It's A Wonderful Life

My 92 Corolla broke down rather spectacularly last week. I was on I-5, crawling home in heavy traffic, when the front end of my car began to resemble a dry ice fog at a KISS concert. The temperature gauge climbed into the red. I was in trouble. My inner Boston driver kicked in as I fought my way, lane by lane, to the right. I could feel the life drain from the car. "It's been 189,000 miles," she said. "What do you want from me?" We made it to the breakdown lane just after the on ramp a half mile before the 85th street exit. Ten seconds later, all the gauge lights came on and she quietly died.

"Fuck!" I explained.

I called Triple-A, raised the hood, and slowly waved a road flare like it was a sparkler that wanted to be a roman candle. It would be an hour or so, they said. The flare exhausted, I climbed down into the culvert to pee, smoked a few cigarettes, closed the hood, and tried the engine. Miraculous resurrection, by way of St. Jude. After four pitchers of water provided by the gentle smiling African immigrant giants at the Aurora AM/PM, I made it home.

Still in denial, I thought a coolant flush might do the trick. For years, I'd denied the men at Jiffy Lube this simple pleasure. Perhaps, I thought, they'd been right all along.

"We have good news and bad news," they said.

What's the good news?

"We're not charging you for your coolant treatment."

My spirits sank. What's the bad news?

"You can guess. There's a giant hole in your radiator." Subtle rivulets of green water poured from the top seam, wasted like the seed of Onan into the plastic-laced pit below.

Can I drive?

His face reflected the sudden knowledge he was dealing with a moron.

"I wouldn't," he said. "Not far anyway."

Various experiments revealed I had five miles or so before the needle neared the red and the terrible smell commenced.

One doesn't do without a car when one has twin five year-olds. Their little legs are poorly suited for long distances, and buses don't come equipped with car seats. So my work today was clear. Cancel my morning and early afternoon meetings, find a rental car near my mechanic, get downtown to work, make a crucial 3:30 meeting near U-Village, and get back to Shoreline for a 5:00 conference with my kid's kindergarten teacher. All very doable.

Just as I was leaving, staff called to say I was wanted on The Conversation at 1 and that the heat wasn't working at Real Change. I gave staff a number to call for HVAC repair, and called the KUOW producer to say I'd fit it in, but would have to do so from my shitty Verizon celphone, perhaps from the Enterprise lobby. She dubiously agreed.

I didn't tell her that the Verizon signal frequently drops. Everybody knows that.

The operation was timed like a dimestore watch. It would be fine. As I left home, my friend couldn't get her passenger door to close. We stood on an icy patch, bouncing the door back and forth, futzing with the mechanism while trying not to fall, laughing at this latest insult from The Universe. After five or six minutes of this, I blew graphite into the frozen latch from the nearly depleted tube I found in my glove box. Click. It worked. Fuck you, Universe.

We slowly worked our way across the ice of north Aurora, watching the engine gauge go from frozen to warm to hot. Ten blocks before Enterprise, we were close to redlining. The aroma of broiling antifreeze filled the air.

"Baby," I said, "We're going to Starbucks."

My Corolla gratefully rested in the cold while we went inside to nurse our respective burnt bean addictions. I politely asked the barista if they wouldn't mind turning down their annoying Christmas music while I did a phone interview at 1:05. They graciously obliged. At 12:57, the 2008 Starbuck's Christmas CD fell silent as a ron yon virgin.

Three minutes later, my cel rang. I'd be live on KUOW in a few moments with Ross Reynolds to open The Conversation. I did that thing I do under these circumstances, which is to retreat into that special place where the entire universe collapses into a triad of me, the interviewer, and my talking points. Ten minutes went by in a Blink.

I was packing up when the store manager came over to say hi, and told me about how much she likes the Real Change vendor they let work their drive through. He, too, worships the burnt bean and the symbol of the mermaid. We are legion. A filled Food Lifeline donations bin sat inside their front door. There are good people in this world, I thought. They help balance out those of us who are shits.

My car sprinted the next ten blocks without breaking a sweat. I was placed in a new KIA. "I've always wanted to drive a KIA," I smirked. They smirked back, and said that KIA actually stands for Korean Imitation Automobile. We discussed how this knowledge affected our feelings of brand loyalty. A woman who was far too smart and funny to stay in such a crappy job for long followed me the twenty blocks down Aurora to my mechanic. My needle rested happily in the middle. There was no smell. We accomplished the transfer.

I drove my virtual Korean rental car, feeling invincible. I made it downtown, to U-Village, out to Shoreline, and back to Edmonds. I felt like Lance Armstrong after the Tour de France, but before the steroids scandal.

I was standing in the dark, nearly empty parking lot of my kids' school when my cel rang. It was Rosette from Real Change, asking if I could be in at 8:30 to meet the HVAC people. "You must have worked your magic on KUOW," he said. Why? "People have been coming in all day with boxes of stuff for the survival gear give-away, saying they heard you on the radio." I smiled and felt a little like James Stewart when he discovered all wasn't lost. Everytime a bell rings, she said, an angel gets his wings.

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 ..."

Sweeps of Compassion?

When the Mayor appeared on KUOW’s Weekday last Monday, Greg Nickels had just given the Dalai Lama the key to the City and taken a brave stance in favor of compassion. While the show was supposed to be about Key Arena and the new grocery bag tax, the convergence of the Dalai Lama and the new protocols begged for comment.

