Seattle doesn't deserve this pink tent city

The platoon of pink tents did not look like a shantytown, but that is how it announced itself to a startled city. On its Web page, its organizers said their aim was to create "a permanent homeless shantytown in Seattle."

The people of Seattle do not want such a thing or deserve it.

The activists say they intend to fill the mostly empty tents at 7115 West Marginal Way S.W. with 250 to 1,000 squatters and eventually to build wooden structures — in other words, shacks. Once again Seattle would have something like "Hooverville," the shantytown erected on Elliott Bay during the Great Depression.

Comparing Mayor Greg Nickels to President Herbert Hoover, organizers have called their encampment, "Nickelsville." But Nickels is no Hoover. Seattle is as liberal in its provision for the homeless as any city we know. It has been spending millions a year on services for them. It has offered shelter space to anyone sleeping in the parks or in the woods.

For several years, Greater Seattle has had Tent City — several of them. A few years ago, Nickels said the political goal of Tent City's organizers, Seattle Housing and Resource Effort and the Women's Housing, Equality and Enhancement League, was not to end homelessness.

It was, he said, "to have a self-governing homeless community." This would be a new institution in Seattle, defined and staffed by political activists. It was not something the mayor wanted.

The limitation on Tent Cities is that they are on private land, by permission of the owner. "Nickelsville" is different. It is on public land. It is not a request for charity but a bid for entitlement.

In 2004, organizers asked the Metropolitan King County Council to allow a Tent City on a public park-and-ride lot. At the time, we advised against it — and independently, the council voted "no."

This time the activists didn't ask; they plunked down their tents on city land without permission. The tents were mostly empty, awaiting a signal of surrender.

On Monday afternoon, Nickels told them to clear out within 72 hours. The City Council, and the people of Seattle, should support him.