Tag: neighborhoods

Addiction, homelessness, housing, neighborhoods

Talking Around the Problem: How Two Views of Homelessness Get It Right and Wrong

All day today, Seattle writers, media outlets, and advocacy groups will be talking online, using the hashtag #SEAHomeless, about the crisis of homelessness in our city in an effort to draw attention to a problem that can easily become background noise if we let it. As readers know, I’ve shifted my attention here at The C Is for Crank to cover homelessness, and especially the intersection of homelessness and addiction, more frequently, because I believe it is the central crisis at this time and in this city and that all conversations about affordable housing and urbanism and city-building are missing a key component when they don’t center the issues that make it next to impossible for thousands of our neighbors to secure safe, affordable housing.

Because the truth is, virtually none of the homeless and formerly homeless people I’ve met, nor the outreach workers who go out to offer help and make sure they’re OK, say that homeless people prefer to be homeless. I hear from housed people who resent the homeless for committing petty crimes or just being visible on our streets that “they just choose to live that way,” as if becoming housed is as simple as really wanting to get your shit together. They talk about forcing people into treatment or jail, or ordering them to just “go to a shelter,” as if beating addiction was just a matter of willpower, or as if living on a dirty mat on the floor without loved ones, pets, or possessions was a better option than camping in the woods, or as if life skills were things people acquired by just wanting them enough, or as if trauma didn’t exist. This leads, inevitably, to calls for city leaders to divide people experiencing homelessness into two separate and unequal groups: The “truly homeless” and those other ones. The former deserve dignity and assistance, the argument goes; the latter, scorn and jail cells. As someone who believes in the dignity of all people, including those whose addictions drive them to commit crimes, I reject this distinction; while people who commit crimes should be punished appropriately, homelessness itself is not a crime, and punishment that ignores root causes won’t solve the problems that lead to crime. Fundamentally: All homeless people are “truly homeless.”

With that in mind, I’m reposting a piece I wrote a few months back called “Talking Around the Problem: How Two Views of Homelessness Get It Right and Wrong,” which looks at ways to bridge the gap between people who believe homeless people just need more compassion, and those who think they need a swift kick in the teeth.

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In conversations about how best to “help the homeless,” we housed people steer down all kinds of mental cul-de-sacs to convince ourselves that nothing can be done. We blame policymakers for “just throwing money at the problem.” We tell ourselves that handing a buck to a shaking addict on a street corner will only enable him. We decide the problem is too big to manage but at least smiling and waving as we drive by a Real Change vendor is better than nothing, and absolve ourselves because we’ve acknowledged that person’s humanity. We mentally divide the homeless population into worthy and unworthy groups—the “deserving” who are just down on their luck and the “undeserving” who made bad choices—and tell ourselves we’d love to help the former, if only we could, but the latter should be left to fend for themselves.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways people on both sides of the compassion gap can fail to apprehend the problem of homelessness (and, especially, ugly homelessness, the homelessness of people with problems), after attending two events this past week that both centered on this question: What can we (housed people) do about the homeless?

Partly because each side defines the problem differently (are homeless people who lie, cheat, and steal victims who need our help, or nuisances to be “cleaned up”?) arrived at very different solutions–one focused on data collection and criminal justice crackdowns, the other focused on compassion and humanization. Having listened closely to both frustrated homeowners and well-meaning do-gooders, I’m convinced that both have essentially arrived at half the solution: The homeowners want someone else to provide housing and help (and force people on the streets to take it); the do-gooders think individual kindness will produce the necessary empathy to start talking about more substantive changes.

The first group is one I’ve written about quite a bit before: Organized, angry homeowners. Last Wednesday,  a group called the Neighborhood Safety Alliance, made up mostly of homeowners from Ballard, Magnolia and Queen Anne, met at the Seattle Children’s Theater to rehash their grievances and demand that the city crack down on the homeless addicts they blame for a recent upsurge in property crime in their neighborhoods. (For the first time, they also invited a resident of South Seattle, a realtor named Damon Benefield who moved to Rainier Beach from Las Vegas two years ago, but he spoke for just two minutes, about violent crime, and neither he nor the issue of violent crime was addressed again. That’s him on the left in the photo below).

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Homeowners from about 10 neighborhoods stood on stage and enumerated their complaints, which ranged from concerns about “the drug epidemic that has made our way into our beautiful city” (tell that to the south end, or downtown Seattle circa 1985), to a mom who said her son moved to Oregon to escape from the dangers of Ballard High School, to the literally incredible claim from a Magnolia resident that  “in the last three months of this year, we’ve seen more crime than we’ve actually seen in the last five years.”