Host Steve Sher pressed him hard.

Why only twenty new beds when your own staff says there are 100-300 homeless campers? Couldn’t Tent Cities be a solution? Isn’t this a shortsighted quick fix? Aren’t these policies punitive? Where’s the compassion?

Unfortunately, Sher chose to confront Nickels with a statement I made to Sharon Chan at the PI after the City blindsided us with the release of the protocols.

The City released paper versions of the protocols to the press two hours before making them available to advocates. Chan was scheduled to call me at 4 pm. The documents were released at 3:30.

Taking no chances, they buried the story in Saturday’s paper with a late-Friday press release.

It took me about ten minutes to find the stuff they were hiding. All camping on public property was illegal and subject to citation or arrest. No surprises there. This was in the draft and no one expected that to change.

But the City was now making a distinction between “unauthorized camping” and “unauthorized encampments.” Camping is to erect any equipment that a reasonable person would assume is for the purposes of remaining when the property is closed. An encampment is three or more structures, any of which is within three-hundred feet of the next.

In a lawyerly bit of work that few people would catch in a quick reading, the protocols are written to apply to “unauthorized encampments.” Yet all camping is illegal.

So, do those who are camped alone or in pairs rate notification, outreach, and access to shelter and services? The answer would appear to be no.

Also deeply troubling is the new recurring encampment clause, which says that sites will be monitored once cleared, and if encampments re-occur three times within a 60-day period, permanent signs will be posted and belongings will be cleared without notice.

Given that just twenty new shelter beds have been provided, and more than 2,600 people were found outside during last year’s count, one can reasonably assume that encampments are likely to return.

Call me cynical, but it’s easy to imagine a scenario where within 6 months, every key site in the City will have reached this status.

There is also a provision in the procedures document that says anyone who already has a citation will not have the right to enter posted areas to retrieve possessions. The more expansive administrative rules document — which details the legal framework behind the procedures — clarifies that the previous citation rule is site-specific.

But I didn’t get that far before the press called. Everyone in the world, it seems, was trying to get the twenty-megabyte document from the City server at the same time, and the download was like molasses in January. There was no time for detailed legal analysis, and none of this was in the easily digested press release.

So when Sher asked if something I overstated to the PI was true, I was surprised to hear Greg say he didn’t know.

Sher: There’s a little bit of punitiveness in this though. If people camping on a site have been cited elsewhere they won’t get the 72 hours notice to vacate and they won’t be allowed to retrieve their belongings? Is that the rule? Is that true? That’s what Tim Harris, the Executive Director of Real Change said. He was looking at the rules and said, still seems to be punitive?

Nickels: Well, the intent is not to be punitive. The intent is for people to understand what those rules are and to provide the help that they need to be able to avoid this kind of, uh, inappropriate shelter.

Sher: But is that true though? That if they’ve been cited somewhere else they won’t get the 72 hours notice? They don’t get their belongings?

Nickels: You know, Um, Um, I don’t know.

Sher: Well, He’s quoting your rules. So, if it’s wrong you’ll tell me.

Nickels: There you go.

Then Nickels goes on to promise that everyone in the encampments “who needs services will get services” and blow smoke about how everything will be great once we’ve ended homelessness.

I was wrong, but it was still a sweet moment.

If the new policies on campsite removal were limited to the good news in the City’s press release — expanded notification time, contracted (but underfunded) outreach services, better provisions for storage, and twenty new shelter beds — we’d have grudgingly declared victory and moved on to focusing on oversight and accountability.

The Mayor’s Office has fatally undermined the legitimacy of the new protocols by sneaking in provisions that exempt those camped alone, in pairs, and, eventually, in any of the City’s key sites, from the rules. The rules are that much of the time there will be no rules.

It should surprise no one that a policy that began in secret would, after six months of process, arrive at a self-justifying set of protocols in which the secret exceptions are hidden in plain sight.

There are no provisions for independent oversight of any sort.

This brings us back to exactly where we started, with the City removing most encampments without notification, services, or storage of belongings, operating without accountability, and lying to cover their tracks.

This is not acceptable. A compassionate policy on campsite removals requires the following:

The hidden exceptions must be challenged and removed from these protocols. Otherwise, the three-camp definition and the recurring encampment clause will render the policies meaningless by greatly limiting their application.

Outreach needs to be consistent, relationship-based, and adequately funded. The zero-tolerance for campsites approach outlined in these protocols undermines the capacity to do real outreach by needlessly chasing those who are often already resistant to services from place to place.

The City Council needs to press hard for oversight and accountability. We should know how many people have been removed from encampments and where they went. If the exceptions that exist were applied, this information would offer a very limited picture of what's really happening.

While strategies and tactics still need to be worked out, this much is clear. These protocols are unacceptable.

It’s always embarrassing to get something wrong in public. I find solace in knowing Mayor Nickels gets stuff wrong too. In the space of twenty minutes on KUOW, he said he didn’t know what was in his own policies, that there was enough shelter for everyone, that homelessness would be solved by 2014, and that the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness was “on-track.”

Were these the mis-statements of a bumbling, under-informed public servant who goes on the radio without having his facts straight? Or were these the calculated and often-repeated lies routinely offered by power to justify the unjustifiable?

While you’re deciding, we at Real Change will be organizing a response. We hope you will join us.