Homelessness up in yearly count

Josie Duby, 46 and homeless, told the six volunteers as they walked along Lake City streets, "Watch for the ice."

In the hours before dawn on Friday she led the group to a triplex scheduled for demolition. Seven homeless people, including her, had been squatting there. The owner, said Duby, allowed them to stay as long as they paid the utility bills.

Inside one apartment, a man was in a sleeping bag on the carpet; another poked his head out a bedroom door, wondering what was going on.

Duby said not that many street homeless would be spotted: "They're at the church."

Being able to count the homeless at the church made it easier for the Lake City volunteers who joined in Friday's annual One Night Count of the Homeless in King County. The count showed a 15 percent increase countywide in street homeless over last year.

The total was 2,631 street homeless, said Alison Eisinger, director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, sponsor of the event.

More than 900 volunteers spread out in groups from Woodinville to Federal Way, helping with the count. They documented homeless they had seen on benches, in garages and cars, under bridges, riding all-night Metro buses and in other places.

The count did not include those staying in emergency shelters or transitional housing. Eisinger said it'd take two months to gather those statistics. But when those numbers are included, she said, an estimated 6,000 homeless will be added, for a total of some 8,600.

The 15 percent increase in this year's street homeless count has to be put in context, said Bill Block, project director of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County.

"It's a snapshot, and not a terribly scientific snapshot," he said.

This was the first year that Lake City took part in the count, now in its 28th year, as residents inescapably have noticed more and more street people in their small North Seattle community.

Half of the 29 of Lake City's homeless that were counted — individuals such as Randy Kennedy, Samantha Harding and Gabriel Leon — made their way to the Seattle Mennonite Church here. It opens its doors during freezing nights, serving food and providing a place to lie down.

"I'm in a little bit of a hole right now," said Kennedy, 41, who attended Shorewood High School. He told of alcohol and crack cocaine use, and getting fired from a job stocking shelves at Sears because of his drinking.

Kennedy said his entire belongings consisted of two sleeping bags, a lunch pail, and three jackets he wears one atop the other because of the cold. He makes a little money by panhandling so he can buy "a couple of beers" and perhaps some Top Ramen, which he mixes with hot tap water at the Fred Meyer men's lavatory.

Then there was Samantha Harding, 37, and Gabriel Leon, 34. She is 4 ½ months pregnant with his child. They live in a 1989 Ford Aerostar that they move around the Lake City streets when police tag the vehicle for parking in one spot for too long.

Harding said she's had three previous children; that there's a restraining order against her from her former husband; that she suffers from depression; that she has "other issues ... personal things ... "

She met Leon while using the phone at a Lake City gas station.

Leon said he had always worked, usually construction jobs, then his hours were cut back. He went on unemployment; he and Harding spent the summer of 2007 hanging out at Green Lake and Golden Gardens. She got pregnant. They ended up living in a van.

Leon said, "You think I want to be living in my car? You think I want this for my woman?"

A young couple, Melanie Neufeld, and her husband, Jonathan Neufeld, are the community ministers at the church. The Mennonites have been described as one of the peace churches that are "spiritual cousins" to the Amish.

On this night, Jonathan was helping cook a turkey dinner for the homeless; Melanie was in charge of the neighborhood's One Night Count.

By and large, the homeless in Lake City had northend roots. Duby is a 1981 Shorecrest High School graduate. She has four children, all now grown except for the youngest one, 16, who is in foster care. She says she suffers from epilepsy, Parkinson's and narcolepsy. She lives on $339 a month from the state under the General Assistance Unemployable program.

Duby moved on to S&S Upholstery and Interiors at 12545 Lake City Way N. E., where a woman was sleeping in the entrance, covered by blankets, having surrounded herself with a semicircle of five shopping carts filled with newspapers, magazine, plastic containers and bags filled with something.

"That's Maria. She won't go into a shelter, and she refuses help or anything," said Duby.

One of the volunteers at the Lake City count, Sally Kinney, 67, is not judgmental of the homeless she helps.

"Whatever that person has done, whatever situation that person is in, they deserve food and a bed under their food. I don't care if they get drunk every day," she said. "They are human beings. Human beings deserve to live."

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com