Nickelsville Eviction Set for High Noon

Not a view from West Seattle, but still a great shot, courtesy of The SunBreak Flickr Pool member zenobia joy

The most newsworthy thing anyone can report about the eviction of Nickelsville from Terminal 107 Park, set for noon today, is the name of their new location. Rather like homelessness itself, Nickelsville resists measures like eviction.

Evicting a homeless group is like ending gun violence with a shootout. The history of Nickelsville is a history of eviction--here is West Seattle Blog coverage of a Nickelsville eviction from a year ago. Other than replacing Friday with Wednesday and updating place names, WSB could run the same story. (I say that for effect; they are covering the eviction minutely.)

The cruel irony of solving homelessness by not giving people a place to stay seems lost on the Port of Seattle and Mayor Nickels--and I should say that it's not that I'm for the appropriation of public land by any activist group that feels the whim. But I am sympathetic to the refusal of the "shelter" response. A homeless shelter can be a temporary refuge, but it is not a home.

If you drive around Seattle, you will see that the city seems to put greater value on parking lots and garages for city vehicles than its homeless population. Land is dedicated solely to housing vehicles, it's maintained and guarded. But it's not simply a question of money, it seems more pointedly a question of making room.

While the city can't seem to muster an equal interest in providing mid-term housing for the larger number of homeless people who aren't scary, it is willing to spend millions on housing the homeless who cost too much to let roam free.

Whether or not you feel there's a moral charge at work here--either to provide for those who have no home, or demand that the homeless stand on their own two feet--the strategy of chasing Nickelsville from place to place is, a year later, clearly not achieving a desired resolution. If the city is willing to spend $9 million on housing for 300 "chronically homeless" people, why not let Nickelsville have a shot?