Homeless Sweeps As Media Spectacle

I got a call from a reporter yesterday asking whether we were doing anything to protest today's sweeps of lower Queen Anne over by Kinnear Park. The Mayors office has alerted the media that they'll be doing sweeps in this area from 7:30-10 am. Oddly, we didn't get the press release. Despite repeated requests, they've neglected to add Real Change to their press list for these sorts of notifications. They apparently prefer their media supine.

Lower Queen Anne is where this odyssey began for us. Last fall, crews went through this area destroying tents and throwing out belongings without posting notice, but left mountains of trash behind. This was repeatedly referred to by the Mayor's staff as a "botched" clean-up, but there was no mistake. The trash was left on purpose. It made a great visual for the press tours conducted since then by Parks Department and the Mayor's Human Services staff.

"Look at the garbage. Over here, we have condoms. Homeless sex. Icky. And look at all the beer bottles. Being homeless is one big party at taxpayer expense. And, oh god, what is that? I think I'm going to be sick. They poop too!"

I did the tour myself a few months ago. CR Douglas at the Seattle Channel invited me along. There wasn't much they could do or say to stop me from coming. His was one of the more critical takes. The City prefers it when the media just prints their press releases, and if Nickels understands anything, it's the importance of rewarding loyalty. Douglas got Human Services head Patricia McInturff in his studio and valiantly tried to pin her down on the question of where people are supposed to go. More than 2600 people counted outside last January, with 20 new beds added to accommodate those cleared from the greenbelts. A second grader can see through the math.

But McInturff wasn't having it. "Seattle has a Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness," she kept saying. It's a ten year plan, not a two year plan. Blah, blah, blah." City talking points are designed to evade inconvenient questions such as his. He got nowhere.

There's a conveniently located vitamin supplement store where they always invite press to meet for the tour. We know this through our frequent public disclosure requests, which have resulted in reams of paper in our office that detail the inner workings of the Nickels media machine. When I was waiting, I had a nice chat with the built guy who runs the jock fuel outlet. He said the campers didn't bother him at all. They keep an eye out and clean his parking lot. His experience was of responsible people maintaining good neighbor relations. He wouldn't talk to CR on camera.

Today's show sweeps are, in all probability, the opening propaganda shot that marks a return to a more aggressive schedule of clearances. "Look," they'll say. "Icky. What else are we to do? And look! Notices! Outreach! We're consistent. We're humane. We're kinder and gentler."

Then they'll steamroll forward, secure in the knowledge that once the story's been covered on their terms, they've got a good window during which the sweeps will once again be yesterday's news.

Meanwhile, Operation Nightwatch is turning people out into the night with just a bus ticket and a blanket in record numbers.

This is where we get to the Big Lie. The one about the sweeps being OK because we're ending homelessness. We're not. It's getting worse. There are more shelter turn-aways than ever. One Night Count numbers are on the ascent. More people are dying.

We won't be out protesting tomorrow's sweeps. We're too busy organizing to kick the Mayor's ass on June 8-9 when we hold Camp4Unity, our third and largest encampment yet at City Hall. There will be time to get to know each other and build the relationships that sustain and deepen a movement. There will be a memorial service for the dead. Strong statements will be made. Groundwork will be laid. We are gathering force.

Download the flier PDF here, and the handbills here. Spread the word. The real trash is on the 7th floor of City Hall, and he wears a big empty suit.

Smart, Brave, and True

Just when I was beginning to despair that no Seattle reporter would ever really get the sweeps story right, along comes Angela Galloway in today's PI with Seattle Homeless Camp Policy Under Fire: critics see loopholes in rights protections. Galloway deserves major props for taking a second shot at a story the City buried in last Saturday's paper and hitting all the right points.

Broad exceptions to the application of the protocols mean that campers will be evicted without the benefit of rights or process.

This plan has little or nothing to do with ending homelessness, and is punitive and arbitrary.

And then, my favorite quote. Alison Eisinger, on the unfortunate sartorial habits of the Emperor: "It is facile in the extreme to pretend that the 10-year plan is a solution to a problem that affects thousands of people tonight."

Thank God someone finally said it. Anyone who's really paying attention knows that the plan holds few immediate solutions, and that its long-term prospects are dicey at best. To hide behind the Ten Year Plan while criminalizing survival activity is the height of lying hypocrisy.

Eisinger goes on in her reasonable way.

All homeless people have the rights to shelter and services. Further, some people might unwittingly set up camp in recently swept locations, she said.

"When the city puts forward a protocol that is supposed to be designed to help people get off the streets, what we expect to see is a protocol that doesn't punish people for going places where they believe they will be safe," Eisinger said.

Whenever a Nickels administration person gets called on the inconvenient math of very limited space for a large number of unsheltered homeless, the answer runs something like this: "Well, we have a Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, because we believe that housing connected to services and not shelter is the answer. It's a Ten Year Plan, not a Two Year Plan. Seattle spends more than $40 million annually on housing and homelessness. 1811 Eastlake ... Plymouth ... blah blah blah. We're committed to ending homelessness and believe we're on track."

This is the rhetorical equivalent of fairy dust. Just a small sprinkle magically makes homeless people disappear.

The key issues of when the protocol applies are now out in the open, and the city is defending their right to take people's stuff without offering warning or services.

Patricia McInturff, director of the city's Human Services Department, said the rules were intended to apply to encampments that hit a "critical mass" of people, not small groups or single individuals illegally camping.

"Certainly, these people are welcome to go to a shelter," said McInturff, who is leaving the department this week. "But it doesn't trigger me calling an outreach team to go out to a neighborhood and post advanced notice for one person."

"How we deal with individuals is something that can be discussed in another setting -- and may or may not be," McInturff said. "But this policy is about encampments."

This is all quite clarifying.

Tim Burgess appears to have closed ranks with the Mayor on this one, despite the fact that none of the issues that once concerned him have been resolved. At least we now know where people stand.

