Mayor Mike McGinn took another step toward creating a city-sanctioned homeless camp, but residents of Nickelsville, the roving encampment for which the location was ostensibly selected, oppose the city's planned rules, including a ban on children and time limits on residency.
Mayor Mike McGinn submitted legislation to the Seattle City Council March 1 to create one of the nation's only city-sanctioned homeless encampments.
The project plan, released by the city Feb. 25, describes the request for a site manager that the city's Human Services Department will put out in April, Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith said.
HSD will pay the contractor $202,000 to operate the site for two years as a pilot. If the City Council approves the plan, $175,000 of the money would go for three "self-sufficiency advocates" or case managers. Their goal, in part, would be to find housing for camp residents within 12 months of arrival ("Under new management," RC, Feb. 16-22.)
Smith said the city would spend another $620,000 in capital funds to provide trailers for staff offices and build shower, restroom, laundry, kitchen and storage facilities at the site.
Among other rules, the plan prohibits children at the encampment. They and their parents will be referred to other shelter, Smith said.
That's one rule Nickelsville won't put up with, resident Nate Martin said. The camp has always allowed parents and children to stay together. And it's never had any time limits, he said.
If the camp's parent organization, Veterans for Peace, succeeds in getting the contract, Martin said he's hopeful the city will negotiate some of the issues.
In the meantime, the encampment's residents have asked the mayor to let them move to the Sunny Jim site on May 15, when their temporary use permit expires at the Lake City fire station where they currently reside. Then, if the city doesn't choose Nickelsville to manage the Sunny Jim site, the Nickelodeons would leave, Martin said.
Smith said that plan isn't workable, because the Sunny Jim site wouldn't be livable until much later. Over the coming months, city workers will need to clean up pollution and build the camp's structures. Working around people in tents, he said, would be difficult.
Smith said Nickelsville could get an extension to stay at the Lake City fire station where they now live.
But Martin said residents of Nickelsville told their Lake City neighbors they'd leave May 15, and they intend to keep their word.