The boldness of our City Council sometimes leaves me breathless. Recently they announced that, having failed to address the existence of the roving homeless camp Nickelsville, they plan to “review alternatives to the Sunny Jim site” suggested by Mayor McGinn as a temporary encampment, which plan has since bogged down due to concerns about site contamination, which, you know, as a former Sunny Jim products consumer, I’d like to know substantially more about.
You may remember that Nickelsville’s patience was bought off last November by the promise of the Sunny Jim resettlement:
Last week, the 100 to 150 inhabitants of the roving homeless camp Nickelsville were grumbling that the good news about a semi-permanent SoDo site, at the former Sunny Jim factory, was not great news, as there was still a winter to get through before the SoDo site would be ready for campers.
So: YOINK! Instead, the homeless can live comfortably in a review of alternatives. After all, here it is spring, and if the homeless have made it through the winter, then why not wait until July to make recommendations?
“The council is rehashing legwork that’s already been done by proactive homeless advocacy organizations and the mayor’s office over the past year (and beyond),” reports Cienna Madrid for The Stranger. She quotes Reverend Bill Kirlin-Hackett, director of the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness, as saying: “This is a series of seemingly meaningless statements that could’ve been said last October.”
That makes a good segué to this post written by the Council’s Richard Conlin, between what I imagine are crippling bouts of smugness. It’s like epilepsy, except he’s mainly in danger of choking on his self-regard. He begins with this assertion:
Over the past two years, homelessness in Seattle has decreased by 15 percent – an extraordinary achievement in the face of this recession, and a testament to the success of the Seattle community’s ‘Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness’.
That would be something, if true, but Conlin has no hard evidence of that. What he refers to is a 15 percent difference between One Night Counts in 2011 and 2010. I have no problem with the awareness-raising of the One Night Count, but as a reliable sampling method, it seems dubious to me. A quick glance at past counts show that 15 percent swings aren’t unusual, and that the count may also measure other factors.
Conlin goes on to count, himself, the ways in which the Council was not consulted about the Sunny Jim site. (In Seattle, the primary duty of the mayor is to consult with the City Council about their wishes.) Then he goes on to describe the ways in which the Council will do nothing substantive over the next several months:
In considering these alternatives, we will examine the legal and policy constraints for each as well as feasibility and costs. Our goal is to approve one or more options by the end of July. In the meantime, the Council will hold the proposed legislation regarding the Sunny Jim site, since it is not legally permissible to approve it before the environmental review is completed. The Council will review the legislation concerning the $2.4 million proceeds received by the City in the settlement from the fire at the Sunny Jim settlement. We will decide whether funds should be spent on environmental remediation at the site, used for other shelter purposes, or reserved for other priority purposes in the light of continuing concerns about the budget.
Finally, he closes with this gem, in case your head has not exploded yet:
As HL Mencken noted, “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that we can solve issues around homelessness without putting in the energy to figure out what really works.
Absolutely, Mr. Conlin. When it comes to finding a temporary place for homeless people currently living in tents to stay–an issue never before studied by the City, I gather–there is no real rush. Nothing was done last winter, or this spring, and come summer, the weather’s nice. However, I do encourage you to reread that Mencken quotation while keeping in mind your support for the deep-bore tunnel.
