By reporter Steven Smalley
With the impetus coming from two meetings of emotional ? occasionally angry ? area residents, the City of?Seattle, including the police, got the message: Clean up illegal camping on local streets. Message received. With?new marching orders, the edict rolled into the laps of the rank-and-file cops. Magnolia Voice got an inside look into?what happened next.
Sergeant Paul Gracy, Sergeant-in-Charge of the West Precinct Community Police Team, is the genial face of?Seattle Police Department?s effort to keep the peace (among other duties) between parties regarding the issue of?illegal squatters. What initially began as vociferous complaints about heroin-dealing occupants in an RV parked in?the industrial part of Magnolia (read story here), quickly transitioned into an endeavor by SPD to move them out.
?We started out with 25 RVs between here and Queen Anne,? Gracy says. ?We were able to get a location?down by the armory for the RVs to park. We were able to remove all but three; two are [Magnolia] residents. They?keep moving every 72 hours, and one truly homeless gentleman who is living in an RV near Tent City.?
Following a drive around Magnolia, The Voice found that the troublesome RVs are gone, a cluster of which was?formerly parked off 20th?Avenue, Commodore Way, and other streets. One new RV was spotted on Thorndyke and?residents have already complained. For the most part though, the vehicles have decamped.
?They came up with the decision to move everyone onto Armory Way,? Gracy continued. ?We towed a couple?of vehicles that wouldn?t move. They weren?t operable. Then we started putting 72-hour stickers on the ones that?wouldn?t move. I would say [to campers] ?Look at this mess [you?ve] created here. It?s a safety issue now. What?can we do to assist you to better your position here???
Gracy explains not all want to change their lot. Many state their intention to stay in their current arrangement.
?One of the campers said he did not want to go live with the other RVs and campers because they were ?selling?drugs and stealing property.? He didn?t want to be in that environment.? Gracy says.
Other illegal campers have different reasons to stay put.
?The shelters have rules, and these folks don?t want to abide by the rules,? Gracy says. ?You have to be in and?out by certain time, you can?t have pets; they want to come and go when they want. They want to drink and do?their drugs. A lot of the shelters aren?t going to allow that.?
Meanwhile, following the clean up and evacuation of the illegal squatters from under the Garfield Street Bridge,?Magnolia Voice wanted to see where they went. It didn?t take long to find numerous campsites five blocks away in?the Kinnear Park greenbelt behind Taco Time on Elliott Avenue.
As Sgt. Gracy leads the way, beneath the trees we discover the same man who witnesses say was responsible?for the mounds of garbage under the bridge, pursuing identical behavior in his new home. After only a few days, a?new heap of trash piled up.
?Some of the folks at the tents and the RVs are what I call, ?shelter resistant,? they don?t want to go to shelters.?They want their own space. We ask them what their situation is, what their story is, what it is we could do to assist?them?? Gracy says. ?They need life coaches, someone to say, ?You?re not making good decisions.? You can eat for?free, you can sleep wherever you want, you could get your medical up at Harborview for free. There?s no?motivation. So that?s the big secret, how do you motivate these people? I got one gentleman motel vouchers for?two weeks. Then he got himself kicked out because he started having parties there all the time.?
Some say Seattle makes it too easy to live on the street. Gracy has seen it all.
?What?s the saying? If you build it they will come?? he says. ?The word is out on the street. Seattle is probably?one of the most homeless-friendly cities in the country. Is that good? Or is that bad? I?m not the judge of that. I?caught one girl shooting-up in a stairwell. I asked her what?s her plan? She said, ?I don?t go hungry. There?s no?way you could go hungry in Seattle.? I?m sure there are some groups who would be satisfied with that, but at what?expense??
What if Seattle stiffened its political will? What if the City took a harder line?
?Honestly, if you stopped providing services to them, they?ll go where they could get the services,? Gracy?says. ?Services like the feeding, we have two methadone clinics, places to sleep if you want to sleep, the freedom?to pitch a tent wherever you want. Let?s talk about the Jungle. There are 400 people now who made the decision?that?s where they want to reside. We?re going to go under there and take 400 people and say we are going to?sweep and clean the area and you can?t come back. ?Have a nice day?? You whack a mole here and it pops up?there. If I were king of the world I would put a dumpster down there and some Port-a-Potties, then do a real?intensive outreach and try to pluck people out of there a couple at a time.?
It?s clear the answer to illegal camping in Seattle isn?t as easy as telling them all to leave. Especially when the will to implement something that drastic isn?t in the cards downtown.
?People say, ?You cleaned up the Magnolia bridge,? Gracy continues. ?Yes we did. That?s what the community?wanted, they wanted immediate results. But we created another problem in the greenbelt by the park on Queen?Anne.?
Now it?s your turn Magnolia. Suggestions?
Our thanks go out to the Seattle Police Department and Sgt. Paul Gracy for their time.