McInturff''s retirement begins today, and her quotes are those of someone who is a) tired of lying, b) a good soldier to the end, and c) already ceasing to really give a crap. Most people I've talked to think there's a straight line between her taking the heat for Greg on this policy and her precipitously announced retirement plans. Many think that the good stuff that exists in this plan is her work, and that she stood up to the face of true evil, as represented by Tim Ceis and Marilyn Littlejohn.

As Patricia heads off into the sunset toward her Hawaii lanai, it scares me to know that, at some deep, carefully submerged level, she was what passes for an ally in this administration.

Serendipitously, the story appears online next to the Dalai Lama photo gallery.

Galloway got it right. She is my new hero. Journalism with integrity lives at the PI.

My Date With Bill

I was a little nervous about being on the same panel as Bill Block the other night. I hadn't seen him since last November. We talked about the sweeps then. We were off the record. Real Change had just broken the story that the City had secretly launched a gloves off program of homeless sweeps before the summer and had no protocols to guide them. The City Council was blindsided, and so, said Bill, was he. I believed him. I still do. The look of shock and dismay on his face as I described what had been happening couldn't have been faked, not even by a good lawyer.

Then the Committee to End Homelessness in King County had nothing to say. The issue was consistently blocked from getting on their agenda, and the fight was left to those of us who have less immediate clout. Maybe some kind of back channel pressure happened. Who the hell knows? They're the one's ending homelessness, not me. I don't sit in those meetings.

But there was never any public statement. They were absent from the long list of agencies that signed onto RCOP's statement of principle. No one attended the hearing on their behalf. City Council wasn't hearing from them. And so forth. They went dark. I don't know why.

It struck me as cowardly.

So then I started making fun of him. Cruelty is the essence of humor. I noted that his single statement to the press — "The proposal covers a number of key components that concerned advocates" — was a lawyerly non-statement that said nothing. I ran a poll asking whose side he was on. I accused him of eating brie in a tree while homeless people go to jail with no bail and the Ten Year Plan fails. And so forth.

And knowing that Bill is a thin skinned kind of guy who isn't used to getting shit from people, I knew he'd be pissed. He totally chewed me out over Sock Puppet Rebellion last year.

I was a little afraid of seeing him.

I decided to take my time getting to Seattle University and show up when the panel started. I arrived with twenty-five minutes to spare and got a cup of coffee. I sat on a wall and smoked a cigarette. At about ten of I headed over. It was just around the corner. Bill passed me going the other way to deal with his parking. He smiled and waved. I waved back and went in.

During the panel Bill said he hoped I could see that there is a place in the movement to end homelessness for people like him who can ask for $10 million to build housing. I said I'd happily concede the point. We moved on.

During the break before the Q&A I got a handful of Hershey's kisses from the snack table and put one next to Bill as I went by to my seat. "Here. I gave you a kiss."

"I get lots of kisses from my dog."

Good one. This is part of why I actually like the guy. He's funny.

The panel proceeded without bloodshed. Bill was genuine and focused. He talked about systemic causes. So did I. He advocated reform and I advocated revolution. I think I'm just more unstable than he is.

Afterwards, he said that it doesn't help build the movement I want when I mock people. There was a brief stare down and we let it drop. I couldn't muster the words to say what I was thinking.

Later, I wondered if he was right.

The question behind the question is whether we have enough in common to even be in the same movement. And the question behind that is whether the Ten Year Plan is more about amelioration or co-optation.

In recent years, I've become quite critical of a focus on chronic homelessness that seems much about narrowing definitions, reducing distressing sights of visible poverty, and stigmatizing the poor by focusing entirely on their dysfunctions in a well-intentioned way.

I suspect that this might do more damage than good, particularly when it functions as a screen for policies that are just plain repressive. Mayor Nickels sweeps homeless encampments, but he supports ending homelessness and Housing First, so we're all supposed to shut up and applaud.

And then there's the question of where the line is. I've never been especially good at that. I'm east coast, and Seattle has easily offended sensibilities.

One of my early mentors was an acerbic guy named Jim Stewart in Cambridge. He was a Mitch Snyder lieutenant who appreciated the power of ridicule as a tactic. The best thing he ever did was a flier that retaliated against some screw-the-poor maneuver by House Speaker Tommy Finneran by making fun of his bad comb over. It was signed Committee Concerned for the Ultimate Disposition of Tommy Finneran's Immortal Soul.

I don't know if it had any effect. Probably not, but it was really funny. Jim always landed good quotes. He wasn't boring.

And I hate being boring.

But maybe Bill is right. Maybe we are part of the same movement. And maybe we're not. I really don't know. It's not an easy question.

Boston urban minister Kip Tiernan was fond of quoting theologian Walter Bruggeman, who said "Situations of cultural acceptance breed accommodating complacency.

Bill does not accept homelessness. He works his ass off towards its demise. He is not complacent. The accommodating part is where things get less clear.

You could fill a few hundred Columbia Towers with what I don't know. Maybe he rates the benefit of the doubt.

One of the things I try to do with this blog is to think aloud in a fairly unfiltered way. There is so much that we're afraid to say to each other. I've pretty much adopted the fuck it I'm saying what I think approach, and it's mostly worked for me. I find that others are thinking the same things.

But it's hard for me to know where the line is. Was it wrong of me, for example, to say that Patricia McInturff is a lying sack of shit? I don't know. I really don't. It felt true at the time.

There's a case to be made either way.

There are no regrets, on the other hand, over the United to Extend Homelessness spoof flier incident. That needed to be said. Nor do I regret the voice mail I posted from Sandy Brown. If someone's going to throw around power, they have to expect to have it thrown back at them once in a while.

Someone confided to me at the time that when a grenade like that is thrown, there's more room to maneuver in after the smoke clears. I think that's right. The parameters of what gets discussed are broadened. Humor is a weapon.

I'm going to have to keep thinking about this one.

Ten Tents My Ass

These north and south partial views of the City Hall encampment last week, shot at night by Doug McKeehan when most people were inside their tents sleeping, give a sense of how many people braved the steady rain to participate in the overnight portion of the event. Organizers counted 48 tents plus various plastic-wrapped sleeping bags and cardboard boxes. They estimate that 150-175 people stayed overnight, and at least 50 additional participants helped with daytime visibility protests. Sharon Chan of the Seattle Times dropped by at 5:30 for the dinner and reported ten tents in her story the next day.