After the litany, representatives from city departments and SPD, including Chief Kathleen O’Toole, took the stage to reassure residents that their concerns about property crimes were real and that the city is taking them seriously. Assistant Chief Steve Wilske rattled off the number of RVs identified in Ballard, Magnolia, and Interbay, and assured Magnolia residents that they once they finished “chasing one RV around Magnolia” their neighborhood would be RV-free. He also noted that since the department had redirected officers from other areas to focus on North End property crimes, car prowls and other petty crimes were “down significantly” in that precinct—”much more so than citywide.” And he said SPD was trying to free up more officers to answer residents’ 911 calls more quickly—”When you call 911, I understand how important it is that you get an officer there very, very quickly,” he told the crowd.  (This weekend, Ballard residents who called 911 in response to an assailant at La Isla restaurant on Market St. waited more than 15 minutes for cops to arrive on the scene).

Next, the group brought out a couple of formerly homeless addicts who affirmed the reassuring belief that addiction is a choice, that tough love is the only thing that works, that addicted people should be forced into treatment or thrown in jail, and that any help for the struggling addict merely enables them in continuing to make poor life choices instead of mustering up the willpower to beat addiction.

(Why do people who dismiss addicts in general as worthless “bums” who shouldn’t be given “handouts” embrace this odd, small subset of addicted people who advocate tough love? I think it’s because it validates their belief that if you work hard enough and do things the “right” way, bad things won’t happen to you—that addiction and homelessness are for the weak and selfish, not for  people who go to work every day and earned that roof over their heads. They’re wrong, which is self-evident to almost anyone who has worked with addicts or gotten an eviction notice on their door after depleting the last $1,000 in their savings, but for those who haven’t had either experience it’s easy to believe that you’re exempt.)

Finally, the keynote speaker, state Sen. Mark Miloscia, delivered a lengthy encomium praising the policing strategy of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and arguing that “strengthening marriages and families” would end homelessness and addiction. Miloscia concluded by calling for tracking of all homeless people who seek services like food and shelter. “How can we accept people taking services and remaining anonymous?” the Federal Way Republican asked.

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Needless to say, all of this drives me—a bleeding-heart liberal, privacy advocate, and a person in recovery myself—bananas. I react viscerally to the notion of making food and shelter contingent on treatment, and the comments I see on places like Nextdoor suggesting that we let homeless people die in the streets if they “refuse to help themselves” make my eyes well with tears and my fists clinch in rage. I don’t care if a homeless person uses my $1 to buy drugs or a sandwich, and I believe fervently that you can’t reach someone if they’re dead, so the best thing to do is help and hope the suffering addict stays alive long enough to find his or her moment of clarity (and that help is available when they do). I don’t judge people for being addicted, and I don’t think there’s any point in “applying all the laws equally” when what that means is confiscating people’s only asset when they can’t move their RVs as often as a homeowner moves her Mercedes.

So it may come as some surprise that I recoil with almost equal force from suggestions that the only thing we have to do to solve the “homeless problem” is have more compassion—that if we just stopped demonizing our homeless neighbors and celebrated our shared humanity, the solutions would take care of themselves. Much as I believe that compassion and empathy are muscles too many people allow to atrophy, I’m also convinced that embracing the abstract principle of “compassion” too tightly can be just another way of talking past the problem.

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On Sunday, I spent some time discussing these individual solutions, at a $30-a-person “fireside chat” and “solutions dinner” at the Cloud Room, an exclusive, sleekly appointed event and coworking space at the Chophouse Row development on Capitol Hill. About 30 people, including Chophouse Row developer Liz Dunn, lounged on low-slung couches and divans, or sprawled on lush, cream-colored shag carpeting and watched a presentation by Rex Hohlbein, an architect who left his day job to document the lives of homeless people, a project called Facing Homelessness.

Hohlbein said he got the idea for Facing Homelessness when he met a former logger named Dinkus McGank, who was living on a bench outside Hohlbein’s office. Hohlbein began taking photos of McGank and other homeless people, and posting them on his Facebook page, a sort of Humans of New York for Seattle’s homeless.

Hohlbein’s thesis* was that the main thing people need to do for the homeless is see them as human. “When I see a Real Change vendor as I’m riding by on my bike, even if I don’t buy the paper, I always shout out, ‘I LOVE REAL CHANGE NEWSPAPER!'” Hohlbein said. He also suggested telling homeless people by the side of the road, “You have a beautiful smile.” His final suggestion–illustrated by a photo of a homeless mother and child, both beautiful and blond–was that the attendees ask themselves whether they’d allow this mother and child to live in a tiny house (conveniently, Hohlbein has designed a prototype) in their backyard. What if they could pay $450 in rent? What if the mom had been vetted to make sure she didn’t have a drug problem? Wouldn’t it help neighborhood kids to see homeless people as neighbors (albeit neighbors living in enclosures in people’s yards), and wouldn’t it help skeptics who think all homeless people are drug-addled derelicts to see that some of them are just be good people down on their luck?

