September 27, 2001
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Just hours ago, a judge handed down the official decision in the King
County Court of Appeals that the City of Seattle's Department of
Construction and Land Use should have granted the Tent City permit
application last year. The judge cited national land use codes and said
that "obviously tents are used as habitations," making it impossible for
the City of Seattle to use the grounds that living in tents is not
legally permissible to deny future permit applications.
Tent City was begun by the homeless organizing groups WHEEL and SHARE on
March 31, 1999 to provide safe shelter and mutual support for some of
the 2500+ homeless men, women and families who have to sleep outside
because they have no other option. Seattle has approximately 5500
homeless people and approximately 2800 shelter spaces. Even special
arrangements for vulnerable women and homeless families are far below
the need.
After the first few months of camping on various public lands, Tent City
began receiving invitations from churches to use their land or parking
lots. The tents still had to move frequently--on the average, every two
weeks--due to the City of Seattle's insistence that the tent community
violated zoning regulations.
In July of 2000, El Centro de la Raza, a Latino community center,
invited Tent City to use their property for six months, and applied for
a permit from DCLU. During the public comment period, DCLU received
over 300 letters of support for Tent City, and about twenty in
opposition. The police department testified that Tent City had no
negative impact on public safety in the area. DCLU still denied the
permit.
Tent City and El Centro appealed the denial, even though the original
permit period had run out, because a decision in our favor would
dismiss the accumulated fines against El Centro for violation of zoning
regulations-- $75 a day for the six months that Tent City stayed at El
Centro. The decision also sets a precedent for future permit
applications to be approved.
Tent City has moved a total of 20 times since March 31, 1999. We are
currently hosted by Dunlap Baptist Church at 8445 Rainier Ave South,
moving Sunday September 31 to The Church by the Side of the Road at
Pacific Highway South and South 148th in Tukwila. We will be staying
there until November 17, 2001. A neighborhood meeting is scheduled at
the church on Friday, September 28, at 7PM.
Most churches have limited property; they usually loan us their parking
lots. In such cases, six weeks is a long time. But if a future host
has the appropriate land for an extended stay, it will now be possible.
And one more precedent is set for our brothers and sisters outside in
tents in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere.
YEEEEE-HAH!
Comments (4)
These people have been living in tents since 1999? Or is this a temporary condition to stay until they get on their feet?
I am more than curious about this! What on earth do they do during the winter months? How many are there?
Reminds me of an old Elvis movie I saw once.
None of the people who were staying in Tent City when it was first set up are still there. Tent City has a higher "success rate" of people moving on to full-time jobs and housing than conventional shelters do. The differences that contribute to this include: <li>24-hour access, so that you can work odd hours or night shifts (indoor shelters have set hours, with usually very narrow window for arrival and departure, and there are no daytime shelters for night workers.)<li>Safe storage; you can leave your belongings behind while you work, job-hunt, or do other errands. Very few indoor shelters have this.<li>Families can stay together. In conventional shelters, families are often separated; a single mother won't be able to keep her teenage son with her, an adult man and his elderly mother cannot stay in the same shelter, there is no shelter for married couples without children, and shelter even for couples with children is limited.<li>Community responsibility. Tent City isn't a shelter provided for you. It's a self-managed community. Each resident has to paricipate in the maintenance chores, security duty, organizational meetings and community outreach that make it possible for the program to keep going. If you don't participate, you don't stay. <li>Participation includes mutually enforcing very strict rules of no drugs/no alcohol/no weapons/no violence/no abuse. Probably stricter rules than most shelters manage to enforce, because Tent City is so highly visible that any looseness could bring it down.<li>All of this makes for a sense of security, energy level, and community feeling that just can't develop in a shelter of people who only pop in at night to eat, sleep and leave again in the morning.Check out Tent City Diaries for one couple's Tent City success story.
the game is on. check your email
Thanks anitra for the further explaination! Sounds like a much better answer for the homeless than any facility I ever heard of.
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