city's stance on this? This affects me personally because my daughter's pre-school uses the parking lot they are in. We will be driving literally into their encampment twice a day." But I just want to get the philosophy here. What's the philosophy about what you're saying about not wanting people living in parks or public spaces? I go to a public space every morning to walk my dog, and every morning on the weekends, there's a guy sleeping in this one place, and he's got his little encampment and he's got his plastic bottles, and everything he wants to make himself a little home. Well, it's a public space, so I understand the reason why that's not really appropriate. But, if folks are saying, "we want to set up a self-governing institution within the city." Five of them. I'm just throwing out a number. Is there something philosophical to that, where, in troubled times, the federal government has abandoned much of its efforts, all of it's falling upon the cities, counties, state to some extent, is there something that says, "We need to work with these homeless to regulate themselves and also give them a safe, non-park, place to be?"

Well, I agree with at least part of that. I think we do have an obligation as a society to give people shelter. I think that is absolutely true. Self-governing communities of shantytowns or tent cities or what have you, I don't think that is the right direction. I think we have an obligation as a community to welcome people back into the community and open the door back into the community, as opposed to having separate and unequal communities. They don't have power, they don't have water. We have standards set for our buildings for a reason, and that is health and safety. (Did he just pull opposing the discredited concept of separate but equal out of his ass as the philosophical underpinning of his policy? How noble. Oh, and it's the building codes. Tent cities don't meet building codes, and therefore must be illegal.)

But you know that that they say I don't want to go into a shelter because it's crowded, it's dirty, I get harassed, I get attacked ...

Well, there are people who don't want to live in homes, in structures. Those folks I don't think are particularly the challenge we face. They can make their own choices and their own decisions, and I don't think that we need to give them license to do that anyplace they care to in our city. I do think we need to keep the door open to anyone who wants shelter. And that's why when we go out and enforce on these encampments, we offer everyone shelter. We guarantee them shelter. And particularly, we need to be moving people from shelter to permanent housing. (I think he just said, the choices here are to either go into one of our filled past capacity shelters, or die.)

Are beds left empty at the end of the night?

(audible squirm) Ahhh-um, sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. And that's why on really cold nights we open up additional shelters. We have more beds that are available, and we go out and we seek people, so that they're not outside in dangerous weather conditions. uhhh-ahhh, there are some, there are some, some, places we have holes in the system, and that's why one of the things I have in this budget which believe the council will approve is a voucher system, so that if a police officer runs into a family with children, there is a voucher for a motel room so that no child s sleeping on the streets of our city, ever! (Ok. So, how about if you don't have a kid on hand? If the Mayor is unclear on the shelter availability situation, maybe he could start reading Rick Renolds' blog. There's bigger "holes in the system" than this.)

You said that you support the renewal of the housing levy, but you're never going to be able to build enough shelters for all the people who are homeless, are you? I know there's a goal: 2016.

There is a goal, and I think there is the political will to achieve that goal. It can't just be on the City of Seattle though. (I'm beginning to see signs of pathology in Nickels' adherence to the 10YP Belief System.)

Does it feel like it is?

It does feel like it is! (I believe!)

If I call Nickelsville, will I find that those people are from all around Puget Sound?

Well certainly! In the news articles you'll see that people have moved here to get a job, maybe getting a job but not having shelter. So, yeah. You have people from all over, not just the county and the state, but all over the United States who you will see in these circumstances. That doesn't mean we can't reach out our hand and help them to find appropriate shelter, but I think this country, as wealthy as it is, even though it doesn't seem that way in the last two or three weeks perhaps, has an obligation to have a roof over every body's head. (The dodge, again, and the unbearable emptiness of words.)

Lynn in Northgate wanted to know about the toilet facilities in the outdoor camps. Like who cleans them and looks out for them?