When Sharon called me at home for a quote, she asked how many would be staying the night. We'd been seeing huge interest and feeling real momentum, but most people who planned on staying hadn't officially committed. So, basically, I had no idea. "Two-hundred," I confidently replied.

"We're sending a photographer, but if I get there and see twenty people, there won't be a story," she said.

So I guess we dodged that bullet.

Her story was notable in that human services Director Patricia McInturff said she "doesn't like the term 'sweeps.'"

"They're unauthorized encampments," she said. "The city has been cleaning up unauthorized encampments for 20 years. I think the new protocol is a giant step forward" with its inclusion of outreach, storage options and additional shelter.

Well, Patricia, if the City hadn't accelerated the pace by a factor of maybe twenty, and if the outreach, storage, and shelter you refer to had some reality to them, then you'd be right.

But as things are, you're a lying sack of shit and we're not stupid. They're sweeps. We know it. You know it. For once in your life, just tell the truth. Preferably, before you retire.

It takes a lot of people to pull something like this off. Operation Sack Lunch took care of the evening meal and helped with hospitality. The Real Change staff and Rachael and Natalie in particular put in heroic efforts during the preceding weeks. Board member David Bloom rounded up the ecumenical meal servers. Real Change vendors were there in force and helped spread the word, and whole bunches of RCOP members took leadership in the weeks and days leading up to the protest. Paul Boden from WRAP flew up from San Francisco and lent a hand as a seasoned pro over Thursday and Friday (Rachael handed him the press calls). And then there was the woman who dropped off a box of tangerines and wished us the best and all the others like her who did their small part.

In short, people pulled together and pulled it off. Last December, when we promised we'd be back, there were less than fifty of us overnight. This time, there were more than one-hundred-fifty. We're building power. The City's lies don't fool us, and we're not going away any time soon.

When Bureaucrats Attack ...

Paul Boden took off with my car this morning. I gave him the key, along with my blow-up air pad and sleeping bag. He wasn't sure he could manage the straight shot down Aurora and the left on 2nd to get to the Real Change office, but this is a guy who once spent two years hitching around Europe on no money. I had faith.

As for me, both my kids are sick with fevers and me along with them. Paul and a couple hundred others are sleeping out at City Hall tonight, but my sorry ass is here in bed. I probably wouldn't be much good anyway. I tried calling a reporter back today and it took me five minutes to remember my own phone number.

Paul is the ED of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, a left-coast collaboration of grassroots homeless advocacy organizations who all face similar issues: local gentrification, rising homelessness, and municipalities that have gone on the attack against the visible poor. He's up from San Francisco to see the Seattle situation for himself.

Until recently, Seattle had the decency to be out of step with regional trends on screwing the poor, but we're learning fast. The great thing about WRAP is that we know what to expect. Everything we're seeing here has happened before in places like San Francisco and LA. But they're the vanguard. These cities have attained a level of meanness to which Seattle can only aspire.

This morning — as I sat assessing whether my racing heart and labored breathing should keep me from standing around in the rain and staying up all night at City Hall Plaza — Paul was on the phone to his people. Today's Chronicle ran an attack piece on the Coalition on Homelessness there.

Had the meddlesome San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness' Citation Defense Program not insisted on adding the burden of proof to the city's prosecution of James Allen Hill, writes columnist CW Nevius, the 38-year-old homeless man would have received the services he needs and would not have inconveniently overdosed on heroin in the city library.

Hill was a hard case, what is known in some circles around here as a "frequent flyer." He was cited at least fifteen times in less than half as many months for open container and public drunkenness. He once peed right on a police car. SFCOH, apparently got the last of these citations dismissed as well as several others. They have this wacky theory that homeless people who are ticketed by cops should have due process, and have an 89% success rate of getting charges dismissed.

"Services" is one of this slippery words that means something other than what you might think. It's like when Human Services head Patricia McInturff says the City of Seattle will hold onto and return people's "personal property" when they do sweeps of homeless campsites. To most of us, that would mean their stuff, including their survival gear. But to the City, it simply means identification, military papers, prescriptions, eyeglasses, and perhaps photos, so long as they've thought to attach contact information to these items.

Likewise, in San Francisco, "services" is much more likely to mean a spot in a shelter or a drop-in center than treatment, mental health counseling, or help getting a place. Access to these things lag far behind demand, even for those whom the court requires to get help.

But while services are a bit of an illusion, the citations are real, and so are the bench warrants and fines that pile up when they're ignored. So SFCOH and a similar group in LA have organized a legal line of defense. And for this they, and their funding, are under attack.

Apparently, Hill actually accepted services in one of the citations that attorneys settled. Nevius knew this, but it didn't fit in his man-dead-due-to-meddlesome-advocates frame. Facts are inconvenient things.

Often cases like Hill's never even make it to court. The district attorney's office says that is because homeless advocate attorneys drag out the process as long as possible, creating a paper bottleneck in the courts with "burden of proof" legal requests. There are so many steps and appeals that any misstep can result in a dismissal, which the DA's office says is why hundreds of "quality of life"' infractions are thrown out.

To illustrate, Assistant District Attorney Paul Henderson went through court records and found six cases in which Hill was represented in court by Homeless Coalition attorneys. In what has become a familiar refrain, those attorneys got three of the cases dismissed before they came to trial.

In the other three active cases, prosecutors had offered to drop the charges if Hill agreed to go into treatment for his alcohol problem, Henderson said.

"In other words, we were saying, we don't want to prosecute him, fine him, or send him to jail, but he's got to go to services. And he's got to show us proof that he's gone," he said.

The offer was declined as Hill's attorneys fought the citations. They were still fighting them when he died.

"There's a really good chance we could have saved this guy's life," said Dariush Kayhan, the city's homeless coordinator.

Dariush Kayhan was just hired at $169K to run San Francisco's homeless services for the City. That's before benefits. It takes a lot of money to live in the Bay Area, but it takes even more to ensure loyalty.

The James Hill story doesn't add up.

