Additional shelter beds help homeless routed from camps

Stephen Baldwin and his wife lived for five months in a parking lot at Sixth Avenue and Cherry Street. Interstate 5 was their roof, and blankets served as walls. It's a place where homeless people gather to live in what the city of Seattle considers an illegal camp.

A city crew came one night in late March to clear them out. They left, but during the sweep crews took a backpack containing family phone numbers, schizophrenia medication for Baldwin's wife, and medication for Baldwin's lung and heart problems. Still without another place to go, the couple have returned to the spot many times.

For Baldwin, who has lived on the streets for eight years, it's a simple decision.

"You gotta ask yourself a question: Do you wanna get soaking wet tonight, or do you wanna take a chance on getting arrested?" he said.

Weeks later, city workers returned to the concrete camp, but that time outreach workers came first and offered the couple shelter beds.

Because of increased demand, the city last month added to a new temporary facility another 35 beds designated for people from encampments. It's part of a new effort to get homeless people displaced by camp sweeps off the streets, rather than just shooing them into new areas.

The program is still new and there aren't yet any official progress reports, but the effort seems to be working, city officials said.

Tracking is difficult

The city has 2,109 shelter beds, most of which are reserved for single adults. Many of the shelters provide little more than the bare necessities to get people through the night: a mat on the floor, sheets and a pillow, a bathroom and a meal. On any given night, most are full. The city funds no 24-hour shelters.

Activists have long protested that the city's policy for clearing camps is immoral because it doesn't provide additional shelter space for the displaced.

The city responded in April by adding beds designated for people from encampments, and by sending outreach teams to camps in greenbelts and urban areas before sweeps, referring homeless people to shelters and other services.

After the Aug. 15 addition at the temporary shelter, there are now 60 beds at shelters reserved for people displaced by sweeps.

Parks employees in May swept through the southwest Queen Anne greenbelt. In late August, they started clearing out a greenbelt in northeast Queen Anne. Transportation workers since March have carried out 38 sweeps in 21 locations, mostly near and under bridges and overpasses.

So far, 41 people have accepted help, with about half of those still in nightly facilities; some have moved on to inpatient programs or transitional housing, while others' whereabouts are unknown. Because the shelter beds are reserved for people displaced by sweeps, those seeking help must bring referrals from outreach workers.

It's difficult to say how many people have declined the shelter beds because outreach workers don't keep track of whom they help. They do log each interaction, but some of the nearly 250 meetings caseworkers have had with homeless people are likely repeats.

Some have "homes"

Baldwin stood surrounded by mattresses covering the tile floor at The Compass Center Men's Overnight Shelter on a recent Wednesday night. He's been there more than three months and is still getting used to sleeping inside, but having a place to go has helped immensely, he said.

Many homeless still prefer the camps to shelters. Outreach workers are seeing far more homeless from urban gatherings, like Baldwin's camp, and fewer are filing in from the city's greenbelts.

The reasons for this split are numerous, outreach workers said. People making a home in collections of tents in the woods may feel safer or more established than on the street.

"People living in greenbelts actually consider these areas their home, they've kind of set up a home," said Mari Beth Wilson, an outreach worker with the nonprofit Evergreen Treatment Services. "It's very different with someone sleeping under a bridge on a piece of cardboard."

Alfredo Tores preferred the Beacon Hill greenbelt to city shelters for eight months. He said he left a city shelter after being bitten multiple times by bedbugs, and made a home in the greenbelt from a fallen tree, a tarp and branches. He even insulated the shelter with plastic sheeting. Outreach workers found him two weeks ago and brought him to The Compass Center shelter, a place he said is much better than many others in Seattle.

People may also gravitate to the freer lifestyle of camps at greenbelts, particularly addicts, said John McDonough, manager of the William Booth Center, run by the Salvation Army.

People living in greenbelts don't have to observe the structured hours of shelters, which sometimes can be a problem for people who have jobs and can't make it inside before the doors are locked for the night. Also, camps can be quieter, less crowded and cleaner than some shelters.

"A lot of people find it much more nonthreatening to stay on their own," McDonough said.

The five beds designated for people from encampments at a shelter McDonough manages are not always filled. He said he thinks the city and the outreach teams are taking the right steps to provide the homeless with housing, "but there is a large percentage of them who don't show up by their own choice."

Outreach teams

Some say the city can and should do more.

The addition of outreach teams visiting the camps before sweeps is an "important victory" for advocates, but major problems remain with the city's policy on clearing camps, said Alison Eisinger, executive director of the advocacy organization Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness. No notification is given to homeless who settle in a place that has been cleared within the past 60 days.

"People go back to areas where they're safe," she said. "It doesn't make any sense to stop offering those people services."

Bob Scales, a senior policy analyst who supervises how Seattle handles encampments, said the city is caught between balancing the interests of homeless people and activists, and the concerns of homeowners and citizens who complain about the mess and safety problems surrounding such camps.

"There's many gateways for services and housing in the city, and we don't want the encampments to be one of those," Scales said.

"The city invests tens of millions of dollars in services. This is one very small program that solves a specific problem and a specific purpose."

Another major problem Eisinger sees in the city's policies is that possessions collected during sweeps are often difficult for homeless people to retrieve, she said, lacking as they are in money and transportation.

Only two people have collected belongings from the parks-storage facility that is holding items taken during the May cleanup in southwest Queen Anne. Three others tried to get their possessions, but they weren't found in storage, said a parks spokeswoman. Just two people have tried to find their things from the city Transportation Department storage facility, and only one was successful, said a transportation spokesman.

Baldwin said he called, trying to track down his backpack, but workers said they didn't have a bag matching the description.

Kim Sather, manager of The Compass Center, sat down at a table as 60 homeless men milled around, storing belongings in lockers and choosing mats to sleep on in the next room.

There's still a huge need for more housing, she said; her 20 beds for people from encampments are always filled. That's 20 people who otherwise would still be on the street. It's a start.

"It surely is not perfect, but the bottom line is people that used to be outside and unsheltered and getting beat up are now here," Sather said.

"People that were unsheltered are sheltered, so that can't be bad."

Sean Rose: 206-464-2292 or srose@seattletimes.com