Perhaps it’s obvious why this shit makes me cringe. If not, here’s my counterthesis, in brief: Homeless people aren’t zoo animals to be put on display to enhance housed people’s empathy and sense that they’re “doing something.” People with substance abuse problems and mental health issues are just as worthy as sober single moms who are down on their luck. And individual solutions not only absolve those individuals of advocating for collective, and specifically governmental, action, they do so at the expense of the vast majority of people in need. I could write an entire, separate post about how a project that relies on the individual largesse of people living detached single-family houses with yards can’t coexist with the immediate need to change our zoning laws and invest in dense, affordable housing in all parts of the city.

I’m not saying individual solutions can’t be inspiring. After brainstorming over a “participatory feast” of raw asparagus salad with pink lady apples, roasted vegetables with spring ramps, and lentils with cheese from Kurtwood Farms, the group offered plenty of ideas: Business cards for the homeless, so housed people would see them as more than faceless piles of laundry. An app to let Amazon know what items to deliver free to local shelters each wee. “Meet your homeless neighbors” dinners where housed and homeless could break bread together and celebrate their shared humanity. Campaigns centered on the plight of homeless children.

These are all fine ideas. (I especially appreciate the idea of having a dinner with, rather than serving dinner to, homeless community members). The problem is, then what? Do people who feel overwhelmed at the size of the problem buy absolution for the price of a tiny shed in their backyard? Does listening to your homeless neighbor’s problems over dinner in the park solve any of them? Does feeling sorry for a homeless child do anything for her addicted mother? At one point in the evening, because I’ve talked to homeless people as well as the outreach workers who work with them every day, I was asked what homeless people want. My answer was simple: “A home.”

This may seem obvious, but it isn’t: Not to the well-meaning technophiles who want to create an app for shelters to ask for diapers, nor to the tough-love homeowners who insist no one deserves any help with housing until they get their act together on their own. My sympathies lie with those who are at least compassionate, if a little clueless, because they’re more likely to see how close we all are to the edge, but neither they nor the I’ve-got-mine crowd are much more likely than the other to fix the problem.

More than once at the Cloud Room, I heard somebody lament that we keep “throwing money at the problem.” My response to that was: We’re going to have to throw a hell of a lot more money at the problem if we actually want to fix it—money for housing, first, then for treatment, job training, and mental health care for those who need it. Housing first doesn’t mean housing only, but it does acknowledge that when people have a roof over their head, they’re more likely to find it in themselves to take the next step, whether that’s taking a shower, getting in a job program, or checking in to detox and getting clean. Individual solutions won’t make any of this happen any more than individual complaining.

In other words, both sides are right, and both sides are wrong. The NIMBYs are right that we need systemic solutions; they’re wrong when they say the best response is for individuals to do nothing. The do-gooders are right that we all need more empathy; they’re wrong when they say the best response is individual action.  Solutions take money, time, and political will–not endless community gripefests or solutions-oriented brainstorming sessions.  I applaud anyone who at least wants to help, but I’d suggest their time would be better spent lobbying their representatives for more funding for housing and detox beds than on figuring out how each individual can do “their part” to solve a collective problem that must be solved collectively.

To that end, I will say that there’s one element of Sunday’s event I endorse

wholeheartedly: The dinner was a fundraiser for Mary’s Place, the city’s only shelter and day center for women and children. It raised $300.

*In fairness to Hohlbein, I’ve seen him shouted down at neighborhood meetings where residents were actively hostile to his idea of humanizing the homeless, so he’s more than willing to venture outside friendly spaces. The anger I’ve seen directed at Rex tells me that what he’s proposing–the idea homeless people are part of our communities–is still a radical idea.

Editor’s followup, April 11, 2018: Recovery specialist and intervention expert Rachel Angerman, who spoke at the Neighborhood Safety Alliance meeting I described in this story, called me to let me know that she strongly disagrees with the NSA’s ideas for addressing homelessness, which include “tough love,” forcing people into treatment against their will, towing away vehicles in which people are living, and prosecuting homeless people for minor property crimes.

When I reported this story, I misunderstood Angerman’s views on intervention and treatment and represented Angerman as agreeing with the NSA’s approach. She told me that although she agreed to speak at the meeting, she left feeling appalled by the group’s lack of understanding about the causes and most effective treatments for addiction (as was I). I offered to remove her quote from the story and add a note giving more information and context. Angerman’s company, Recovery Allies, does outreach (including street outreach), mentoring, and family-focused interventions for people struggling with addiction and certain kinds of mental illness. Find out more about Angerman’s work at Recovery Allies’ website.