Fifteen citations. The Coalition took on six of them and won half. That leaves twelve other opportunities since last August for the City to get James Hill the "services" he needed.

Here's the thing that I've noticed. The more cities say they've committed to "no longer managing homelessness" and are committed to "ending homelessness in 10 years," the greater their hostility toward the advocates who might have a different idea as to how this should be done. And the more sophisticated and less honest their management of homelessness becomes.

It's happening everywhere. The bureaucrats, threatened by the advocates, have placed themselves in charge. The package comes with a commitment to affordable housing that they wave around like an invisibility cloak to hide it's sheer inadequacy. Since "housing and not shelter is the answer to homelessness," there is a slow but sure attrition in emergency shelter options. And then there is the increased repression of the visible poor.

In the twenty years since Mayor Giuliani became the darling of New York by "cleaning up" Times Square, the methods have become more sophisticated and cloaked in the language of compassion.

There is greatly increased police attention supplemented by private security hired by the local Business Improvement District.

There is an emphasis upon issuing citations that turn into bench warrants and other forms of criminal charges.

Laws are passed against activities, such as sleeping, in which the poor are likely to engage.

And there are campsite clearances, performed for the good of those who have nowhere else to go.

And the human services community, with some exceptions, is cowed into submission.

At some point, they go after the advocates themselves. Most service providers are restrained by the fact that their funding comes from the city. Those who stand up are eventually subjected to delegitimation tactics, mean-spirited press attacks, and whisper campaigns directed toward major funders.

In other words, it's war. War on the poor. And war on those who side with them.

Seattle's Homeless Sweeps. Cui Bono?

Our Day of Action on homeless sweeps is next week and here's what we know. We know that cops were asked to create a list of hotspots last spring. We know that top mayoral staff refined the list to include other spots more within condo sight lines. We know that by last May they shifted from a complaint-based trigger for clearances to a targeted and pro-active schedule of sweeps. We know that this resulted in a gloves off approach that completely ignored existing protocols on campsite clearances. We know that this was intentionally kept from advocates and, apparently, even the City Council and CEHKC. We know that they launched an aggressive media offensive when they were finally called on the evidence, and we know that they've kept advocates at an extreme distance as they work toward their final "policy." We know that the sweeps never stopped, despite a continued absence of established protocol and a request by City Council to suspend activity.

But what we don't know is why? Nothing in the documents we've obtained clearly explains why the City went there in the first place.

So I bring you this, perhaps the most important poll ever on Apesma's Lament. More important than Patricia McInturff: High on Crack or Has the Mayor's Back? More important than our landmark WWJD poll. We're talking seriously important.

Why do you think the City of Seattle, the Department of Transportation, and various others have suddenly taken such an active interest in homeless campers? This has been going on and largely tolerated for more than a decade. Why now? Why so committed and why so secretive?

There are several possibilities:

The neighborhoods demanded it. The pressure was on and the Mayor could no longer forestall the inevitable. If Greg didn't act soon, he could lose the next election.

It was just the right thing to do. No one should have to live the way these people do. The entire city Human Services staff knew that campsite conditions had reached a crisis point, and presented an aggressive yet ultimately compassionate action plan to the Mayor.

They had to curb the Asian Heroin Cartel. Don't laugh. There's actually some idiot out there who thinks this is the reason.

Homeless people make downtown living kind of icky. There's a boom, and part of the sales pitch is safety. Visible poverty makes development dollars nervous.

So, please. I need you on this one. The truth is complex, so you may vote any combination of choices. Please vote at top right of this blog, and don't forget to click on "submit," you fucking moron. OK. Happy voting. Come on March 13th.

Grapes of Wrath

"I figgered about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus road. I figgered, `Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,' I figgered, `maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit - the human sperit - the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of."

— Jim Casey, Grapes of Wrath

The Minutes of the January 28 hearing on homeless encampments are up on the Human Services website, and you should read them. They're not just accurate. They're poetry. Someone cared.

Or maybe someone thinks that if we feel heard and affirmed we won't notice so much that we're being ignored.

On March 13, The Real Change Organizing Project wants to make sure that anyone who goes downtown will see and hear about the campsite clearances issue. We need lots of people. We want 200 of you to camp with us at City Hall to get the Mayor clear on our message as well. And that would be this:

Help. Don't Harass: The 2008 One Night Count found more than 2,600 persons surviving outside in greater Seattle on a winter night when emergency shelters were full. Meanwhile, the Mayor's Office continues to pursue a policy of demolishing homeless people's encampments and throwing away their property without providing any alternative shelter. It is inhumane and immoral to punish people for living outside when there is not enough shelter or affordable housing to meet the need. We call on Mayor Nickels to stop all non-emergency sweeps immediately and expand housing and services instead of criminalizing survival.

You can sign onto the statement at the Real Change website.

Meanwhile, much smoke has been blown, but as far as we can tell little has changed in City practice. The new policy is a kinder, gentler gloves off approach, but with a legal framework. Head of Human Services Pat McInturff is telling anyone who will listen that advocates concerns are being addressed, but if that's true, she hasn't told us. The only thing we ever get comes comes by way of Public Disclosure Request.

A March 13 Day of Action pledge form is on the Real Change website. There you will find details and where to go for more information. There will be public visibility shifts throughout the downtown during peak traffic. There will be an evening meal at City Hall served by religious leaders. There will be an overnight encampment. Our goal for that is 200 people. Then, Friday morning, there is one big final visibility push before the tents come down.

We need people. Lots of them. If you think that criminalizing survival has something to do with compassion or ending homelessness, then stay home. But if you think the City needs to listen to the poor and start talking about real solutions to the misery on our streets instead of hiding behind their damn Ten Year Plan, this is the time to come out and make yourself heard. Go to the website. Pledge your action.

Inconvenient Math

My friend over at Whitney's Corner offers this homely urban scene along with his typically stunning nature photography this week. It's the Crisis Clinic suicide prevention sign, posted at either end of the jumper magnet that is the Aurora Bridge. He points out that the Crisis Clinic declined to be listed as the resource referral point for homeless campers on the very excellent grounds that no "resources" exist to which those displaced might be referred, and that this means you have better odds of being helped if you're a suicidal bridge jumper than a harassed and homeless camper. A reporter I recently spoke with tidily described this as the "inconvenient math" of the homeless encampment issue.

