Tent City for homeless will move near Kirkland (Seattle 'burb) for 90 days

Tent City for homeless will move near Kirkland for 90 days

By GORDY HOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER


Karen Ducey / P-I
"It beats the heck out of sleeping on the
sidewalk" says Johnnie Andersen, kissing
his fiancee, Autumn Dupea, of the tent the
22-year-olds share with Andersen's father
and his girlfriend at Tent City 3 in Seattle's
Lake City area.

KIRKLAND -- The homeless are no strangers to the Eastside.

"They are already there, hiding in the woods, living in the blackberry bushes," said Deanna Davis of SHARE/Wheel, a Seattle-based advocacy group run by the homeless. "You just don't see them."

And so, on May 17, some members of a moving tent encampment now in Seattle's Lake City area will head across the lake to create a beachhead. At the same time, their compatriots will relocate to Seattle's Central District.

For 90 days, they will pitch their tents in a 17-acre patch of Eastside ground near a Metro park and ride north of Kirkland.

More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

no one should have to live in a tent. GRRR At least in Seattle it is generally temperate.

Instead of "Hoovervilles" we should call them "Bushvilles". I think it's just another way to institutionalize homelessness.

A tent city is another way of condoning homelessness I believe. And it acknowledges our slide down that slippery slope to third world status.

Don't we have enough problems of our own to address?

Homelessness
Poverty
Child abuse
Violent crime
Health Care
Unemployment
Domestic abuse
Biggotry/Racism
Teen suicide
Economic inequity
Corporate corruption
I could go on and on
Psychological distress (at least 88 million Americans are treated for some form of mental health problem - in my view, that says something is really wrong with our nation that we are failing to address)

I was totally shocked and embarrassed by the degree of hostility and NIMBism voiced by this community at large towards this encampment. It was disgraceful.

Oh, this will enrage the well-to-do Eastsiders:)

...to allow residents to "warm to the idea.":eyes:That's going to take a lot longer than two weeks, I'm afraid.

Homeless people live anywhere they can find, including on the precious Eastside.:grr:

http://komotv.com/stories/31100.htm

According to community voices at the meeting the problem was that the neighborhood was not notified that they were putting the encampment in there. Personally I think it's a sorry excuse. Tent city will only be there for 90 days and the theory behind the development of these encampments is to publisize and bring the faces of homelessness out of the social service ghetto downtown. There are many homeless folks on the east-side. The residents can't stand that they are coming out of the greenbelts and back parking lots to be housed near the part N ride. What is sad about this in my view is that this particular area is really not the most affluent on the East Side (but by no means impovrished)and has a lot of liberal leanings. Shame I say ---Shame on them

neighborhood was meeting down at the big Christian Church the other night making speeches dripping with venom about how this was going to effect their property taxes. They all should fuck off and die. It will be very interesting to see what kind of support these good people get from the Churches around here. There are about at least 8 Christian Churches around here, big ones too.

I think me and my wife will go get a couple of nice pies and welcome these people to the neighborhood.

its popular. They don't actually practice the word. They bitch about their taxes, yet won't go down to try to help those people. What ever happned to the old saying, "Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish, and he will eat forever."? maybe I was raised wrong by my grandfather, grandmother and mother........