“Nickelsville came about in response to the sweeps of encampments ordered by former Mayor Greg Nickels [2002 – 2010]. After six months of organizing Nickelsville set up on an unused piece of city owned land on West Marginal Way on September 22, 2008. That afternoon the encampment was posted with notifications that it would be swept. Five days later several dozen homeless people and their allies were arrested. Nickelsville immediately set up on an adjacent state owned parking lot. Governor Gregoire allowed Nickelsville to remain long enough to find a new location. ”
– Nickelsville History
It’s been ten years since the first “Nickelsville” homeless camp was created, and our local “Nickelodeons” are taking the opportunity to invite their host neighborhood and beyond to come and meet the people who live there.
This Saturday, September 22, 2018, 3 – 6 pm, they’re holding an anniversary party and are inviting you all to come down and celebrate with them. It’s being held at Northlake Village, the camp now situated near Ivar’s just below I-5 (3814 4th Ave NE). I’m told there will be a pet parade (with prizes, neighbor pets welcome!), speakers, music and food to share with all. I’m sure you can get a peek at some of the tiny houses that generous neighbors have built and donated, as well.
We’ve all been feeling the impact of the homelessness crisis on the city and our neighborhood, and it’s easy for all the different players to blur together, to see the needles left in parks or the bikes stolen and to build frustration with “the homeless”.
The Northlake Village Nickelsville “Tiny House” camp is not the same as the camps along and under I-5, for example. I would strongly encourage everyone to come down and meet the human beings living in very different circumstances from those of us with traditional homes, but who are our neighbors nonetheless.
Allow me to throw in a quick story, maybe as motivation to come down for the party, or at another time: I recently made a mistake and used duct tape on the outside of my van. It left horrible residue all over that I knew would be hours of work to clean off, hours that I could think of about a dozen things I’d rather be doing.
So this Sunday, I walked down to Nickelsville and ask around if anyone wanted to earn a few extra dollars. I found Joe (pictured), who when I arrived was busy working on his garden in the Nickelsville camp. He was heartfelt grateful for the opportunity to earn money honestly for him and his partner. The next day, he showed up at my house as promised, and worked quickly and diligently to clean the van.
When I paid him, he re-iterated that he was unemployed but would appreciate any other opportunities I had for gainful employment, temporary or permanent, and asked if I wouldn’t pass the word around. Consider it passed.
huh. all this AFTER the ten year plan to eliminate homelessness…? share/lihi/etc are miserable failures and the fact that billions of dollars have been thrown at this “crisis” proves that is isn’t for lack of money…
“billions of dollars” sounded like a very large number so I tried to find the actual number. In 2017 the city and county spent $195 million.[1] If that is typical then the total for 10 years is less than 2 billion. A report by McKinsey estimates that the it would take approximately $400 million a year to address homelessness in King County.[2] According to these numbers, we are not spending enough.
[1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/how-much-do-seattle-and-king-county-spend-on-homelessness/
[2] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/meeting-societys-expectations/booming-cities-unintended-consequences
I found this interesting, and it supports swampy’s number: https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/11/16/price-of-homelessness-seattle-king-county-costs.html
You are comparing two different things. The problems caused by homeless does cost us over a billion a year. However, we only spend $200 million a year trying to prevent homlessness.
No, actually, swampy said “billions of dollars have been thrown at this ‘crisis'” you said it sounded like a large number and you were going to find “the actual number.” No mention of “prevent” in swampy’s comment.
Wow. What a start to the article/slideshow given all the sturm und drang about homeless people “who aren’t from here.” I’m hoping no one posts that Bennie should have just stayed in Texas and died, but I’ve been surprised on neighborhood blogs before.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb475e975c54a5a0d4fce710a5152966370791c0fffc81df722a90732784a883.jpg
And for every Bennie Jackson, we have many more Christopher Teels (who stayed at Ballard Nicklesville) and Jason Lewis’s moving here. Both were “unhoused neighbors” who recently moved here from Texas, and both came here to prey upon our citizens. That’s what spending over ONE BILLION+ annually with no accountability and enforcement gets us. If you build it, they will come. And their friends will come, too.