Since I flunked algebra twice in high school, I should probably get Dr. Wes to help with this, but let's try to render the equation. More than 2,600 people surviving outside during a recent One Night Homeless Count translates as >2,600. The number of full shelter beds that night are still being tabulated, but we do know that the emergency overflow capacity of about 100 beds was maxed out at 140 occupants. So max capacity might be represented for now as x + 140. So (x + 140) - >2600 = ->2600 mathematically demonstrates there are more than 2,600 people who were counted on one night surviving outside of a maxed out emergency shelter system.

It's almost painful to watch Patricia McInturff dodge C.R. Douglas's dogged line of questioning regarding this problem. She trips over her victim-blaming rhetoric as she visibly struggles to evade the obvious. No simple thing to do in public. No wonder she's retiring. Having spent whatever credibility she has telling transparent lies in service of the Great White Whale, a lanai in Hawaii must be looking pretty damn good.

Back to the Crisis Clinic, we have an email to the City from their ED Kathleen Southwick. If the City puts their number on the signs, she writes, displaced campers "will just be mad at us and we won't be able to help find their stuff and most likely won't be able to help them find shelter. ... I know the City's goal is to keep people off their property, but people are living there because they don't have anywhere else to go."

It's that inconvenient math thing again.

But Community Service Bureau Director Darby DuComb didn't have this problem. She just followed orders and listed their number. What's she have that the Crisis Clinic doesn't? Outside of a different boss?

Thoughts Upon News of McInturff's Retirement

"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale!"

Moby Dick: Or, The Whale, Herman Melville, 1851

Actually said during the Mayors State of the City Speech:

“Every good idea must run a gauntlet of skepticism. The people of Seattle are a feisty bunch. They are protective of all that makes this city a great place to live, work and raise a family. We don’t change for change’s sake. Innovation must have a purpose -- to make a difference in people’s lives.”

This passage made me almost giddy. Maybe this is what happens to good ideas. But within the Nickels administration, really, really bad ideas get implemented in secret and true purposes often remain hidden. It's a good thing the people of Seattle are so damn feisty.

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.

Who's Side is Bill On?

I think I've watched the City Inside/Out episode focusing on homelessness in Seattle about five times now because I can't get over the fact that Committee to End Homelessness in King County Director Bill Block managed to go on a show devoted entirely to the homeless encampment issue with Human Services head Patricia McInturff and not have a word to say on the topic.

But I have a correction to make. Up till now, I've been saying that Block has been silent on this issue. That's not true. I recently remembered that he was quoted in a PI story on the release of the draft protocols.

"The proposal covers a number of key components that concerned advocates," opined our leading homeless advocate. This is a classically neutral non-statement. Could he possibly have been more lawyerly?

"The proposal covers a number of key components that concerned advocates." Let's parse this slightly, since it won't hold up to much more. The verb-tenses, for example, are interesting. Covers is present, and concerned is past. Are we to draw from this that these concerns have been met? I haven't talked to a single advocate who thinks so, but Bill isn't saying. He's only implying.

So why does this matter? I mean, we all know that Bill needs to walk a line to keep the access to funding open. But where that line is matters. When the major institutional players can't or won't challenge the City when the chips are down, the Mayor thinks he can just ride the riff-raff out. The bet here is that power conferred by power can be taken away, and power that isn't can be safely ignored.

We need to build a different kind of power that is less beholden and afraid.

It's not that this issue doesn't come before the CEHKC. Real Change vendor Michael Garcia sits on the Governing Board. He fought to get this on the agenda at a recent quarterly meeting and was shut down and ignored. If there was any ambiguity as to his token status before, this clarified it for him.

From what I hear, United Way Director Jon Fine can be relied on to forcefully assert the encampment issue's irrelevance to CEHKC whenever it arises.

Which isn't surprising. United Way thinks they own homelessness in this town and have a $25 million fundraising campaign that depends upon results for it's success. The metrics here are less than complicated. Numbers going down good. Numbers going up bad. Campsite clearances, and other measures such as no parking from 2-5 a.m. signs in known car camp areas and Park Rangers with a mandate to harass, should bring those numbers down. So you won't hear a peep out of them. Or, by extension, Bill "currently on vacation in France" Block.

He also said this: "The ultimate solution is to create enough housing and services so we don't have to face that issue. That's the hardest part for everybody."

News flash Bill: We do have to face this issue, because there isn't enough housing and services and people are suffering in ways that few of us can begin to understand. Is there something I'm missing?

Whose interests are being protected here? Clearly United Way's. Probably the Mayor's. I'm guessing that the business interests approve.

But raising money to house chronically homeless people and building a sort of a consensus for homeless mitigation among the government, business and institutional non-profit elite isn't the same thing as being a homeless advocate. For that you need a grassroots strategy that builds for power and listens to the poor.

Bill's a politically connected fundraiser and perhaps one of the few people in the City who can manage the institutional contradictions and inside politics of CEHKC. But he's not a homeless advocate. To do that, you need to pay more attention to the "homeless" part.

Which brings us to this week's poll. What does it mean that the Committee to End Homelessness in King County is sitting out the worst thing to happen to homeless people in Seattle since Mark Sidran? Who's side is Bill on? The Mayor's? Or homeless people's? Both? Neither? As always, vote at top right. Multiple choices are allowed.

The people have spoken. Of 23 respondents, one felt Bill is a "homeless advocate" in the sense that he actually sides with homeless people. 43% said he is on the Mayor's side, which would make him a Mayor's advocate, and another 43% felt he was on neither side, which would make him no kind of advocate at all, and more of a careful bureaucrat. Just 13% said he straddles some sort of middle ground, in which he represents both homeless people's interest and the Mayor's. That would be hard.

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.