Well, again, they're not authorized, there are no regulations that guide that, when we sent City crews into what's called the Jungle, the greenbelt along I-5 in Beacon Hill, we ended up taking out tons of garbage, um, syringes, human waste, gallon jugs of human urine, and, in addition, in the Jungle, when they were cleaning up in mid-September. they found a human body. A fellah that had been murdered. That's the third homicide we have had in those encampments in that area. And we had a very serious rape in June as well, so these are not safe, regulated places. These are not appropriate places ... (The correct answer to the question would have been, "The Honeybucket people." But instead he delivers the standard dehumanizing hypodermic/feces/urine trinity city talking point.)

But you're not equating that with the tent cities, or even the Nickelsvilles, are you?

(Nickels makes a sound here like he's trying to dislodge a piece of pork fat from his trachea). The protest is against what we have done with encampments, which is to set up criteria, and standards, and rules, and then go about enforcing those. So that's the genesis of it. Now, the activists involved in this want to take that a step further and have the city agree that we're going to have these self-governed camps in public properties around the city. (The city line on Nickelsville from day one has been this is a "protest" by "activists," and to dismiss the notion that some people might actually need shelter.)

What's your plan for this one that's now settled at the University District church?

Mmmmm! They moved there, I believe it was Friday afternoon. We'll be having conversations with the church and well be having conversations internally as to that status. I don't have a ...

But you don't want it to stay there? You said there's one legal one?

We have an agreement, and we want to see the proponents of this, the advocates for this, live up to the agreement that they entered into.

So, so, do they have a time frame?

Ahhh, we have not yet set a time frame. We will. We need to go over our, um, what the status of this is on church property. We, I, we don't have an answer for that. (This really is the beauty part. Will the city cross that line? They're still deciding.)

I can't imagine you want to be going in there with police and arresting people again.

We don't want to be doing that at all. We don't want to be doing that at all. We would like this group to, ahhh, live up to the agreement that they entered into, the uhh, dissent, uh, decree.

(He actually said this. I listened twice to be sure I heard right. The dissent decree. I believe he meant to say, "consent decree," which was the agreement the City made with SHARE/WHEEL in 2001 to allow a tent city so long as there would not be another. It seems to me like seven years later might be a good time to revisit this decree to see if it still makes sense. But maybe decrees are for life? I don't know. My decree experience is rather limited.)

At which point, Steve changed the subject and tossed a few softballs about dodge ball leagues using city parks and Seattle's vanishing crosswalks, which a palpably relieved Mayor fielded with aplomb. Steve gave him a big plus for his crosswalk work near Green Lake and ended on an up note heading back to the KUOW fund drive. "we'll let the Mayor escape. ... Some people are saying I'm getting punchy ..."

Transportation Required

I got the call, and Nickelsville is moving Friday morning to a spot where organizers think the cops can't stop them. Although, in this town, at this moment, anything is possible.

They needs cars. And garbage bags. Bring garbage bags. The community needs to turn out for this one, so tell your friends. Discovery Park, right behind Daybreak Star, beginning at 7:30.

New Poll! Rate the Mayor's Nickelsville Strategy

This weeks news that Mayor Nickels is going after "organizers, volunteers, and residents" of Nickelsville with big fines should the camp continue makes me wonder if he's on acid. KOMO's coverage of this last night was less than sympathetic of his plight. So what do you think of the Mayor's hardball tactics? Is he being shrewd, desperate, or stupid? The poll is at top right. More than one answer is allowed.

Study In Pink

Here's the Nickelsville slide show, with photos by Revel. She's the hottie in the black leather jacket about halfway through. These were taken the morning Nickelsville set up and last Sunday in Discovery Park. I like Pink, the original song behind the photos, can be downloaded from the music menu at right

City Agrees to New Deadline

Northwest Justice Project and the City of Seattle have reached an agreement to extend the Nickelsville campsite clearance deadline to Friday to align with United Indians of All Tribe's request that the encampment move on by Friday noon. Nickelsville organizers have agreed to vacate the site on Friday to meet the new deadline.

“My clients are very grateful to United Indians of All Tribes for their support of the encampment,” said Eric Dunn, an Attorney for Northwest Justice Project. “Their commitment to let them stay gave us the opportunity to bargain with the city for this extended deadline.”