Some notes from our neighboring ‘hoods:
- Nickelsville: My Green Lake reports that Nickelsville, the homeless encampment being evicted from the Port of Seattle, will be taking up residence at the St. Andrew’s Church on 80th Ave NE and 1st Ave NE.
- Keep Green Lake multi-lingual: My Green Lake is trying to find a place to live for that friendly guy offering Spanish lessons while walking around the lake.
- Bridge Speaks Back: FremontUniverse reported on a mock protest held on the Fremont Bridge, a work of the artist-in-residence on the bridge itself.
- Zoo Boo!: Phinneywood has the scoop on the Pumpkin Prowl, some annual creepiness going on at the Woodland Park Zoo.
- Land Use: Ravenna Nation has a nice little history of some land use issues in their neighborhood.
- Chili: Eastlake Ave. notes that The Eastlake Zoo, one of the finest dive bars Seattle has to offer, is holding a chili cook-off.
Greetings-
Brace yourselves folks, this group was a significant challenge in our West Seattle community. I have a couple of tidbits of advice to share with you:
1) for the sake and safety of your children, be sure to self-confirm the encampment’s claim that there are not any registered Level-3 sex offenders within their group. Ballard’s experience was unacceptible with a partner (SHARE) group that uses the same bogus screening process. For details:
http://www.myballard.com/2009/09/14/sex-offender-removed-from-share-shelter/
2) Watch to ensure that all donations and efforts are used to actually benifit the true homeless folks themselves. Our experience is that the people on the front lines were often actually SHARE representatives, while the actual homeless people were rarely shown.
3) Ask for some examples of how the individuals are attempting to improve their own situations. There are quite a few able-bodied people that have been in the encampment since it’s inception, creating the impression that they’re right where they want to be. Providind direct support ($$/food/clothing/etc) seems to be a bit of “enabling” in some cases.
4) most importantly (!!) establish deadlines/goals needed to allow the folks to stay, then follow-through if the terms are not met.
Best of luck!