 

Affordability, City Hall, Density, neighborhoods, Renters

Bringing “New” People Into the Planning Process
A Seattle backyard cottage–the kind of development some neighbors say will bring unacceptable density to single-family neighborhoods. via seattle.gov

At an early-morning Downtown Seattle Association breakfast at BlueAcre Seafood last month, the subject was neighborhood involvement in city planning and the speaker (along with Capitol Hill Community Council president Zach Pullin and me) was Kathy Nyland, the Georgetown activist-turned-Department-of-Neighborhoods-Director who’s in charge of getting neighborhood residents involved in implementing the mayor’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda.

The question Nyland and Pullin were attempting to answer was this: How can the city get renters, tech workers, and other Seattle residents who don’t participate in the traditional system of neighborhood councils or go to traditional “neighborhood” meetings involved in shaping the future of the city? The problem Nyland and Pullin described is that neighborhood councils tend to be ossified and, as a result, exclusionary, dominated by 50-and-older white homeowners with little incentive to invite newcomers into their midst. Nyland said she hears from those folks all the time; what she wants to do is add new voices to the chorus of retired single-family homeowners. As part of that effort, DON recently took over the HALA outreach process, and actively encouraged people of color, recent immigrants, and renters–who make up half the city–to apply for seats on the four HALA community focus groups.

But integrating new residents and renters into the HALA process remains a challenge, and the loudest voices–the people that occupy most of the city’s field of vision–are the longtime neighborhood activists who have plenty of time to spend at long neighborhood meetings where the overwhelming sentiment is anti-renter, anti-development, and anti-change. At the same time, people who feel alienated from city planning, or who feel (sometimes correctly) that their voices aren’t welcome or being heard, are left on the sidelines and often have no idea how to make their voices heard.

(If you want an example of how NOT to participate in traditional neighborhood organizations, look no further than this guy, a self-described Fremont resident who apparently showed up at the Wallingford Community Council and demanded a seat on their governing board. In a see-I-told-you-they-all-hate-renters gotcha post on the Urbanist blog, he complained that he had been “sidelined” from “my seat” in an elaborate process designed to ensure that no renters would be represented on the board. He does not appear to have participated in the Wallingford Community Council at any previous point, which probably explains the main reason he wasn’t elected: As Nyland and other urbanists who are actually working to organize renters and other disenfranchised folks repeatedly emphasize, you can’t just show up and demand to be taken seriously, you have to organize, and that means getting people to show up in numbers. Tales of woe like this one do nothing but reinforce the common misconception that renters and urbanists have no interest in context or history and don’t care about the concerns of longtime residents. Pullin, in contrast, is working actively on Capitol Hill to organize renters, who represent more than half the city, as my old PubliCola colleague Josh Feit reports today).

So as pro-HALA groups like Seattle for Everyone try to gather steam in neighborhoods across the city for the still-controversial “Grand Bargain”–developer fees for affordable housing as a tradeoff for greater density–I strongly suggest that they attend meetings like the one I went to late last month, where city planning and neighborhood staffers faced off against an angry crowd of more than 100 neighbors who showed up to voice their near-universal disapproval of the proposal at a meeting of the Queen Anne Community Council on top of Queen Anne Hill.

“Those of us who are involved in planning in our communities for a very long time are used to being involved at city hall. … Usually, you go to a public hearing and you get to speak. You get to say, ‘If a guy builds a 27 foot [detached accessory dwelling unit] next to my house, it’s going to wipe out my sun, it’s going to wipe out my light and air,’ and that’s not what’s being done.”

To kick the meeting off, Marty Kaplan, a community council member, homeowner, and former city planning commissioner, offered a lengthy introduction to the two city officials who presented the details of the proposal, Office of Planning and Community Development senior planner Geoff Wendlandt and planning commission staffer Jesseca Brand, which set the (accusatory) tone for the rest of the discussion.

“One of the problems that I have is that those of us in the neighborhoods were left out of the conversation” about HALA, Kaplan said. “Those of us who are involved in planning in our communities for a very long time are used to being involved at city hall. … Usually, you go to a public hearing and you get to speak. You get to say, “If a guy builds a 27 foot [detached accessory dwelling unit] next to my house, it’s going to wipe out my sun, it’s going to wipe out my light and air,” and that’s not what’s being done.”

Kaplan continued: “There’s a lot of things that will eventually take away a lot of the physical things that you enjoy in your house, or even if you’re in an apartment. … There’s a lot of impacts in here [and] we’ve been used to being able to talk about this with planners and city hall and come up with some pretty good and respectful partnerships.” In contrast, Kaplan said, the city is now trying to shove a “one-size-fits-all” approach down longtime neighborhood residents’ throats.

