Mary Diederichs walked through the donations tent in Camp Second Chance, an authorized encampment on Myers Way in West Seattle, showing the wares that supportive housed neighbors had dropped off.
A crate of hand sanitizer. A professional women’s blazer in unmarred lime green, cut for form and flared at the hip. A hanging shoe caddy with shiny-toed flats peeking out of the sleeves. Entering the semi-permanent tent feels like walking into a posh thrift store, and Diederichs treats it the same.
“I’m kind of like a professional shopper,” she quipped.
She has a list of campers’ sizes and pulls items for people when she knows there’s a need. Joining the camp after time out on the street can be a jarring, uncertain experience where people acclimate to a community and the politics it brings.
Diederichs cuts right through that, introducing herself, bringing newcomers into the donations tent and providing them a sleeping bag, new clothes, a razor, whatever they need.
“It’s a psychological thing,” Diederichs said. “It’s okay to be here.”
For all her assurances, Diederichs herself didn’t know how long she would be able to call Camp Second Chance her home.
Shortly after she joined the camp two months ago, accusations of sexual harassment and misallocation of funds resulted in the dismissal of longtime campers and eventually a split with Patacara, the nonprofit organization that had supported the camp and its residents as they transitioned from illegal interlopers on public land to an organization accepted by neighbors and financed by the city of Seattle.
Now, the camp must define itself and its relationship with the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), the nonprofit most likely to take over responsibility for the camp, in order to maintain its long-term viability as a safe place for people to escape life on the streets.
Independence is important to the camp, said Eric Pattin, one of the camp’s board members and original resident.
“I’m optimistic this is going to go a whole lot better,” he said.
Independence could be described as a founding principle of Camp Second Chance.
It’s been more than a year since a group of roughly two dozen original campers defected from Tent City 3, an encampment operated by the Seattle Housing and Resource Effort, better known by its acronym SHARE, over conflict with Tent City 3 leadership.
Seeking a way to live communally without being subject to SHARE’s governance structure, campers took up residence on a thin piece of city-owned property with an assist from Polly Trout, founder of Patacara.
When the city threatened to sweep the camp, Trout and the campers waged a war of public opinion, winning hearts and minds of neighbors by promising that the camp would be well managed, substance-free and transparent in its dealings.
A $200,000 city contract, managed by Patacara, formalized the relationship and put the camp on solid ground. It now boasts a television tent with a huge flat-screen, a charging tent where campers can juice up their devices and use personal computers, a communal kitchen where board member Anthony Badia prepared hamburgers and fresh fruit en masse so that campers, tired from a day working or looking for housing, would have a meal ready when they came home.
Pattin isn’t done — he envisions a Camp Second Chance replacing the elevated tents that most campers call home with tiny houses, and permanent structures to house functions like the donations tent.
Pattin isn’t done — he envisions a Camp Second Chance replacing the elevated tents that most campers call home with tiny houses, and permanent structures to house functions like the donations tent.
If so, he and the camp will do it without Patacara. The campers decided in August to sever ties with the organization over allegations of financial mismanagement related to private donations meant to fund additional tiny houses.
Everyone involved in the split has interpreted events in different ways.
In the eyes of the campers, money meant for tiny houses was inexplicably missing from the books. When manager and founding camper Eric Davis brought the allegations forward, Trout and Patacara fired him and barred him from returning to the camp.
The city investigated, and determined that no public funds had been misused, said Meg Olberding, spokesperson for the Human Services Department.
From Trout’s perspective, Davis was let go for violating the camp’s code of conduct. Longtime campers, such as Davis, were consolidating power and preventing the camp from operating as a true democracy, Trout said.
He was also accused of sexual harassment, she said.
But when the camp voted Patacara out, Trout stepped aside both from the camp and the organization that she founded in 2013.
“I wish the camp well, I love the camp,” Trout said. “It got to the point I was no longer useful or needed by them. I’m holding them in my heart.”
Camp Second Chance was able to vote Patacara out because Trout had given her word that the organization would follow the campers’ lead and not exert control over their operations. They will find a different situation with LIHI, an established organization with a great deal of experience operating encampments in partnership with Nickelsville, a nonprofit with some of the same leadership as share, the group from which the campers had originally sought autonomy.
Sharon Lee, executive director of LIHI, said she hopes to avoid a similar split between campers and organizers.
Lee assured campers that the organization wants the camp to operate safely, to move people into housing and help them find employment.
“I think we want to set a tone that may have to be certain rules or guidelines that are maybe new,” Lee said.
Pattin sees the new partnership as a potential boon to the camp — lihi is a large proponent of tiny houses and holds work parties to build them and get them into the camps that it operates. He sees it as a way to convert the encampment into a village.
No one knows what will happen if the camp’s free spirit clashes with lihi’s management style.
“We’re an independent and self-governed group,” Pattin said. “We really like to have a lot of control.”
Ashley Archibald is a Staff Reporter covering local government, policy and equity. Have a story idea? She can be can reached at ashleya (at) realchangenews (dot) org. Twitter @AshleyA_RC
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