We just started a petition to send to Mayor McGinn and the members of our City Council. It’ll take 30 seconds to sign and pass on, and can be found here: HPAC’s petition
If you want, print out the petition and go door to door, let me know when you’re finished via email (hpacchair@gmail.com) and I’ll come pick it up.
Please pass this link on to anyone you know who owns property in the city, or to anyone that supports a better solution for the homeless. The Mayor’s actions to date have repercussions for everyone. We appreciate all the support we’ve gotten on this, we have a lot of irons in the fire right now. We are working on legal papers to file and are focusing the next few weeks on a more political route while all this legislation is coming to a head in City Council.
We are meeting with Council President Sally Clark’s aide this afternoon, and plan to meet with the Mayor at his office next Friday. We hope to have as many signatures as possible by Wednesday, May 22nd. That day there is Meeting of Nick Licata’s Housing, Human Services, Health and Culture Committee at Seattle City Council from 2-4 where he’ll be presenting encampment legislation. Anyone who can make it to that, it would be great to try to have some community to encourage a change to the current situation. That night we have our regularly scheduled HPAC meeting, where we will discuss next steps. Join us at 7pm, Highland Park Improvement Club on 12th and Holden.
This is why the petition is important:
If you support a better solution for the homeless, and/or own property in the city of Seattle, the Mayor is setting a precedent that may have repercussions for you: an unsanctioned homeless camp has been squatting at the intersection of West Marginal Way/Highland Park Way illegally for two years with the Mayor and Council’s full knowledge, is about to start its THIRD summer, and the Mayor has presented an option to make it permanent. The encampment has no running water or sewer hookup, there has been no public comment period, and no community engagement initiated by the city. We would like to tell the Mayor and City Council that they cannot treat our neighborhoods and citizens this way, and they cannot ignore our pleas for political leadership any longer. Two years is too long to ignore the Highland Park and Riverview neighborhoods, two years is too long to let this encampment exist without proper living conditions. If the city turns a blind eye to this even one more day, the neighborhood deserves to be informed and a public review process should begin immediately- just as would be done for any other neighborhood in Seattle. The City is dangerously close to setting a precedent for encampments to squat illegally anywhere in the city for years at a time with no public input, no permits, no public health code requirements, no fire code requirements, no water, no sanitary sewer, no over-site, no management, and no services to help the homeless. Please sign this petition if you would like to see the Mayor and City Council act immediately to end this poor treatment of Seattle neighborhoods and poor treatment of its homeless: they have been ignoring the situation for years.
If you support a better solution for the homeless, and/or own property in the city of Seattle, the Mayor is setting a precedent that may have repercussions for you: an unsanctioned homeless camp has been squatting at the intersection of West Marginal Way/Highland Park Way illegally for two years with the Mayor and Council’s full knowledge, is about to start its THIRD summer, and the Mayor has presented an option to make it permanent. The encampment has no running water or sewer hookup, there has been no public comment period, and no community engagement initiated by the city. We would like to tell the Mayor and City Council that they cannot treat our neighborhoods and citizens this way, and they cannot ignore our pleas for political leadership any longer. Two years is too long to ignore the Highland Park and Riverview neighborhoods, two years is too long to let this encampment exist without proper living conditions. If the city turns a blind eye to this even one more day, the neighborhood deserves to be informed and a public review process should begin immediately- just as would be done for any other neighborhood in Seattle. The City is dangerously close to setting a precedent for encampments to squat illegally anywhere in the city for years at a time with no public input, no permits, no public health code requirements, no fire code requirements, no water, no sanitary sewer, no over-site, no management, and no services to help the homeless. Please sign this petition if you would like to see the Mayor and City Council act immediately to end this poor treatment of Seattle neighborhoods and poor treatment of its homeless: they have been ignoring the situation for years.
and it asks the Mayor and Council to:
Move Nickelsville before the start of summer, or begin a public review process for the Highland Park and Riverview neighborhoods immediately. It is not our job to come up with a solution, but it is our job to tell you that you have a duty to enforce the Land Use Code, and the encampment is having a direct negative effect on our community. We are asking that you, our elected officials, come up with a better solution immediately.
Thank you again for all your support, and for sharing the petition link far and wide.
HPAC 