Tag: Seattle Indian Center

Elections, homelessness, human services, Morning Fizz

Intruders Halt City’s Shelter Plans; Compassion Seattle Calls Opponents “Disingenuous” Liars

1. The city’s plan to move about 40 people living temporarily at Seattle Center’s Exhibition Hall into a longtime shelter nearby has hit a snag.

Intruders have repeatedly broken into the Seattle City Light-owned building, formerly the site of DESC’s 100-bed Queen Anne Men’s Shelter, while it has been unoccupied during the pandemic. The break-ins include at least two incidents that resulted in calls to the Seattle Police Department.

The building was supposed to reopen as a shelter this week for some of the 70 or so people being displaced from Exhibition Hall, which opened as a temporary “deintensification” shelter during the pandemic and is set to close permanently at the end of this month. Instead, the city says they’re still assessing the damage and deciding how to clean up the mess.

According to a police report on April 28, officers responding to a call about some “high/intox[icated]” people occupying the building discovered that “numerous” people “had barricaded the front door with assorted items [so that] the doors would not be able to be opened.”

In addition to “debris and garbage” and “biohazards” (a common euphemism for human waste), a spokeswoman for Seattle City Light said that “the status of various mechanical and electrical elements of the building need additional assessment.” Camille Monzon-Richards, the director of the Seattle Indian Center—which was supposed to take over the building from DESC this month—was more direct. “Vandals broke in and pretty much obliterated the place,” she said.

It’s unclear how people initially accessed the building, which is now patrolled by Phoenix Security, a private security firm. According to a police report on April 28, officers responding to a call about some “high/intox[icated]” people occupying the building discovered that “numerous” people “had barricaded the front door with assorted items [so that] the doors would not be able to be opened.” The supervisor of the building said he told the people inside that they weren’t allowed to be there, and that they responded that “The Exhibition Hall [shelter] said we could be in here.”

“No subjects exited willingly,” the report continues. “A building search was conducted and all the subjects trespassing inside were removed and identified.”

Despite the security patrols, people continued to access and occupy the onetime shelter, resulting in at least two more calls to police in May and June.

The real estate and developer-funded campaign used similar “we shall overcome”-style rhetoric in another recent email.

Noah Fay, director of housing programs at DESC, said his agency is working to find shelter spots for every person who’s been staying at Exhibition Hall, including DESC’s Navigation Center in the International District. “We’re actively securing spots for them,” Fay said, and “we’re quite confident we’ll have a spot that’s going to work for everyone,” either at the Navigation Center or at another site, such as a new Salvation Army congregate shelter inside a former Tesla dealership in SoDo.

It’s unclear when the Queen Anne shelter might be habitable again. “Early estimates indicate it will take weeks for this work to be completed,” the City Light spokeswoman said. The city would not confirm that the Seattle Indian Center will take over the space once repairs are completed, although both Fay and Monzon-Richard said that was the plan.

2. The million-dollar Compassion Seattle campaign continued to portray itself as a besieged underdog this week, sending a message to supporters urging them to collect as many signatures as possible for the charter amendment on homelessness by this Friday, the deadline for the group to gather 33,000 valid signatures from registered Seattle voters. Continue reading “Intruders Halt City’s Shelter Plans; Compassion Seattle Calls Opponents “Disingenuous” Liars” →

City Hall, Elections, Health, homelessness, human services, Morning Fizz, Parks, Police

Election Speculation, Sweep Scheduled for Cal Anderson Park, and Sad News at the Seattle Indian Center

1. As speculation ramps up over who will jump into the race for mayor next year, a number of good and not-so-good rumors have come across Fizz’s radar. Here’s a look at the list of potential and supposedly potential candidates, in what we believe is the current general order of likelihood.

Decent Bets

City council president Lorena González. (González didn’t respond to a text sent last week but her name was on the shortlist of candidates even before Mayor Jenny Durkan announced she wasn’t running for reelection.

Deputy Mayor Casey Sixkiller. (Asked if he’s running, Sixkiller—who helped craft a compromise homelessness plan for 2021—responded, “Since the Mayor’s announcement last week I, like many others, have started thinking about the various ways I can contribute to the City and its future. But for now I’m focused on the important work of advancing Mayor Durkan’s agenda while overseeing a number of the City’s daily operations and engaging with our residents and businesses about ways we can support them as part of the City’s ongoing response to COVID-19.”)

Former mayoral candidate and state legislator and current Civic Ventures staffer Jessyn Farrell. (Farrell did not respond to a request for comment).

Former state legislator and current Grist executive Editor Brady Walkinshaw. (Walkinshaw did respond, but didn’t say whether he’s thinking of running.)

Chief Seattle Club director Colleen Echohawk didn’t respond to our email but has reportedly been talking with consultants.

Unlikely

Council member Teresa Mosqueda, who would not confirm anything specific, was reportedly wavering on whether to run for reelection to her current seat this year, much less run for mayor. Word is that she has decided to run for a second term.

Scott Lindsay, the former Ed Murray advisor who now writes reports calling for a crackdown on homeless people in public spaces, has been making a lot of public appearances lately (most recently on KOMO 4’s second installment of the “Seattle Is Dying” propaganda series), but he says he’s “still looking” for “a ‘back-to-basics’ Obama-Democrat candidate who has a serious plan to address our city’s homelessness and public safety challenges” to emerge. “[S]adly, it’s a tough political environment for anyone to want to throw their hat in the ring,” Lindsay said.

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Not Gonna Happen

A grab bag of names are on this list, including people who are unlikely to run and a number who said explicitly that they aren’t running. Deputy mayor Mike Fong and former council member (and, briefly, mayor) Bruce Harrell are on this list, along with former council member/mayor Tim Burgess (who told us he isn’t running, and that “it’s time for younger leaders to emerge”), county executive Dow Constantine (who just announced his bid for reelection and told employees of the county’s executive department last week unequivocally that he isn’t running), and United Way of King County director Gordon McHenry.
McHenry’s name has been floating around for the past week or so, but United Way King County spokesman Cesar Canizales told PubliCola, “Gordon is not running for public office. He is committed to the United Way of King County’s mission and he has no intention of running for public office whatsoever. He has given us 100% assurance, unequivocally that he’s not running.”

2. Several dozen people living in tents at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill got notice this week that the city plans to clear the park on Wednesday morning, in preparation for the “reopening” of the park. Cal Anderson has been at the center of protests against police violence since June. Seattle Police Department officers have cleared the park several times before—including in August, when several activists occupied the shelter house in the middle of the park—but this is the first time campers have received prior notice, according to an encampment resident.

“They have never given us notice before—they’ve just sort of shown up at five or six in the morning and announced it,” the resident, who said their name was Mud, said. “They don’t like us to be prepared, and I don’t know how they do it, but they usually catch us when our guard is down.”

It’s also the first time, to PubliCola’s knowledge, that the city has orchestrated an encampment removal during the pandemic without the Navigation Team, a group of police officers and social workers who were responsible for removing encampments until earlier this year. The city council disbanded the team as part of the 2020 budget rebalancing package in August. The Parks Department, which already has the authority to remove encampments on its own, plans to orchestrate this one with backup from SPD. 

The city has mostly suspended encampment sweeps this year in light of an explicit CDC recommendation that cities allow unsheltered people to “remain where they are” to prevent the spread of COVID.

The Parks Department says they need to remove the encampment to reopen and reactivate the park, with programming that will include “music, art, community volunteer events, and ongoing offering of social service supports to those in need,” according to a spokeswoman for the department. Continue reading “Election Speculation, Sweep Scheduled for Cal Anderson Park, and Sad News at the Seattle Indian Center” →