You’d like to make Seattle a merit-based city? Maybe we should score people to see who deserve to be here? Maybe build a wall around Seattle?
There is no such a thing about “came here to prey upon our citizens”. They are also citizens with the freedom of movement. Citizens who happened to be in Seattle a bit earlier do not own exclusive rights to Seattle.
If anything, there are already too many regulations restricting people from coming to Seattle. The complicated zoning and building rules ensure limited supply of housing, which in turn push up the price and keep a lot of people out.
Yes, I am guilty as charged. I object to providing housing to vagrants who moved here from out of state with criminal records. They don’t deserve to be here, and they certainly don’t deserve to have the taxpayers give them a free place to live in some of the most expensive real estate in the country where they can shoot up while continuing to steal from us. Nor should they actually have “freedom of movement,” since both of them had outstanding warrants when they came here. Too bad for Mr. Teel’s victims that Scott Morrow thinks it’s mean to do warrant checks before allowing people into Nicklesville.
Of course, this is a moot point, since the city tells us they did a “scientific” study that says our homeless are locally grown, right? I’m sure Mr. Teel and Mr. Lewis were just outliers. But let’s ignore that point. Why do you think they moved here, and why do you want to attract more of them here?
What does “deserve” mean? Who deserves this land? I am not even sure Native Americans can hold sole claim to that, but I guess if they made up laws and had ways of enforcement none of us would have been here. What does “steal” mean? How about defining “locally grown” as “Native American”?
Seattle is an immigrant city. Most people here were born elsewhere, and high percentage of the minorities are foreign born. This is the norm for fast growing cities throughout history, and it’s always critical for cities like this to stress on how everybody is “local” as long as they claim to be so. This is actually how the whole modern US was built also. The whole nativism idea in the US is pretty ironic since most of the people who claimed to be “from here” aren’t really “from here”.
The fact so many people are attracted to Seattle is because it’s growing and booming. I want to keep attract people here, and I don’t think that means attracting attractive people only. If you want attractive, productive, and contributing people only, how about a law forcing all retirees out of the city? Surely they are no longer contributing as much.
how about just requiring everyone to obey the laws and for the police to enforce all laws equally, or is that mean?
you are delusional at best, my friend. i’d like an apartment overlooking central park in NYC, but for free…can you arrange that?
At least they built tons of apartments overlooking central park. How about building lots of apartment overlooking Lake Union so more people can have it? That’s not something delusional, just something that can be done by removing some regulations.
I actually talked about an idea in the past that would lead to ALL people in Wallingford living like next ot Central Park: tore down all the single-family houses, and made most of the land parks and forests. Build high-rises to house people, and that way you can use a tenth of the land as we use today to house more people.
It’d not be free, but it’d be cheaper housing than today, more green, and you get your Central Park apartment equivalent.
no, that isn’t good enough for me – i want an actual apartment, penthouse, actually, that overlooks central park. since i want it, i deserve it.
now, who can i force to pay for it for me?
if anyone was serious about getting off the streets, they wouldn’t be here in seattle where it is very expensive. just because they may want to be here doesn’t mean i have to pay for it. i suspect the main reason they want to be here is due to the complete enablement program and constant encouragement that camping out in the streets is perfectly acceptable.
i’ve been to some of the poorest parts of mexico and there is nothing remotely like this going on there….
Of course getting off the street is of high priority for most of the long term homeless people. I don’t know why you compare this problem to poor areas. Having slums or other horrible arrangement for housing is a problem for prospering cities. I think you simply do not understand the nature of this.
I’ve been to the poorest parts of Brazil and what’s going on here looks like angels riding unicorns showered in a fine gold mist while butlers in tuxes pass out complimentary canapes and caviar to all and sundry.
