Marlon Meyer
Northwest Asia Weekly
There was still a tented camp on the South King Street side of the car park last week with people living in it (Photo by Mahlon Meyer)
The smell of a pile of garbage was so strong that it hung on the street a few yards away. It smells like disgustingly sweet human flesh. But a young girl in ripped jeans, with a rose sticking out of her back pocket, stood dumbfounded on the piles, looking for something useful. A few minutes later, she was on the other side of the parking lot, full of rubbish, with her hands wildly raised and shaking.
A plan is underway to “protect” the parking lot, which is leased by the state to a temporary community development association, and includes I-5 between South Jackson and South King Streets. It involves extending and widening the fence around the lot.
State Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, in partnership with Chong Wa Charities and InterIm, is working to secure $100,000 from the state transportation budget to rebuild and lengthen the fence to the end of the parking lot, where InterIm will be able to post “No Trespassing” signs . This would allow police to evacuate people or bring in social workers to help them transition to a different setting.
“Of course, InterIm can already call the police, but if the campers are camping out in public, there’s nothing the police can do . . . that’s the core issue,” Santos said.
clear roles
In fact, the land was managed by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), but leased to InterIm, which in turn took over management. But property is also the responsibility of WSDOT. Santos said WSDOT personnel were not equipped or trained to remove hazardous waste, and he held discussions with community group WSDOT and brought members of various legislative committees to the site.
Additionally, she said, WSDOT staff were unable to remove people from their property.
Santos said placing a “no trespassing” sign on the full fence would allow Seattle police to respond to calls “about homeless people camping on public roads.”
Fences can also help keep your property clean in another way. Last week, people were on the side of the fence — outside and saw tent camps with homeless people inside. But they were on a piece of land that was higher than the sidewalk and right next to the sidewalk.
That land, a long grey concrete platform, supports the base of a pole that rises in the dark to support the highway. Santos said it was also land managed by InterIm, so until recently it hadn’t had a police permit.
The purpose of widening the fence is to eliminate access to that extra piece of land. In this case, the fence will extend all the way to the sidewalk, a public right of way that is the responsibility of the city, police, social workers and other professionals.
“Communities are increasingly challenged in terms of public safety and public health,” Santos said.
Healing the Community
The fence may also resolve tensions between Chong Wa and InterIm, the latter apparently complaining about the car park, or it intends to do so. Chong Wa did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
However, even the narrative of how the fencing solution came to be questioned on all sides.
“I don’t know of any questions about the origins of the fencing idea,” Santos told Northwest Asia Weekly.
She said the idea came from one of her many meetings with the community.
“The idea really came from this meeting, we had people from Chong Wa there, we had InterIm there, and when Chong Wa was able to get from the State Department of Transportation and they said, the challenge for InterIm, ‘but our owners were able to do it Why can’t InterIm do this? “It’s because the fence isn’t far enough,” she said. “It’s kind of like the moment when all these lightbulbs go off at the same time, and it’s like, let’s re-fence it.”
But InterIm deputy director Tom Im said the solution had been discussed within InterIm for years.
“I just want to reiterate that the idea of fencing did not come from Chong Wa in any way because that would be a false narrative – although they may have come up with the idea from their own internal conversations. However, the idea was before last year. It’s been discussed. If anything, Rep. Santos helped move that process, and if it wasn’t for her work, this wouldn’t have happened,” I said.
personal problem
Still, such a small difference may reflect the greater frustration the highway represents to the community. They may also reflect uncertainty about the future.
Im, who has worked at InterIm for 25 years, said the neighborhood was “deliberately” divided by highways in the 1960s. According to Santos, this has caused some communities to shrink.
In the 1970s, her late husband, Bob Santos, led a movement advocating for the conversion of spaces under highways into parking lots to help revitalize the community. In an interview with Densho on June 30, 2011, Bob Santos described the process as a way to save Chinatown International District (CID) by bringing more business to its remaining shops and restaurants through more parking spaces.
Funding from parking has also been transformative for InterIm, led by Bob Santos, because it allows the group to lobby, as parking entities are exempt from laws governing InterIm itself as a nonprofit.
However, Im said that today, InterIm doesn’t earn any significant revenue from the parking lot.
“I’m pretty sure it’s been down a lot over the last few years, and we don’t have any revenue, even if it’s not a loss,” he said.
Fencing is a community solution, he said.
different laws?
At the same time, however, the need for fencing highlights the apparent dysfunction between state and municipal governments – it is unclear whether this function will be corrected in the future.
In fact, there is already a rule that holds city police accountable for areas of land under and along highways that pass through the city. A provision in the Washington Code, as amended in 1961 (RCW 47.52.200), allows city police, county sheriffs, and state patrols to enforce laws, including trespassing or any other state law.
“When any limited access highway facility passes within or through any amalgamated city or town, the municipal police of that city or town, the sheriff of the county in which the city or town is located, and the Washington State Patrol Officers shall have independent and concurrent jurisdiction to enforce any violation of the laws of this state,” it said.
Additionally, Seattle police appear to have swept state-managed land under the freeway along one side of the current fence as recently as March 17.
Photos obtained by Northwest Asia Weekly show numerous bicycle police, patrol cars and a garbage truck along South Jackson Street. For the next week, that side of the fence was virtually free of tents and litter. It’s not clear why the other side of the wall, on South King Street, is still full of camps.
When asked if police work under the laws that allow them to enforce law enforcement on state-managed property, the Seattle Police Department responded: “You need to contact the mayor’s office regarding this investigation.”
Jamie Housen, the city’s communications director, said the camp demolished on March 17 was “primarily located on city-owned property.” Some tents on WSDOT properties were also removed under a “maintenance agreement between the City of Seattle and WSDOT,” he said.
“Existing laws do not prevent Seattle from encamping on WSDOT property within the city. That said, maintenance agreements between Seattle and WSDOT are important to inform city practices and clarify roles and responsibilities,” Housen said.
However, as of press time, it was unclear what laws would be followed in the future if the city removed homeless camps from temporary parking lots — existing laws, or no trespassing laws triggered by the expansion of the fence. It also seemed unclear under what circumstances police would follow city or state directions, or simply respond to calls from InterIm.
hope to cooperate
The lack of clarity may reflect systemic problems with local governments trying to cooperate. Rep. Santos wants to ensure temporary parking lots are secured by personnel with the necessary training and authorization.
“People know when the government isn’t working, but they don’t really know why the government isn’t working,” Rep. Santos said. “It’s not because we didn’t try.
Then suddenly you have two different governments. You have cities and you have countries. Both are trying to accomplish something. If they can’t get along, then we’re all in trouble, right? “
Howson said Mayor Bruce Harrell “refocused on regional cooperation, bringing together county, state and federal efforts and resources to make a difference in the short and long term. This includes working with the new Regional Homeless Authority. Collaborate, fund their work and support a new Zen partnership to reduce homelessness on the streets of downtown Seattle.”
Meanwhile, Santos said the fence building was part of a wider movement to restore and heal torn and damaged parts of the community. She pointed to a similar moment in South Park where citizens were working to recoup the damage done to the area by the SR 99 freeway.
“When they first started looking at this question, mostly from an environmental perspective, they started to realize why seeing higher rates of asthma and other types of health conditions in poor communities of color actually There’s a traceable reason for that. It’s because they’re close to the highway. Well, you need a little more time
You realize they didn’t move there because the highway is there and the highway goes through it,” she said.
Outside the existing fence, a man with a face like a mound of mud walked up and down with a blanket over his shoulders, then he pulled the blanket over his head and continued to stumble.
Mahlon can reach info@nwasianweekly.com.