Wendlandt and Brand fielded Kaplan’s comments and complaints from neighbors for about two hours. Most of those complaints fell into one of three categories: 1) Concerns that the city has failed to involve neighbors in the HALA process; 2) Complaints that HALA will upzone the entire city; and 3) Objections related to “concurrency,”  the idea that the city needs  to add roads, transit service, and sewers before adding housing. (The urbanist response to those complaints, in turn: Neighborhoods are well-represented on the four HALA focus groups and the city continues to hold meetings like the very one at which this comment was made; HALA will not upzone the whole city, though it will expand some urban villages and make it slightly easier to build backyard corrages; and Seattle is expected to add about 120,000 people in the next 20 years, and those people need places to live).

Another popular objection, one I’ve heard many times over the years in Seattle, was that the city “already has enough capacity to accommodate all the growth we’re going to get,” a claim based on the absurd premise that many thousands of small apartments and single-family homes will be demolished across Seattle so that all the city’s land can be redeveloped to its maximum zoning capacity. The “existing zoning capacity” objection also ignores the fact that HALA, unlike roughshod redevelopment, will actually build affordable housing, which is what everyone says they want.

So what’s the takeaway from all this? For urbanists, anyway, it’s that if you don’t like the way neighborhood groups are framing development or the shape they want to take the neighborhoods we all live in, it’s important to be meaningfully engaged–not just showing up alone to a meeting or two to shake your fist at the way things are, but turning out in numbers to learn, listen, and participate, both in traditional homeowner-dominated neighborhood groups and new organizations that challenge the status quo. For city officials, it’s that engaging people outside traditional neighborhood groups is critical, and that those groups don’t represent any consensus except a consensus among themselves. Renters, low-income people, disabled and elderly residents, and others who aren’t usually at the table need to be invited in and listened to, whether that means outreach specifically aimed at renters (guess what? When you “inform” a neighborhood by placing flyers on people’s doors or porches, you miss most of the people who live in apartments) or broader outreach at events and in groups that include a more representative sample of Seattle residents than, say, a community council or a private Nextdoor group.  Ultimately, as Nyland noted at the DSA meeting at Blueacre, inviting more people into the planning process may also mean deemphasizing the voices that have traditionally held sway at city hall; the city is well aware of what single-family homeowners tend to think, but they may not be as familiar with what low-income renters or homeless residents think. For those voices to be heard, some people, however reluctantly, are going to have to sit and listen.

Uncategorized

Nextdoor Emails Show City’s Vision for Partnership

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Emails between city of Seattle decision-makers and officials at the private social-networking site Nextdoor reveal that the city planned to use Nextdoor as a key portal for delivering information about neighborhood events; distributing surveys to help determine what neighborhoods’ priorities are; and as “a smart, efficient way to educate/inform residents about SeaStat and our soon to be (officially) announced Community Policing Micro Plans,” according to an email from SPD spokesman Sean Whitcomb to Jeff Reading, his then-counterpart in Murray’s office, back in October 2014.

Anyone without a Nextdoor account cannot access any of those public communications; the private site, based in San Francisco, is only accessible to members, and those members can only communicate with others in their immediate neighborhood.

In February, I reported that Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole held a “public town hall” on Nextdoor that was only accessible to Nextdoor members, who make up a tiny percentage of the city. After Nextdoor canceled, then reinstated, my membership when I reported some of the questions neighbors asked O’Toole during the virtual public meeting, along with details about her responses, the city said it would consider ending the partnership.

Since then, both Mayor Ed Murray and chief technology officer Michael Mattmiller have told me that they are working to figure out how to make communications with Nextdoor, which are subject to public disclosure laws like any city communications, more transparent, and are considering ending the partnership altogether. However, the city continues to partner with the site and provide updates to neighborhood residents by posting privately to members, who make up a tiny fraction of the city, there. Mattmiller did not return calls for comment.

In October of 2014, SPD’s Whitcomb told mayoral spokesman Reading enthusiastically, “I think we are ready to go with Nextdoor! Our plan is to tie it in to SeaStat as a community engagement and feedback tool.” Nextdoor even offered to write press releases and social media communications for SPD for the launch, though it’s unclear whether SPD took them up on the offer.

SeaStat is a relatively new program in which SPD gathers data and meets twice a month to identify and target crime “hot spots.” Community micro policing  is an outgrowth of SeaStat, which involves using data to target police patrols. Both are directly informed by the priorities to which residents on Nextdoor choose to draw SPD’s attention, as well as issues SPD identifies in Nextdoor-specific surveys. As the SPD Blotter blog put it back in 2014, “Nextdoor users will have an active role helping inform SeaStat, since officer deployment will be based not only on crime data, but also on community feedback. Look for neighborhood specific surveys on how SPD can improve community safety and police services in the near future.”