City Inside/Out

CR Douglas' City Inside/Out episode on homelessness this week is worth seeing. We did a Lower Queen Anne greenbelt Parks Department tour that he uses as the set-up for a panel interview with Human Services press flak Patricia McInturff, Operation Nightwatch Director Rev. Rick Reynolds, and Committee to End Homelessness in King County honcho Bill Block. McInturff artfully ducks Douglas' pointed questioning on shelter capacity and does her level best to make City policy look reasonable. Reynolds, in his diplomatic way, doesn't buy it. Block gets defensive about Ten Year Plan success, delivers his Housing First rap, and, as always, has nothing to say on the encampment clearance issue. A lot of average people on the street seem mostly critical of how homelessness is being handled. I seem pissed off ("I think the city needs to have a policy that actually helps people instead of deepening their misery.") and sleep deprived, which is about right. I'm also fighting a cold. If you look at the KOMO interview I did in my office later that day, my voice is a good octave lower than normal. I kind of growl. When I apologized to the anchor later she said, "I've never met you, so I thought that was just how you talk."

As CR and I strolled through the greenbelt with the parks crew, we saw around a dozen structures that varied widely in terms of overall squalor. There were a few patches of appalling mountains of trash (mostly empty tobacco pouches and beer cans), and other spots where camp sites were clean and had thoughtful divisions of function. We ran into around three actual campers. The one who had the most to say is on film talking to CR through the wall of his tent.

This is the same tour that Nicole Brodeur got a few months ago, and then Bruce Ramsey of the Seattle Times, just prior to their first hateful editorial in favor of the Mayor's policy. I've spoken to a City Councilor who did the tour as well. Patricia mumbles something about the trash still being there because of difficult logistics or something. That's bullshit. It's a museum piece. They've preserved the most trash heaped camp in the City to show off to the press as representative, and they've even let people keep living there. Even as CR sees through this, he still can't resist the dramatic footage. That's why it works.

The Spiderwalk

Given the popularity of Marilyn Littlejohn's exorcism in my latest What Would Jesus Do poll, I thought I'd post the Spiderwalk scene from The Exorcist. I couldn't help but notice that Ellen Burstyn, as Regan's mom, bears more than a slight resemblance to Patricia McInturff. See the results of last week's poll here.

Deconstructing Patricia

I had the rare treat of following Seattle Human Services head Patricia McInturff on KUOW's The Conversation today. Given that my cold is going bronchial and I'm running on about 3 hours sleep, I did OK. I said "you know" too much, but hit my basic talking points. The city lies. What they say and what they do are very different. The "there is shelter available" line is a lie. These phantom "outreach workers" she keeps talking about seem to only exist in some parallel universe that few of us have seen. And to consistently describe those who struggle to survive outside as diseased, drug addicted, waste-producing, vermin attracting, criminals is to stoke the engines of ignorance and hate. Even when you call it compassion.

If you listen closely, you can hear the moment I decide to ignore Ross Reynolds' very interesting question to spend my dwindling time undermining the City's credibility.

Few realize that, in the absence of an approved policy, the City is continuing to aggressively clear sites just as before, with little to no notice or accountability. Real Change vendors have come in the last two days in a row with reports of returning to camp to find all of their survival gear and other belongings gone. No notice. No retrieval of belongings. and certainly no "outreach workers" or "shelter referrals."

So let's look at all that unused shelter capacity of which she spoke so assuredly. According to her latest newsletter there's 75 severe weather beds at City Hall and 25 for women at the Frye. Our analysis of those numbers shows City Hall Overflow with an average of 9 beds being open, and the women's beds being, on average, at capacity. During very severe weather, she says, there's a no-turnaway policy. What this actually means is that they start packing people into the rec room at the Union Hotel as well. Cool.

Between 2:30 and 5:30 am the Morning of January 5th, more than 2,600 people were counted surviving outside. 140 were counted in the overflow beds, which seems to have pretty much chewed up all that "capacity" she keeps talking about. The notion that they're checking to see if beds exist before clearing a camp, which she actually said, is ludicrous. I mean, how would that work? They clear the camps during the day. No one knows what few beds will be available where until they show up looking for shelter that night.

Let's see. What else.

She did this really cool thing with the phrase "personal property," which to most people sounds like the property that a person has. Not so. It's ID. Perhaps photos. Eyeglasses. Prescriptions. When you get right down to it, the list is really quite small.

An Encampment Workgroup Memo that turned up in one of our myriad public disclosure requests is quite clear on this point. "Any sleeping equipment (sleeping bags, cardboard, tents) found in the ROW may be disposed of immediately." This is obfuscated in the final with some lawyerly language about disposing of any "soft goods" that "may be contaminated with unknown substances."

This remains my favorite phrase in the document.

Interestingly, she did not say that the City now handles reports of encampments on a case-by-case basis, as she told the City Council last month and recently re-iterated in a communication to Nick Licata. This is probably because she got the December 11 email from Customer Service Bureau Director Darby DuComb.

"I am worried that we are getting confused.

TC want us to respond to all clean ups requested by anyone from within the City or from external customers. We are NOT reviewing them on a case-by-case basis, we are responding as usual."

Thanks for clearing that up Darby. TC is of course Tim Ceis.

What else. She seemed positively shocked to hear that advocates discovered language in the proposal that would deputize anyone the city chooses with the power to hand out camping citations.

Let me help. It's on page 11 of 14 in the Rules document, in the Notices of Exclusion Section, under paragraph 6.3.1, related to "Delegation."

6.3.1.2 The authorizing official may also delegate to others the authority to enforce on City Property these and any other applicable written or posted rules, and to issue notices of exclusion for violations.

Seems pretty clear to me. But I'm not a liar.

But the Big Lie is that the Mayor discovered that there were various departments with policies at odds with each other, and in his wisdom, directed his staff to seek consistency and compassion.

The internal documents clearly show that the Mayor's office had directed all City departments to aggressively clear encampments, and that the absence of a policy to guide this meant the gloves were completely off. It wasn't until their secret policy was uncovered that they bothered to consult City legal at all.

But here's the thing. The gloves are still off. Nothing has changed. This is their pathetic attempt to bring the law in line with existing practice, not, as would be perhaps more typical, the other way around. The painting up top, by the way, is by Rose Greenway, and is called The Liar comes bearing illusions, which we bear willingly.

