Hooverville from above, March 1, 1934. 90.2.0523. Seattle King County Department of Health Photographs, Box 1 (112-275), King County Archives.

“Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn’s staff has suggested seven city-owned sites for a homeless encampment of 100 or 150 people,” reports the Seattle Times, setting off a flurry of commentary from local blogs, from Blogging Georgetown‘s world-weary shrug (“I mean, it’s friggin’ Georgetown. Always room for a few more outcasts.”) to the comments-section conflict at Magnolia Voice.

“Management of the site would be turned over to a third party that would follow strict guidelines set by the city, including the goal of moving residents permanently out of homelessness and the requirement of collecting data showing progress toward that goal,” writes Judy Lightfoot at Crosscut.

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In the the “more things change” category, both Georgetown and Interbay (two of the sites suggested) were homes to Hoovervilles during the Great Depression. On February 13, 1931, a radical-sounding contingent claiming to represent 2,000 homeless fired off a letter asking that the city council support the creation of unemployment insurance, and demanding $5 million be allocated for homeless services.

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Seattle Municipal Archives Photograph Collection: Item No: 64764. Georgetown relief depot

“[E]x-servicemen” they said, had “risked their lives on the battle fronts for the interests of Wall Street,” but were denied their cash bonus, while “millions of dollars are being given back by Andrew Mellon as tax rebates to the large corporations.”

The facts on the ground being what they were, the letter writers held up the Soviet Union as a model of full employment while estimating that 45,000 to 50,000 people were out of work in Seattle: “It is reported daily in the local press, about the numerous suicides and other acts of desperation amongst the suffering masses of this city, due to their terrible plight as a result of unemployment.”

Visitors conducting sociological examinations of Seattle’s Hooverville estimated some five to six hundred shacks, home to single men (women and children weren’t allowed). In “a certain Pacific Coast city,” the interviewer found two former college presidents. Seattle tried burning the shacks several times–public pressure for their removal was constant: “In all fairness to people like ourselves,” reads one petition, “who invested in good homes in the Magnolia District, we feel that what is known as ‘Jungle City’ should be removed.” The city succeeded finally in eradicating them in 1942, as the war finally put people back to work. (And engaged in a second wave of eradication in the ’70s, when the city council put SRO hotels out of business.)

Shantytown and garbage dump on Sixth Avenue South. Item 39279, Seattle Municipal Archives.

Eighty years later, as Seattle’s housing market begins its double-dip, the Nickelsville residents have a website they post to. They’ve issued a “Declaration of Emergency” and noted that nine of them have died by suicide this year. They have a steady of stream of inquisitive visitors. They’re asking for a “a site big enough for a non-moving eco village of up to 1,000,” which is about the population of Hooverville, back in the ’30s. (Nickelsville ranges in size from 100 to 150 people now.) Unlike the original Hooverville, Nickelsville includes women and children.

The contentiousness remains the same (today and yesterday people smell when they can’t shower and homeless people are suspected to be mentally ill, addicts, and lazy, rather than former college presidents). It increases if homeless people refuse to act subservient, or spout criticisms of capitalism that suggest they’re “owed” a place to live. In a post at ZeroHedge, titled “iDepression 2.0,” the author quotes Ma Joad of all fictional people:

Looked like we didn’t have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared….

It turns out that people care a great deal about the homeless, just not always in the way you’d think.