by Miguel Louis
For the last month, local city and council meetings have been defined by a series of debates between citizens and their local governments that will define the future of unhoused Olympians and residents of Thurston County.
One of the primary concerns was the Mitigation Site, a small lot in downtown Olympia designed for legal camping that opened in December 2018. Sold as a new site that would allow the unhoused access to resources that would help them find permanent housing, the results have been lacking in their original proposition. The City of Olympia promised it as a solution for the increase in people living on the streets that had skyrocketed in the last ten years.
Residents of the site, current and former, have called out harsh treatment by the staff and lament the constant cycling of those who are allowed to live there. Belongings are often lost in the shuffle leading many of those hoping to make the mitigation site a home start anew. And with the population of the site currently at 75 to 100 people, it pales in comparison to the nearly 2,000 unhoused persons in the region. These are among the numerous issues with the site and shortcomings of the model that need to be resolved.
Instead, the community has drawn anger at the City’s direction to change the location of the mitigation site. The initial experiment was promised to last a year, but it has been nearly three years since its initial rollout, and the City has decided relocation to be the best option for the future of the site.
The new location would have been near the I-5 exit on Quince Street. To get an idea of how residents of the surrounding area would feel about the new location, the City scheduled a listening session for city residents to voice their opinions about the proposed move. Because the new site is a few blocks from two schools and a church, neighbors decided to take a stand against the proposal. To them, fears of crime, vandalism, and drug use in an area separated from them by a major road outweighed the need to find a plot of land for the unhoused.
At the listening session, city officials heard complaints from residents of the pocket of Olympia. To them, the proposed location change was not welcome in their backyard.
Led by far-right outlets that oppose the City’s attempt to allow the existence of some camps and unhoused populations, they began to ask pointed questions that criminalize them. “What’s it going to take for the city leadership to stop the madness of shifting things from one spot to another?” “What will it take my child being physically assaulted coming home from school?” “Will sex offenders be allowed to live in the RV lot?”
Now the City is in limbo and considering other locations, but they are struggling to identify where they won’t run into the same issues and the same resistance from NIMBY neighbors.
The second community conflict has been over the City’s desire to remove the RVs and vehicles dotting Ensign Road that some residents live out of. This stretch of road, the entrance to the campus of Providence St. Peter’s Hospital, and the sprawl of vehicles with those with no other option do cause issues for emergency vehicles and ambulances.
Thurston County has tried to find a solution to allow the unhoused to have a place to sleep in their cars and RVs without pushing residents out of town altogether.
The new site would have been placed at Carpenter Road. However, the site could only allow 20 RVs, far smaller than the number of people along Ensign Road, let alone over the county.
Thurston County held a meeting with city officials in Lacey and Olympia. The county was set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Olympia and Lacey to transfer the sight to just outside Lacey city limits. Unfortunately, heated dissent has arisen from residents of the area, leading to a fallout in the negotiations.
One man was quoted saying, “I’ve decided that if you go forward, I will personally support some homeless people to park directly in front of whatever commissioners choose to vote in front of your own homes so you can feel the impact of having homeless people in your neighborhood just like what you want to do to force on the people out there.”
Far-right “journalists” in Olympia will often vilify the camps by stalking residents and confronting them with cameras to shine a bad light on residents and consistently call the sites ‘druggie camps’. It’s a dishonest representation of the complex issue of homelessness.
Sadly the easiest solution to the RV camp in front of Providence St Peter’s has been dismantled over emotional versus practical concerns.
Similar issues arise when cities respond to such a complex issue. For example, this year in Austin, TX, the City promised to use some of the bloated police budget to create two hotels for the unhoused. But unfortunately, a wave of concerns from businesses, real estate, and residents for property value in the area has also stopped their plans for a solution.
And finally, the darkest turn in the City’s response to the unhoused is the wholesale eviction of the unhoused encampment along Deschutes Way. With 50 to 100 persons (a fluctuating population), the camp has become a focal point of local politics and generated debate about how to respond to the housing crisis.
I talked with a resident of the camp, a friend of mine named Chase. He was swept up in the raid of the Red Lion Hotel and is still facing legal charges as an unhoused individual that sought room at the Red Lion. This protest was met with a raid by 115 officers from Olympia Police, Thurston County Sherriffs, SWAT, and Washington State Patrol.
He mentioned that he is considering, once he gets past the charges, taking the option to get a bus ticket out of the City. But he showed concern over the current trend.
“Let’s say things continue as they have been… This is the City of Olympia’s MO, their modus operandi. They’ll take something, then cut it down. They’ll cut it in half and cut it down until they can cut down the entire population of people at the camps.”
“For example, when we were camping at the parking lots, they took it over.” Here he is referring to the pre-Mitigation site. “They cut the space in half, then cut another third. At that point, no one wanted to stay anyway, attracting attention.”
“It’s like what we do to nature and wild animals… We cut down their natural habitat and take
their space. And we leave them with a little bit of space, so we don’t have to feel bad about it.”
“This is the way Olympia has always done it.”
He showed me a tattered eviction notice from the City of Olympia. “It’s a cheesy letter with the date and not much else on it. Sure, I can call these numbers, but there are a lot of us. I do know some people are considering staying out in their tents. I’m not sure whether I will, but I get they want to stand for their rights.”
“Something should be done,” Chase continued, “to give us a bit of space between the notice and where to find the next place to sleep. They could give us hotel vouchers or teach us a trade. Or give us something to help us transition.”
“Personally, this is my personal struggle because I prefer to be out here, living in the fast lane.”
What is concerning about the situation at hand is that community members are refusing to negotiate or suggest sites where camping can continue. Instead of having a conversation around viable solutions and recognizing that moving the sites, if drawing concern from neighbors in the area, should be viewed as a copout to the larger issue: that the City will not take a bloated police budget to create substantive housing.