But all in all, this was a good press day. In addition to a good airing of the issue on KUOW, The Stranger's Erica Barnett gets all weepy over Monday's hearing, and the Seattle PI's Editorial Board made some people I know positively giddy today with their take no prisoners 48 Hours to Scatter.

The urge to clean up parks and other areas serving as de-facto squats is an understandable one. No one likes to be faced with the misery of others. Hygiene and public safety issues with the living conditions of the homeless are certainly credible. But there's got to be a better way to address those concerns without making already-suffering human being feel like refuse. ...

City leaders should come up with a plan that focuses on making life for the homeless more, not less tolerable while building more shelters and housing for them.

Some Kind of Hearing

Tonight was the "public hearing" on the Mayor's draft anti-homeless encampment. It was unlike any other that I've attended. For one, there wasn't a single elected official in attendance. You'd think that since it's his policy that he's so proud of, Greg might want to hear what people have to say in person. But you'd be wrong about that. Sitting up front was the head of each affected department, plus a smattering of other top level Mayoral staff. Outside of the brief and highly selective presentation of the policy "outlines" that began the hearing, they were silent throughout.

The room, which was calculated by its largeness to make the audience feel small and insignificant, felt full, even though about a third of the 180 or so seats remained empty on this night of icy roads and impending snow. Last I saw, 64 people had signed up to testify. When I left at 8 pm, they were up to around the 45th speaker, and the hearing had been extended beyond it's 7:30 pm scheduled end.

Only one person had spoken in favor of the Mayor's policy, and it was nutbar guerrilla columnist Craig Thompson, spinning his tales of criminality, murder, and the infiltration of the heroin trade into Seattle's homeless encampments, and how we need to destroy people's camps in order to save them from this certain menace.

Other testimony was much more moving. Widely respected poor people's lobbyist and social work professor Nancy Amidei spoke of an east coast conference she'd just attended where everyone she told of the Mayor's policy was appalled, with many offering resources and advice. Nancy said there was nothing to do with this plan but to toss it out and start over. Stan Burris, with the most riveting (and coherent) speech I've seen him deliver in thirteen years. Real Change vendor John Bailey with his moving assertion that homeless campers bleed red, just as do those on the other side of the table. Wes Browning, with his straightforward list of obvious questions and his equally obvious disgust. SKCCH ED Alison Eisinger, who stated the coalition's starting point for negotiation: a real plan to meet the survival needs of the unserved. Doug McKeehan, the very first speaker, whose speech was barely audible over the malfunctioning PA, but whose choking outrage came across loud and clear.

There were too many remarkable moments to list.

Speaker after speaker after speaker spoke of the moral bankruptcy of the city's criminalization of survival, and derided the cynical ease with which this plan was put forth. Never have I seen such a one-sided response to any public policy.

My own speech seemed to be a big hit, although if looks could kill, Patricia McInturff's piercing death ray would have left me in ashes. Here's what I said.

When I got to work this morning there was a letter on this issue from the Mayor waiting for me. It didn't really have anything to say, and didn't address any of our concerns, but it was striking in that it began and ended by speaking of his commitment to ending homelessness.

Well, so far, so good. We all want to end homelessness.

But the words and the reality are at odds. The Mayor’s commitment to the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness is used as cover, as a fig leaf, for a policy that can only be described as deeply immoral.

We are not ending homelessness. And the number of homeless people in Seattle does not “appear to be diminishing,” as the Mayor’s letter also states. This year’s one night count found a 15% increase in those who are trying to survive outside of our overcrowded and inadequate shelter system. That goes up to 18% if you limit the comparison to areas counted both this year and last.

We are not ending homelessness. The best efforts of our Ten Year plan have fallen well short of stated goals. The Mayor’s letter says 1,000 units have been produced since 2005. The goal for production and upgrade with services is 950 units annually. We’re not even halfway to being on track.

We are not ending homelessness because the city has drawn a line in the sand on adding emergency shelter capacity. The glib formula that Housing, Not Shelter is the answer to homelessness ignores the enormity of the growing desperation on our streets.

We are not ending Homelessness when City housing policy, as generous and progressive as it is, is trumped by pro-development policies that turn our City into a playground for the affluent at the expense of the average and low-income people who can no longer afford to live here.

And we are definitely not ending homelessness when we define those who struggle to survive outside as criminals. When we routinely speak of their encampments as places of filth, and depositories of human waste. When we speak of homeless encampments as somehow linked to the drug trade. When we engage the media with alarmist rhetoric about weapons, murder, and rape.

This is nothing less than the lowest form of stigmatizing hate speech, and has no place in a City Committed to Ending Homelessness.

To eliminate the possibility for survival without offering real alternatives is immoral. To define the blankets, tents, and bedrolls upon which these campers depend as garbage, as a variety of hazardous waste, is immoral. To systematically harass those who have nothing, and to engage the broader community as allies in this campaign of harassment, and then pretend that all of this comes from a place of compassion? That's immoral.

The rather inelegant wrap-up can be attributed to my going on a few sentences past the point when the chair loudly thanked me for my testimony. It's amazing sometimes how fast three minutes can go.

Managing the Media with Team Nickels

Adam got another thick sheaf of Public Disclosure Request docs on the encampments issue this Monday. A bored lawyer friend gave us some good advice on how to be more aggressive here and it seems to be paying off. I'll leave the news to the real reporters, but this email exchange made us laugh. Be sure to get down to the end.

Martin McOmber, City of Seattle Communications Director, 12/4/2007, 1:23 pm
Editorial writer Bruce Ramsey from the Times is going to write on the encampments issues. He is interested in taking the tour but need to check if he can hold the editorial for a day. I'm betting he can.

Can we arrange a tour for him tomorrow mid morning? I think he will understand the City's position on this and it's very important to get our point of view presented to him.

If he has to write for tomorrow, Patricia, can you walk him through our position?

