(Ed Note: Glenn wrote this story of helping out at the Nickelsville back in September. Apologies for just now getting around to running it!)
On Saturday, September 8 volunteers from the Wallingford Community Council (WCC) and the University Sunrise Rotary Club joined together to install a finished gravel paving for the sanctioned Nickelsville homeless community located off of Northlake Avenue across from Ivar’s in Wallingford.
Lee Raaen, from the Rotary Club said the genisis of the project began when the Rotary asked the leadership of the Nickelsville community how it could help them get settled in the Wallingford community. The residents indicated that its number one priority was for a smoother and permanent walkway throughout the community. Lee than contacted the Wallingford Community Council to see if it would like to assist with the project to provide additional community support. WCC board member, Karen Dalton, led the effort to coordinate WCC volunteer activities.
The volunteer turnout was fantastic with an abundance of people of all ages showing up with shovels, rakes and wheel barrows. The Rotary and WCC volunteers were joined by the residents of Northlake Nickelsville to complete the job long before lunch on Saturday. A big “Thank You” to all who showed up for work last Saturday.
It’s difficult seeing these great volunteers working at a location that is run by a group that doesn’t move people out of homelessness with any measure we could call effective. I encourage you to do your homework when you volunteer — put your precious time where it will do the most good, with organizations that do the most good.
By that logic people shouldn’t buy pain medication since they don’t cure the diseases that cause the pain.
What “do the most good” organizations you have in mind? Maybe what you said can make more sense if you can provide some examples. And if we are all gonna judge based on “what’s the most good”, I am sure nobody should volunteer for Saturday kids soccer events, because obviously that time can be spent raising money and building houses for the homeless and do more good. Maybe we should quit our jobs and volunteer in poor countries, since that may “do the most good”.
Uhhh…ok.
But to answer your question (which you’ll never see as an answer because it didn’t come from your own mind), just about every major homeless services program does a better job ending homelessness than SHARE/Nickelsville shack villages. Look it up. They are being defunded (again) in the new budget because they do such a terrible job meeting metrics for moving people into housing.
DESC, Mary’s Place, Lifelong, UGM…look it up. All better.
As for your tortured soccer example…no. Wrong. It’s not about not doing activity A because you should be doing activity B. It’s about doing kids soccer at events where the kids learn better skills, learn sportsmanship, have a great time vs. doing soccer events at a program that’s run poorly, where the kids never learn to play well and where cheats win. See the difference in the construct? No? Oh, well.
That said, I wish you would quit your job (?) and move to a poor country to volunteer. It would give you a sense of fulfillment you’ll never find tilting at pixellated windmills here on a neighborhood blog. You can thank me later when you’re on your death bed, reflecting on a life of selfless good works.
Selection bias. Different services have different ways to select who they serve, so of course the results are different. You can go look it up, and you’ll realize that. .I think you didn’t study the cases you wanted me to study.
And how is helping kids to learn soccer “do the most good” comparing to “feeding hungry children”? Obviously there are still hungry children out there, yet we are playing soccer with kids! The answer to that is obvious, and therefore your logic of why people shouldn’t volunteer for this specific cause is faulty.
TJ, I happen to coach my daughter’s soccer team. Why? Because I enjoy it. Volunteering’s not necessarily about doing the “most good,” although I would argue that kids benefit greatly from these kinds of activities and not just because they’re learning how to play a sport.
The only downside for me is having to check our practice field at Meridian for needles every time. But hey, that’s the new normal we’re all supposed to tolerate here in Seattle, because “compassion.”
As for SHARE and Nicklesville, they are a corrupt organization whose funding should be yanked by the city. They have done nothing to get their “clients” out of homelessness or to help them break their addiction problems. And they refuse to do warrant checks on the people they bring into our neighborhoods. That policy hasn’t worked out too well for people who’ve been victimized as a result, but what do they care, it’s not like the city’s going to penalize them. I’ve spoken with a couple of different people who’ve stayed at their shack villages, and they told that Scott Morrow is as corrupt as they come.
This article from yesterday actually mentions the Northlake village, and will help shed more light on them.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/activist-homeless-groups-fear-they-are-being-squeezed-out-of-seattles-homeless-response-system/
Yeah, it’s not about doing the “most good”. That’s my point! You help me convince Marie of Romania that!
And I don’t think any of the things you said are related to corruption. You shouldn’t just put negative labels randomly on things you don’t agree with. By doing that your words will stop to lose their meanings.
And again, it’s not correct to direct funding based on how fast people are moved into permanent housing. That will not fix the problems. Places like the Nicklesville are already selective instead of providing universal help. To further narrow funding to be targeting those can get into permanent housing the fastest will only mean the most chronicle cases are getting even less attention and are going to be even more problematic.
If the public school system is designed to allocate funding based on how fast and how many kids can be moved to college while allowing schools to pick and choose students, what do you think will happen? And think about what you are advocating now!
The whole idea of “helping those who deserve it” is the root cause of the problem. Those who least deserve helps are the ones with the biggest problems and the ones who have to help the most.
I wasn’t there, but only because I signed up for the second shift and the first shift finished it all by themselves. I don’t think this was any particular endorsement of SHARE or other parties involved, or the tiny house concept, or anything like that – can’t really speak for anyone else, but for me it sure wasn’t. Whoever is in charge (if anyone is, at this point), there is a group of people living there, and that’s who I understood WCC wanted to work with. Lee set this particular thing up, he and other WCC board members have talked to them and come back with good things to say about the group, they’re in our neighborhood … QED. SHARE is the mayor’s problem, not Wallingford’s.
While discussing neighbors working on something together.. might a group get together and get the graffitti removed from the Post Office? I told a staff member abotu it about 2 months ago and he said he would tell his manager. Ha! By the way when those signs were stacked up by the front for several months and I mentioned it a few tiems to staff notthing got done.. I called the uS Post Office main number and made a complaint. Guess what!!!?>/?? They were goen in 2 days. yes! I take interest in keeping some of our area cleaned up as I have for years and have taken more than appropriate mean comments about it.( Comment re comments.)