Occasionally, a note or conversation will start in the Wallyhood Forums that seems worth bubbling up to the main blog. Last week, a reader, BMacke, posted this note to the General Section:
Ever since the Keystone Church hosted the homeless folks from Nickelsville, several vehicles have been parked around that neighborhood (50th/Keystone/Sunnyside) where people are living in the vehicles. They run generators inside the vehicles and have all the windows blacked out. I’ve seen police demanding that they move, but they just show up again a few hours later.
I’m wondering is this is legal? The vehicles aren’t technically abandoned, but they probably still can’t sit parked more than 48 hours.
This used to be a pretty safe place to park. Now it makes me wonder what’s going on in these vehicles, and also wonder how risky it is when they run the generators.
Has anyone else noticed this? I know this isn’t new for the city, but it is new for this area of Wallingford. It seems that when they showed up for Nickelsville, they just never left. Maybe they are still getting services from the church?
Since the question has to do with the church, I asked Brandon Duran, the Outreach Pastor at Keystone if he or Rich Gamble, the Pastor, if they wanted to respond. Here is Rich’s response:
Not only am I the pastor of Keystone Church but I live one block away from the church, so I spend most of my time in the neighborhood. I have lived in the neighborhood for over 9 years. Long before Nickelsville stayed at Keystone, there have been homeless people sleeping in cars, vans and R.V.s in the area. Maybe the particular car you are talking about wasn’t here but homeless people have been in the neighborhood as long as I’ve lived here.
I agree that people shouldn’t take up residence on the streets or under bushes. People should have homes that they can afford. But thirty years ago the federal government slashed funds for building low income housing and spent the money in other ways (like tax breaks for the wealthy). Since then large scale homelessness has been a reality for cities like Seattle.
One way of dealing with homeless people in a neighborhood is to try to drive them away to some other neighborhood. Another way to deal with homeless people is to criminalize homelessness with a variety of laws and thereby incarcerate them.
Apart from lacking compassion, these strategies are not very effective. Ultimately, you cannot force people to obtain what they cannot afford. So we can pay a lot of money to provide affordable housing and support services or we can pay much more money to harass and incarcerate homeless people. It was in response to Mayor Nickels’ policy of harassment and criminalization that Nickelsville was born.
Right now the current policy seems to be a confused mixture of compassion and harassment. With homeless shelters largely full, and low income housing programs carrying long waiting lists there are no quick and simple answers.
One of the guys who used to sleep in his van in this neighborhood is now happily residing in an apartment which charges him 30% of his limited disability check. If we had more such apartments we would have fewer people living in their cars.
Currently, Keystone does not have any direct service programs for homeless people on church premises. Yet, we continually support local efforts to care and house homeless people.
Both my kids attend the preschool located in Keystone church and I haven’t noticed any sort of increased homeless population around the area. I don’t doubt people take advantage of extended parking around the grass triangle there, since they can probably get away with it longer than if they parked right in front of someone’s house. I have noticed the same thing on Interlake Ave, just west of Lincoln High. And I have certainly seen folks who I assume are homeless at Meridian park.
In any case, the folks that were part of Nicklesville were staying in the church, not in cars, and they have left.
I live a short distance from the Keystone church and have noticed vehicles parked in the neighborhood for the last 8 years that I’ve lived here. It is not consistent – it comes and goes – but it also isn’t new.
Just because, as Pastor Gamble says, the government doesn’t provide enough funds for low income housing doesn’t mean people should have to tolerate bums hanging out and doing God knows what in their local parks. A few months back I was with my wife and bay at Meridian Park when one of these dirtbags urinated on the bathroom wall in full view of us and other families.
Scum like him deserve no sympathy from society whatsoever. And I use the word ‘bums” to quite fairly describe those individuals who have decided to make it their lifestyle. They don’t have a right to be called “homeless,” because they choose to blow their beggings on drugs and alchohol instead of getting a place to stay and eventually a job. Face it, some of these guys are lifers, and they choose to be that way. You want to help the homeless, fine. Build shelters for the legitimately homeless away from residential neighborhoods. But it’s time to stop being babysitters for individuals who show no respect for society and the neighborhoods they stay in.
Hear, hear Heyduke. It’s misguided and offensive to paint everyone living on the streets with the same brush–they cannot all fall under the term ‘homeless’. Why can’t we distinguish between the bums & substance abusers who choose not to help themselves, the mentally ill who are unable to help themselves and the working poor who have lost their homes through sad misfortune? If we didn’t squander so many of our limited resources enabling those bums’ bad behavior, more would be available for folks who genuinely need help.
Thanks for following up with the church.
I’ve lived in my place for 5 years, and this is first I have noticed these vehicles on my block. I know they have been in the area for a long time, however they usually stick to areas where there aren’t homes or businesses in the immediate proximity.
They appear to have moved on for the time being.
Given the uptick in crimes in the area, I’m always keeping an eye out for anything strange. When a vehicle is parked next to me with all the windows covered up, and generator blaring inside, I think it’s fair to question what may be going on inside. Perhaps its just a homeless person living their life. But also it could be a drug lab, or worse.
I believe it’s fair to not want these vehicles parked on my block without passing judgement on the entire homeless community.