Cheryl Fraser, Seattle Parks Operations Manager, 12/4/2007, 1:43 pm
Martin -- We can do the tour tomorrow however if it rains tonight we will need to reassess the Greenbelt conditions in the morning. Let's plan to meet at the Super Supplements Vitamins parking lot on Elliot Ave at 10 am. We are planning on using the same tour as last time.

Patricia -- are you available at 10 am?

Martin McOmber, 12/4/2007, 2:28 pm
Bruce is available for the tour at 10 am tomorrow. Per Cheryl's email, I told him to meet Cheryl and Patricia at the Super Supplements Vitamins parking lot tomorrow.

Cheryl, can you work out any remaining details with Patricia?

David Takami, Strategic Communications Adviser, Dept. of Human Services, 12/4/2007, 2:41 pm
Hi: Patricia can do it and will meet you at 10 am at Super Supplements.

Marty, does this mean he's holding off on the editorial (until after the tour)?

Dewey Potter, Comm. Director, Seattle Parks, 12/4/2007, 3:47 pm
Hi. I have a call from Adam Hyla at Real Change. Should we invite him along?

Martin McOmber, 12/4/2007, 5:11 pm
Absolutely not. If he wants to do a separate tour, we will consider.

Dewey Potter, 12/4/2007, 5:12 pm
OK thanks. I'm not calling him back.

Cognitive Dissonance

Hate crimes against homeless people is now a crime in Seattle, thanks to the excellent work of Seattle's Office for Civil Rights. I've always had mixed emotions regarding this particular tactic. Being homeless, unlike being gay, black, or a Muslim, is more of an economic status than an identity. But maybe I'm just wishing the world were other than it is.

Given, however, the Bumfights inspired mayhem that has become frighteningly commonplace, where, most typically, teen-aged boys go looking for easy targets to kill and torture, an additional penalty for that sort of violence doesn't seem like a bad thing. It is a stretch, however, to think that this legislation in and of itself will prevent a single act of harassment.

Crimes against homeless and other vulnerable people has more to do with an overall environment of dehumanization that lends itself to hate. Recent treatment of homeless campers in the local media is a case in point.

There was, however, an interesting wrinkle in the legislation that was unanimously adopted by city government this week. According to the brief article that ran in the PI, "The law also makes it illegal to damage the belongings of a homeless person."

This would include, I assume, throwing said belongings away, which has been the City's unrepentant practice during the recent wave of homeless encampment sweeps. Maybe, despite Human Services head Patricia McInturff's opinion that storage of belongings is "impossible," the City will have to find a way, or else.

And She Once Showed So Much Promise ...

This morning's Mayor's Human Service staff briefing of the City Council on homeless campsite clearances was dispiriting to say the least. Parks Department staffer Cheryl Fraser began by depicting a horror show of rats, needles, feces, and trash, and complaints of intimidation, and ended by offering Nicole Brodeur's recent abomination of a column as supporting evidence. The clearances, she insisted, "are not a strategy to reduce homelessness in Seattle." Then Marilyn Littlejohn spoke of their great concern for homeless people, their efforts to belatedly create policy, and said "These encampments are not part of the solution. They are part of the problem."

She's half right. They are definitely not part of the solution. They are, instead, evidence of our collective failure to provide the services that are direly needed, and as Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness' Dan Wise eloquently pointed out during her testimony, these sweeps drive people deeper into seclusion and make them harder to find and serve.

But the main show was Patricia McInturff's testimony. As the Mayor's head of Human Services, she's the one who gets paid the big bucks to cover City butt, and lie, if necessary, towards that end. She wrapped up the truthful part of her presentation in the first few sentences, having admitted that they City has had no real policy for about a decade, and that they "botched" the clearances near the Aloha Inn. The following Ten Lies represent a partial list of the lies and distortions within the rest of her testimony, including lies of omission.

1. We all agree that people deserve to be notified and have assistance.
The City has said that they are continuing clearances, and there is no evidence that either of these goals are currently being adequately addressed.

2. Storage of possessions by the City is not possible.
Other Cities have accomplished this, sometimes by court order. Does Seattle have some bizarre storage limitation problem that is unique to our world class city status? I don't get it.

3. These are not things you would want to store.
One man complained in the Post Intelligencer story of having his only photos of his children disposed of by the City. When people live without possessions, what they do carry tends to be carefully selected and of enormous personal value.

4. This is not a strategy to reduce homelessness.
There was no acknowledgment of the documented fact that the Mayor's office has carried out a proactive policy of monthly sweeps since at least May, and that the selected list of sites has near complete overlap with One Night Count areas, many of which are purely urban and do not border residential areas that might complain.

5. We want to get these people the services they need.
Few if any services have been offered, although arrests have been threatened of those attempting to reclaim belongings.

6. I checked this weekend. There was room in our shelters.
On Friday night, one men's shelter turned away 86 people. Despite it being the first of the month when people get their checks and there is often a bit more slack from people renting hotel rooms, emergency and sever weather shelters were full over the weekend, and Operation Nightwatch made 149 referrals on Sunday night to people with nowhere to go.

7. DESC's Connections offers services to those displaced from campsites.
This program has limited capacity, and primarily serves those DESC clients who are looking for employment. Connections is not designed for or particularly open to those targeted by the City's campsite clearances.

8. We have no way of knowing how many people we are dealing with.
Our one-night count is a national model, and while numbers are approximate, it offers a pretty clear idea of the numbers. Last year, 1,600 were counted in the Seattle area alone who were outside of the at capacity shelter system. There are detailed breakouts of where and under what circumstances.

9. I would never be part of a response that didn't address these things.
These words were uttered in response to Peter Steinbrueck's insistence that the City policy be compassionate and show sensitivity and care.

10. I look forward to working with advocates to create new protocols.
The Mayor's Office has stonewalled advocates on this issue since last September. This morning she said that the city's goal was to develop protocols on their own by the end of the first quarter of 2008, and then they will offer advocates an opportunity to respond. Not exactly an open and collaborative relationship.

At 31 responses thus far, this blog's poll on whether Patricia McInturff is "High on crack" or simply "Has the Mayor's back" is running about even. There are three days left to vote. Make yourself heard on this important issue. As always, the poll is at top right.

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.