Ah yes, I nearly forgot, TJ. That was your scheme, straight out of Communist Russia, to confiscate our sf homes. And then if we wanted to stay with our friends and neighbors in the neighborhood, the government would “assign” us to live on the same floor in your high-rise where we could all live together happily ever after in your Socialist utopia.
Am I remembering that correctly?
Of course you remember that wrong, and you got the stereotypical American problem of calling anything unfamiliar as either Nazi or Commie. The example I used to show how housing affordability issue can be resolved was Tokyo, not Moscow.
Tokyo has tons of new housing starts all the time due to favorable codes. They have huge population influx, but the housing unit increase is enough that there is no increase in housing price. That’s a free market solution.
The zoning codes in Seattle are anti-market pro-rich regulations that suppresses supply intentionally and creates a situation where only high price new units will be generated. It’s a scam.
Wow, your positions are so loopy you can’t even keep on top of them. I found my response to you from 3 months ago when you said exactly that. Unfortunately I can’t find your original comment, but here is what I said to you:
“Oh please, TJ. Like you speak for most people when you advocate for the government razing single family homes in Wallingford to replace them with apartments to create your urbanist utopia. Oh, but at least you’d allow those of us neighbors who are friends to live together on the same floor, thanks!”
And just for good measure…
“Reply
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Avatar
TJ Eric
8 months ago
And the way to avoid the process Ballard went though is actually razing Wallingford at a large scale all at once, so we can get to something better than Ballard within 5 years instead of suffering a long term chronicle pain. Too bad that can’t happen.
The solution to the issue is to encourage demolition, as opposed to cap it.”
My position is very clear on the end goal, just that I’ve offered multiple different means to achieve what I want.
And “razing Wallingford at a large scale all at once” doesn’t really mean it’s communism. It’s typical everywhere to that, and in the US it’s most typically done by private developers. The point of that was simple: to avoid the complaint some had on long dragged-out developments. The context was people complaining about long term pain, and I offered an idea that could make things short term.
Singapore did this. 1M social housing homes, 90% of households own their homes (it’s more like a long term lease, but effectively the same difference). Our guide when we were there who works part time guiding tourists and part time managing a gym had a 3BR a home with a (I think ) 99 year lease for him+wife & 3 kids.
“If that is typical then the total for 10 years is less than 1 billion.”
No, $195 million over 10 years is nearly TWO billion. Math is hard!
Thanks. I corrected my comment.
ok genius, how much money should taxpayers contribute to camping, drug use, theft, random violence, etc?
what is the approximate number the taxpayers owe to this tiny % of the city population?
When I recall ( easy to do as there are permanent damages and marks left) when my car was stolen; or hear people in front of QFC scream obscenities; the needles I see on streets when i walk in neighborhood and the needle found by an elementary school I wonder this same thing.( same comment re certain kinds of comments made by a regular poster.)
If you think through, you’d realize the question makes little sense. First of all, “taxpayer” is not a meaningful term, since it’s defined by laws with arbitrary divides. The tax law can be written in many different ways, making the definition of “taxpayer” vastly different. For example, sales laws makes almost everybody a taxpayer. On the other hand, progressive income tax defines taxpayer as “richer people”.
Why do we have different tax codes, it’s to reflect different views on who should pay for what to begin with. So any question that asks what should taxpayer pay for is stupid. I think the question you are trying to ask is “who should pay for what”.
Now, if a person’s goal is to have all the homeless guys removed from the neighborhood, obviously the homeless guys shouldn’t pay for that. They don’t “owe” you the lifestyle you prefer, and obviously it’s you that should pay for that.
sweet. just tell me what pay and to whom i sign the check if it will get rid of the vagrants.
also, you are being purposely obtuse – obviously i mean property tax payers since we are the ones that pay for everything. sales tax from a bums 4 loko is not part of this discussion.
