Forced from a dusty lot in South Seattle, the 70 or so residents of Nickelsville on Thursday did what they’ve done for months now. They picked up stakes, packed up their tents and moved somewhere else.
This time, the caravan of three moving cars and trucks landed in a park – the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 107 Park, on the Duwamish River, not far from the Duwamish Longhouse.
As the sun began to set Thursday evening, they unloaded bags of belongings in plastic bags and set up mostly bright pink tents in a far greener setting than the homeless encampment’s home on a vacant state Department of Transportation lot.
(Photo: Elliot Stoler)
Under trees that would shield them from the summer sand, and on grass, they hoped they finally had found a place to stay awhile.
Christopher Franklin pointed to his sneakers and said they were two weeks old. They were caked in dust from the lot they’d left. But others worried they’ll be thrown out again soon.
But a woman, who wouldn’t give her name, said as she sat at a picnic table: “I’m scared. This is a park. They close at 9 p.m.” And indeed by the parking, a sign posted the hours – 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
It was already after 9 p.m, as the tents went up. And a man stood alone shaking his head. “I’ll be surprised if we’re here a week. This is the best they could do? I think I’m better off on my own.”
(Photo: Elliot Stoler)
Earlier Thursday, they were hoping not to move.
The residents of Nickelsville – set up in part as a protest against what they believe to be a city administration not doing enough for the homeless – had arrived at the South Seattle lot in September, hoping the state would let them stay.
A couple of weeks ago, one of the residents, Bruce Deavers, had stood in the lot by potted tomato plants the residents had hoped to turn into a P-patch and talked about feeding themselves and maybe selling some of the produce at farmers markets.
The encampment originally had been given a July 6 deadline to move from its spot on vacant state Department of Transportation land near the Duwamish River.
However, Gov. Chris Gregoire granted the encampment an extension until last Monday to find a different location. On Monday, Seattle building officials arrived, threatening to fine the state for hosting an illegal encampment. At that point, the state gave the homeless until 7 p.m. Thursday to move.
In the meantime, Nickelsville filed for an injunction to allow the residents to stay. That request was denied Thursday morning.
Late Thursday afternoon, DOT officials said troopers would arrive Friday morning to make sure the residents had left.
(Photo: Elliot Stoler)
By a makeshift shelter in the South Seattle lot Thursday evening, Dewayne Dalzell sat in a wheelchair. He had drunk and done drugs, he said, until he had a heart attack going 101 mph on his motorcycle.
“I have a bad heart from drugs. I have a bad liver from drugs,” he said.
More than a political statement, he said, the encampment had been a respite from the hard knocks of homelessness.
“The shelters are dangerous,” he said. Because residents are awakened and told to leave at 5 a.m. at most overnight shelters, his days outside Nickelsville, he said, are spent wandering the streets, sleeping in parks and being harassed for sleeping in parks.
Here, he said, surveying what had been a sea of tents being taken down, near a line of four portable toilets and the shelter where the homeless people took turns serving as security, he said, “I’ve never had to even close the doors to my tent.”
(Photo: Elliot Stoler)
He spoke bitterly about being asked to move. “Where do they want us, back on the streets? In jail. I’ll take a cot and three hots (meals) a day. But I haven’t done anything. I’ve been sober.”
The issue has been a quandary for the state and the city.
In an article on Nickelsville last month in the PostGlobe, Ron Judd, an adviser to Gregoire, said the South Seattle lot was funded by the gas tax, and the state’s 18th amendment requires the money be used for highway purposes. “So the issue we face,” he said, “is that we can’t just do anything (with the DOT property).”
Paul Benz, director of the Lutheran Public Policy Office of Washington, said he and others from the Church Council of Washington had spent weeks trying to find a permanent location for the encampment.
Whereas tent cities – which house other groups of homeless people – typically stay in one location for three months, Nickelsville residents have said they want a more permanent location so they are not subjected to having to continually move.
Benz said he and others have contacted private-property owners and the Port of Seattle looking for a location where the camp could stay – perhaps not permanently – but for a while.
The Nickels administration, he said, has been willing to meet with anyone willing to house the encampment to work out any regulatory barriers that may arise.
However, Benz said they were unsuccessful.
Nickelsville residents pack up for their move from their South Seattle encampment on Thursday. (Photo: Elliot Stoler)
