By Erica C. Barnett
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with comments from initiative backer Saul Spady and reposted.
Saul Spady—Dick’s Burgers scion, anti-tax election activist (twice over), and KIRO radio fill-in host—has filed an initiative that would criminalize “unauthorized camping and storage of personal property” in unincorporated King County. The proposal, which Spady has dubbed “the Compassionate Public Safety Act,” would make sleeping outdoors or “storing” property in public a misdemeanor; similar to the total sleeping ban in Burien, the initiative would give police power to arrest people who fall asleep in public.
The ballot language, approved by the King County Prosecutor’s Office, says the measure “would not be enforced when overnight shelter is unavailable,” then lists exceptions to that rule that would allow police to make arrests if they determine the person sleeping “poses a substantial danger to any person, an immediate threat and/or risk of harm to public health or safety, or a disruption to vital government services.”
“I think camping bans are part of promoting better policy, which is a commitment to saying, in our community, we would much rather you go to shelter or rehab or housing,” Spady told PubliCola on Wednesday. “This is supposed to put the fire underneath [elected officials] to open those shelter beds and partner with [groups like] LEAD or The More We Love or Mary’s Place to create a more direct solution.”
The carveouts in the proposed ballot measure are similar to the exemptions included in Seattle’s official policy on encampments, which guarantees unsheltered people 72 hours’ notice before a sweep unless they or their belongings constitute an “immediate hazard or obstruction.”
For years, the city has interpreted that exemption very broadly to allow sweeps of tents in public spaces, including parks, sidewalks, and planting strips—basically, anywhere housed people might complain about the presence of homeless people.
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In a press release announcing the initiative and the creation of a new group called the Quality of Life Coalition earlier this month, initiative supporter and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic said, “As an avowed independent and music fan, I know the world is coming to Seattle looking for the soul of our music scene and quite often they find graffiti, addiction and in-action [sic]. … [This is the first step toward making King County safe, livable, and worthy of our incredible cultural legacy I’m proud to be a part of.”
The Quality of Life Coalition also plans to propose an initiative that would force anyone who “commits three crimes linked to addiction, such as OD’ing, theft, or public drug use” (note: overdosing is not a crime) into mandatory six-month rehab, and one that would impose mandatory five-year jail sentences for any drug dealer who “is not an addict.”
Although Spady said service providers have told him there are more than enough available shelter beds for everyone experiencing homelessness in unincorporated King County, he added that the coalition’s long-term plans include “adding 2,500 short-term beds across the region.”
Spady acknowledged that it’s hard to discern which people selling drugs are addicts, versus “somebody who’s sober doing something that kills people,” but noted that a mandatory five-year minimum sentence for dealing drugs is less than the 10-year minimum proposed by the Trump administration.
Asked about the probably astronomical cost of funding mandatory long-term residential treatment for every person who overdoses or commits addiction-related misdemeanors three time, Spady argued that addiction, crime, and the cost to send firefighters to reverse overdoses create “costs to society that are spiraling. If you want the [reason] why I’m doing this, my fear is that Seattle is a lot closer to Detroit in the 80s and 90s than we think, and our magic economic spaceship that never runs out of money could break.”
The ideas Spady is proposing—three-strikes laws for overdoses, punishing public drug use through what amounts to involuntary commitment—may seem out of step with King County values. But they aren’t much different from the policy City Attorney Ann Davison endorsed toward drug users last year, saying that anyone who overdoses three times should be arrested and thrown in jail.
Spady’s group is collecting signatures now. They’ll need around 6,800 valid signatures to get the measure on a future ballot.