The potential issue with using Nextdoor as a barometer and guide for police deployment is twofold. First, Nextdoor’s membership  represents just a fraction of city residents; in Columbia City, for example, just a fifth of households are signed up; in Ballard, 16 percent; in Pinehurst, 11 percent; in Magnolia, 19 percent. Although it’s impossible to tell how many of those members are homeowners and how many are renters, the residents who comment tend to self-identify as homeowners, at least on the dozen or so Nextdoor neighborhood boards I’ve seen.

Using Nextdoor as any kind of gauge for where the city should focus police resources, in other words, is to do outreach to a tiny, self-selected fraction of the city, in contrast to the much broader way government agencies typically communicate with neighborhood. It’s kind of like determining city policy based on an unscientific survey posted on a departmental website on seattle.gov.

Second, as I’ve pointed out previously, the closed-loop nature of the system can lead neighborhoods to whip themselves into a frenzy over relatively minor issues such as discarded needles, “suspicious” or unfamiliar people, people living in their cars who don’t obey parking laws, and litter, without the context of what’s going on in other neighborhoods.

For example, Nextdoor members in Ballard and Magnolia routinely post photos of people they describe as “suspicious,” in some cases accusing them of specific crimes, without their knowledge or consent; tacitly condone vigilantism against homeless people they feel are creating litter and committing property crimes; and have threatened to dump garbage and human waste on the lawns of Murray and council member Mike O’Brien, who represents Ballard, one of the epicenters of Nextdoor-based overreaction. (Nextdoor members also frequently post tangents that violate the site’s ban on personal attacks, and have harassed and threatened me personally within the site itself and in off-site communications that refer to things I have written about Nextdoor.)

How much does any of this matter? In terms of city policy (as opposed to civil discourse), maybe not that much. Nextdoor is, after all, merely “another tool in the toolbox” for outreach by SPD and other city offices and departments—including, currently, the mayor’s office, the Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle Public Utilities, and the city as a whole.

And it’s not like the city doesn’t have a longstanding policy of basing policy on which group shouts the loudest—at a meeting on Monday evening, in fact, a city staffer admitted that Murray had promised to preserve most single-family zoning in perpetuity “after a big outcry from [homeowners in] the neighborhoods.”

But I do wonder: What message is the city, and Murray in particular, sending by continuing to partner with Nextdoor and using it as a tool to communicate with, and get feedback from, neighborhoods? Intentionally or not, I think they’re saying that they want to provide yet another way for a small, motivated cadre of agitated homeowners to direct and shape city policy.

Density, Development, housing, land use

Geographically, Demographically Diverse HALA Applications Defy Early Trend

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Since I first reported that the vast majority of applications for five community focus groups that will provide input on the city’s Housing Affordability and Livability agenda came from just three North End neighborhoods—Wallingford, Ballard, and Phinney Ridge—hundreds more applications have poured in, and the good news is that they’re far more representative of the city as a whole, demographically and geographically, than the original batch of applications.

The bad news? Some parts of the city, particularly far Southeast Seattle, remain underrepresented among the applications, with only a handful of applicants. North Rainier, Rainier Beach, and Othello each have half a dozen applicants or fewer, as do Roosevelt, Eastlake, and Bitter Lake.

Ballard, Wallingford, and Phinney Ridge remain vastly overrepresented in the applications—with 41, 55, and 26 applications, respectively. Other than Capitol Hill (with 51 applicants), those are the only three neighborhoods with more than 20 applications.

Overall, though, the number of applicants—more than 650, or several times the total number of people who participate in their neighborhood district councils citywide—and their diversity is encouraging to Nyland, who was initially concerned that most of the applications would be from plugged-in homeowners north of the Ship Canal with a vested interest in avoiding zoning changes that might increase density in their neighborhoods. However, she says, people who are opposed to HALA on principle still need to be part of the process. “I think they’ll be part of the conversation whether we put them [on the focus groups] or not, so it’s better that they’re on this list,” Nyland says.

In her office at City Hall last week, Nyland said the goal of the HALA groups is to bring together all perspectives and “push people outside their comfort zone. I think it would be a misstep to only include like-minded people.”

In a departure from the way the city usually arranges advisory groups, the HALA focus groups will be organized by type of neighborhood, rather than geographic area, bringing together “folks who are going to be experiencing like changes, though not necessarily in like parts of the city,” Nyland says. For example, one group, focused on hub urban villages, will likely include not just central neighborhoods like Capitol Hill but also Ballard, Lake City, and the West Seattle junction; another group, focused on areas where urban villages will be expanded under HALA, will include Columbia City, Roosevelt, Rainier Beach, and Crown Hill. All the groups will meet at City Hall so that no one has to drive, bike, or bus all the way across town—say, from Crown Hill to Rainier Beach.

