We try to get there early, before the police arrive. We bring coffee and donuts or sandwiches when we can, because some people will still be asleep in their tents or shelters, and the police will wake them up if we don’t. Nights can be difficult in those tents and we’d like folks to hear a friendly voice first. We try to bring contractor bags or donated suitcases if we have them. We try to bring replacement tents or sleeping bags if we have them.
Early in the morning. the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and the Parks Department will start forcing people out of their homes. They will force people to leave whatever shelter they might have improvised for themselves against the cold, rain, heat or smoke. These sweeps destroy shelter. While people scramble to pack whatever they can, the city will destroy whatever is left behind, even wheelchairs, walkers or canes — it doesn’t matter. The city’s intention is to erase all signs of human suffering that it doesn’t want housed residents to see.
Most people being swept are left with no place to go. They will move someplace else outside and become even more vulnerable to the elements and dangers of living outdoors. Medical studies across many cities have found that continual sweeps significantly increase hospitalization and deaths.
Even though SPD and Parks staff are supposed to offer alternative shelter when they displace people who are living outside — they don’t. They are also supposed to offer storage for people’s possessions — they don’t. In our experience doing this on-the-ground work, we have found SPD and Parks staff tend to find excuses not to. Additionally, there are almost never enough housing spots or even shelter beds for the number of people losing their shelter in a sweep.
When we know about a sweep in advance, we try to visit in the days before and find out what people need. We offer to help pack, fold or carry their items or assist in towing their vehicle or RV. On the day of the sweep, we try to advocate for more time and to resist SPD and Parks staff when they want to rush people who are slow to pack because they have no place to go. We film and do what we can to stop individual acts of violence by both entities, but a sweep is nothing but violence from start to finish — state-supported violence against people already battered and exposed. We can’t always stop that violence, but we can resist it by treating people like humans, by supporting their autonomy and choices, instead of treating them like trash as the city does.
We try to follow up with people after a sweep, finding them at their scattered new locations. We try to help them reassemble some of what they lost. Case managers often lose touch with people after a sweep, and we try to reconnect them. We try to maintain whatever relationships we’ve started and to help folks connect with each other, when we can.
Sweeps do not move people off the streets or out of homelessness. Sweeps only chase people from place to place and destroy any stability or community they might try to build. Sweeps send people away with one more wound, one more cause for rage, one more heartbreak.
Our struggle against the daily brutality of useless, money-consuming, life-threatening sweeps has led Stop the Sweeps to political, legislative, policy and education work as well as showing up daily or several times a day to witness and to mitigate harm. We are only a bunch of volunteers, spread throughout the city. These monthly columns will bring some of our experiences, some of our lessons from the field and some voices of people we’ve come to know, as sweeps continue trying and failing to make us ignore the ongoing suffering of our unhoused neighbors.
Stop the Sweeps is a group that believes in a world without state-sanctioned violence and mobilizes to challenge state violence directed at our unhoused neighbors during sweeps.
Read more of the May 1–7, 2024 issue.