Back in April, Seattle’s city council stepped in to assert their leadership in solving homelessness. Our Mayor had gone rogue, suggesting semi-permanent locations for “encampments” (aka tent cities) in either SoDo or Lake City, and it was important that the Council review alternatives to acting. “Our goal is to approve one or more options by the end of July,” said Council President Richard Conlin.
My goodness, look at the time. Where did summer go? With La Niña on the way back to town, we can look forward to cozying up to the fire this winter, as above-average precipitation falls across the Pacific Northwest–maybe we’ll get another of those major snow storms! Hot chocolate and marshmallows!
Now, wasn’t there something we were supposed to do re: sheltering the homeless? Let’s see, Nickelsville residents have been out holding eco-friendly car washes to pay for portable toilets. What has the City Council accomplished?
In April, in a dark mood, I predicted that “the Council will do nothing substantive over the next several months.” I was incorrect. In fact, the Council adopted unanimously this week Council Bill 117288, which spells out “standards that a religious facility is expected to maintain when operating encampments.”
That’s how the Council’s news release puts it. The Seattle Times puts it another way: “City eases tent-city rules for churches.” The newspaper notes that, “Under the new ordinance, religious organizations don’t have to notify neighbors and there is no limit on how long an encampment may stay in one place.”
There’s yet another way to look at it, which is that the City of Seattle was putting itself in harm’s way, legally, by appearing to hinder the mission of religious organizations. The Council’s news release, near the end, allows that:
State law (RCW 35.21.915) requires that cities not impose conditions other than those necessary to protect public health and safety and that do not burden the decisions or actions of a religious organization regarding the location or shelter for homeless people on property owned by the religious organization.
While I can appreciate the spirit behind Tent City 3 and Nickelsville, I am not a fan of tent cities, when better shelter is available. Better shelter has been promised homeless people, they have been repeatedly told to be patient, and yet we enter another winter season with the City Council broadcasting the news that tent cities are–it turns out–something that religious organizations might like to take on semi-permanently. (Sorry, atheist do-gooders. You need to get a permit.)
This is a miserable failure, all around. A frustrated Mayor McGinn has in his proposed budget reallocated the money that would have been spent on a semi-permanent encampment. The Council appears to be backing away quietly as well. It is a continual civic shame that people sleep out of doors at all in Seattle’s winter. It is an even greater embarrassment that homeless people who are capable of the organizational resources that our tent cities display can’t find equal resourcefulness on the part of the City Council.
But then, the Council is not facing winter in a tent.
I vote we give all the homeless people a one-way bus pass to Utah, where they can live in posh new apartments for free for those not on the public dole, without any responsibility for self-care, who can be eternally inebriated, and drugged-up without any commitment to either sober up or seek job retaining, mental health counseling or the like. Good luck with the Mormons.
@Good Luck Charlie: FYI, you only get one of these “I’d like to self-identify as an asshole” comments, and then we ban you.