The 661 applications, obtained through a public records request, include:

A young renter and attorney focusing on Indian law who was priced out of Judkins Park and wants to make sure all Seattle residents can afford housing, “Whether that person is currently on the street, makes over $100,000 a year, or makes 60% of the AMI.”

A Beacon Hill resident whose home has been in her family for generations who wants to make sure people are able to keep their homes even as the city densifies around them

A retired resident of Madrona who writes, “I am not an advocate of protecting neighborhoods by creating fortress communities where sensible zoning adjustments cannot intrude.”

A 27-year-old Belltown renter and lifelong Seattleite who says she wants to “be a voice for renters and young people – Seattle’s fastest-growing demographic and that most in need of affordable housing.

A Wallingford homeowner who says it’s “important to me that Seattle protects existing owners from structures that are too tall and/or too close to their existing homes” but also says, “I see way too many people opposing change out of fear, and they don’t even understand what’s in the HALA proposal or have constructive suggestions for improving it.

A New Holly resident and immigrant mother who wants to be a voice for refugees and low-income Somali families.

A property owner and landlord in Green Lake who grew up poor, had “bouts of homelessness in my 20s,” and now says, “I deeply believe in the need to provide a safety net and system for the poor and middle class in order to allow for stories like mine to exist.”

Nyland says the focus groups will be geographically representative despite the fact that certain neighborhoods are overrepresented in the applications.

Crime, neighborhoods

Magnolia Guard Accused in Pepper-Spray Incident Pled Guilty to Felony; SPD Says He May Have Overstepped His Authority

Police spokesman: “It’s not cool to just pepper-spray someone and put them in cuffs.”

toomey
Screen shot via Q13 FOX.

[UPDATE: On Monday afternoon, I received a copy of the police report about the pepper-spray incident. According to Toomey’s account, he approached Harris’ car after two people approached him and “explained that there was a person [Harris] parked in a vehicle … and possibly doing narcotics.” At that point, Toomey told the officers, he approached Harris’ car and found him sleeping, knocked on his window, got in a verbal altercation with Harris, and left to call 911 “to report the suspicious incident.” (That incident being, so far, the presence of a man sitting in his car in a legal parking spot.)  then, Toomey told the police, Harris drove up behind him, got out of his car, and “attempted to grab” him twice before Toomey pepper-sprayed him, pushed him onto the hood of Harris’ car, and handcuffed him before calling 911 again.

Toomey’s account differs from Harris’ in a few respects. He claims Harris tried to “grab” him and does not mention knocking Harris’ phone, which SPD officers found shattered underneath Toomey’s Hummer, to the ground. He also doesn’t mention attempting to open Harris’ car door, which Harris claimed he did. Finally, he claims to have only pepper-sprayed Harris once, “striking him in the face,” whereas Harris says Toomey actually chased him back to his car while spraying him–an account that is consistent with Harris being shoved and cuffed on the hood of his own car, rather than the Hummer’s.]

A Seattle Police Department spokesman says a guard working for a private security force hired to police the Magnolia neighborhood stepped out of bounds when he pepper-sprayed and cuffed a longtime neighborhood resident and employee last week. “It’s not cool to just pepper-spray someone and put them in cuffs,” SPD spokesman Sean Whitcomb says.

As I reported last week, Central Protection security guard James Toomey reportedly pepper-sprayed, handcuffed, and detained Magnolia resident and 76 gas station employee Andrew Harris after a confrontation that began when, Harris says, Toomey approached Harris’ car, which was parked on a street in Magnolia, and asked him what he was doing there.

Meanwhile, Pierce County Superior Court records reveal that Toomey pled guilty to one felony count of forgery and one gross misdemeanor count of violating a no-contact order in April 2004. According to court documents, Toomey was arraigned for domestic violence assault in 2003, and his ex-wife obtained a restraining order against him. Subsequently, according to court documents, Toomey forged a letter on the letterhead of a local attorney’s office, purportedly from a lawyer at that firm, in an attempt to get one-on-one visitation with their son, in violation of the no-contact order against him.Screen Shot 2016-03-06 at 10.43.37 PM

Previously, also according to Pierce County Superior Court records, Toomey had been convicted of negligent driving and unlawful discharge of a firearm. As part of his sentencing for the forgery and protection order violation, Toomey was required to go through treatment for domestic violence and anger management issues, which he completed at a Social Treatment Opportunity Programs in Tacoma in 2005. 

In 2010, Toomey successfully went back to court to have his conviction vacated on the grounds that the felony conviction was affecting his opportunities for “employment, and licensing for employment.” One year after Pierce County Superior Court vacated the conviction, in August 2011, the court restored his right to own a gun. In December 2013, Toomey obtained a license from the state Department of Licensing to work as a security guard, and in 2014, he got a separate license as a private investigator—two services he offered out of his home office in Lakewood.