Show me the contract where you are guaranteed anything by paying the property tax. Actually you paid that to maintain ownership of the property and nothing more. You are not entitled to more than that. It’s the same as paying cable subscriptions and do not make you more special.
And there are already existing options of fixing neighborhood problems that people take all the time: move. The flight to suburb is nothing new and would help resolve your problem a lot. Wallingford was more like a suburb and getting less so. Maybe that’s what made you so uncomfortable.
wrong – property taxes pay for every single levy (including the recently passed “vulnerable persons” one that masqueraded as an assist to vets but is a bum tax).
you have a strange obsession with the virtues of the vagrants. i saw in the Times this morning that yet another out of state bum sex offender was convicted of rape of a woman in sodo. another one of your poor unlucky folks pushed into a life of crime by high rents?
so, which tent is yours, anyway?
That’s not how levy or tax works. You don’t ever get guarantees, and you don’t get any of the money back if they just spend it on other items. You don’t purchase a right to demand anything specific with the payment.
I do not have a strange obsession with the virtue of the vagrants. I have an obsession to point out that people are in general not virtuous. If anything, the idea that money can be spent to buy higher status and better treatment is the opposite of virtuous. In many moral systems, being richer puts a person on lower moral grounds. The fact that you try to turn “paying property tax” into a status means you lack virtue by the standard of many moral systems. By those standards I am also a sinful person, but I would admit that as opposed to pretending that I am better than others.
I have a Kelty tent and a Coleman tent that I use when I go camping. They are currently in my garage. Why ask? You want to go on a camping trip together?
“That’s not how levy or tax works. You don’t ever get guarantees, and you don’t get any of the money back if they just spend it on other items. You don’t purchase a right to demand anything specific with the payment.”
What are you talking about? They have specific levies all the time. For parks, homeless, housing, EMT, stadiums, transit, you name it. Now, we may or may not be able to stop the SCC from spending those dollars on something other than for what it was intended. But we sure as hell have the right to demand they spend it on what they told us they would spend it on.
i don’t think tj understands how property taxes work in this city/state.
I think the issue is that you don’t understand enough to understand that you don’t understand, therefore misunderstood my understanding.
Specific levies aim to be spent on specific things with no guarantee of results. It’s not like when you pay for a cake, you’ll get a cake to eat. The levies are like paying for somebody to attempt to make a cake, but there is no guarantee for the cake. The money may run out before you get the cake and you’ll not be able to do anything about it. You actually can’t demand to have a cake just because you paid in this case. I guess you can, but there was never a guarantee that you’d get it.
Also levies earmarked for special purposes really only means they guaranteed a spending floor for that purpose, nothing else. They can spend more on the same issue with general funds from elsewhere if they want, and they aren’t supposed to spend less than what the levies generated. Since when is a spending floor guarantee anything?
Can you possibly be any more obtuse? When I, or any other customer, pays for a “cake,” we expect to get a cake. A bakery wouldn’t be in business for long if tells it’s customers, “Sorry, just because you already paid for it, doesn’t mean you’re getting your cake.”
Whether a bakery or the Seattle City Council, if you don’t deliver what your customers have been led to expect in exchange for their hard earned dollars, you shouldn’t expect to stay in business for long.
But that’s the thing. The bakery will not stay in business in this fashion, but a government will. You can’t and shouldn’t treat governments as businesses. That’s just the beginning of your mistake. Also the “business” governments take on are quite often the open-ended issues that no private businesses can take on. Go find me a private company that you can pay to solve the governing problems. You’ll see that most of them can only be like private schools vs public schools: they’ll find a tiny space they can operate in and limit themselves there as opposed to taking on the whole system.
Did anyone go to this “event” to celebrate the least effective shelter system in the city? Did you thank them for not making their metrics goals for moving people out of homelessness?
nope. its weird but i had about 100 other things i’d prefer to do.