Repeated attempts to contact Toomey directly and through his employer by phone and social media were unsuccessful.

The Magnolia Patrol Association’s website says the reason private security guards are a good alternative to the police is because they don’t have to follow the constitution and can approach anyone at any time, anywhere, for any reason.

Screen Shot 2016-03-06 at 10.02.00 AM
Image via Central Protection Services’ website.

“Private security firms have more authority on private property than police,” the MPA site says. “In addition, private security firms represent the property owners. The police, even off duty on special assignment, represent the City, County or State they work for. The police, even off duty, have to follow the guidelines set forth in the 4th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution.

“The police cannot stop anyone to ask if they live on property, what they are doing, etc. This is a violation of a person’s Constitutional Rights which could open the police or property owner up for a civil suit. The police are not allowed to speak to anyone unless they have a reasonable suspicion that a crime may be afoot. Further, they must be able to articulate this suspicion in clear language. Private security can interact with anyone at any time [b]ecause they do not represent the Government and the Constitution does not apply to private security.”

Whitcomb calls that claim “amazing,” and says private security guards are subject to local, state, and federal laws, including the US Constitution. “You don’t get to deprive other people of their constitutional rights,” he says. “[Private security guards] don’t have police powers. They don’t have the same authority.”

Whitcomb adds the common notion of a “citizen’s arrest” is a lot more complicated than TV shows and movies make it out to be, and that if you see someone committing a crime, you’re better off calling the real police and letting them handle the situation. “Our company line is that the only folks who should be making arrests are those who are trained to do so, because it’s fairly complicated and there’s always the possibility that things can escalate” to the point where someone winds up injured or dead. “Just because someone broke into your car, or your house, that does not mean you get to hit them with a hammer.”

By handcuffing and detaining Harris, Whitcomb says, Toomey “deprived [Harris] of his liberty. To put handcuffs on someone, not by choice or consent, where he’s not free to go—this is why detectives need to look at what happened” in the incident. I have requested the police report to get Toomey’s version of events, but as of Friday, it was not available.

2AnuDXG

Magnolia Patrol Association director Joe Villarino declined to comment on the incident or Toomey’s legal history, confirming only that Toomey lives in the Tacoma area.

neighborhoods

Gated Community NextDoor Booted Me for Publishing What People Say There
Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 11.47.04 PM
Call the mods! It’s a NextDoor screengrab!

Earlier this evening, I received an email from NextDoor–the private social network that the city is using as a “public outreach” platform for events like yesterday’s “town hall” with police chief Kathleen O’Toole–kicking me off the platform.

The reason NextDoor gave me was that I had violated their terms of use by publishing information about what people were saying to each other on their site. Most of the comments I’ve highlighted have been about homeless encampments and RVs in neighborhoods like Magnolia and Ballard, for which NextDoor serves as a forum to vent about the homeless in terms that would, and have, shocked many of my readers when I’ve simply printed them verbatim.

“While I understand your motives for sharing this in your recent blog post [ECB: Nope, you don’t], the fact still stands that Nextdoor is a private social network and the content within should remain as such,” NextDoor representative Juli (no last name given) wrote. “We ask that you please edit your blog post to remove the private information from Nextdoor.”

This letter, which I assume originated with a complaint from someone who was unhappy that I brought their comments to light outside the gated community of NextDoor, is particularly timely in light of SPD’s defense of O’Toole’s town hall yesterday. In tweets directed at me (@ericacbarnett), SPD insisted that NextDoor is open to all; today’s email makes clear that NextDoor is very much a private club that allows neighbors to say to each other things that they wouldn’t say publicly–much like a traditional country club. Or, say, a gated community. Residents of my neighborhood can’t see what residents of your neighborhood say, and non-NextDoor members (a group that includes anyone without a fixed address, and, now, me) can’t see any of it.

This matters, for a few reasons. First, NextDoor is an extremely useful source of information for city officials and members of the media about what residents of different neighborhoods are concerned about. More important, it matters because NextDoor complaints actually influence city policy.

You could see that happening in real time yesterday. After a barrage of questions from north-end homeowners about car prowls, mail thefts, and other property crimes (which drowned out a smaller handful of questions about gang violence, guns, and police brutality in neighborhoods like the Central District), O’Toole responded only to the questions about property crimes, and last night announced the creation of a special property crimes division that will focus “almost exclusively,” in her words, on the north end.

So I ask, again, why are Mayor Ed Murray, the entire Seattle City Council, and the Seattle Police Department using NextDoor–a private social network dominated by homeowners and the whiter, more privileged parts of the city–as a conduit to their constituents?