And the Beat Goes On at the Broadview-Thomson Encampment

 The district had a meeting tonight at Broadview-Thomson K-8. I don't see it on the district's calendar but there were people there. 

Reporter Erica C. Barnett was live-tweeting and here is some of what she saw/heard. I'll add some comments in-between. 

6:14pm

I'm at Broadview-Thomson K-8 school in North Seattle, where deputy superintendent Rob Gannon is updating the community on the encampment on a school district-owned property on the shore of Bitter Lake next door. I'll be live-tweeting, so fair warning if you want to mute now!

Gannon begins by noting that the school district didn't hit its goal of closing the encampment by September 1, and notes that the camp has not shrunk at all as more people have moved in. When I was at the encampment two weeks ago, the encampment had grown.

So this is interesting because it's not even that close to September 1 but clearly the district knows they can't get this done by then. I, too, heard from a couple of sources that the encampment is larger. 

The school district has installed a fence along the path that goes along the property, which is adjacent to the school, and a locked gate on the northwest corner of the property.

My understanding is that the fence and the locked gate forces some kids to have a longer walk home. 

The district is also paying for security on the site, Gannon says. I believe he's referring to a program run by Community Passageways, which works to deescalate conflict (and does not see what they're doing as "security.")

Generally speaking, people living in this encampment see themselves as a community, which makes the solutions some at this meeting might prefer, like scattering the people through the city or taking people to lots of different shelters, aren't super tenable.

"The county has been an effective partner with us," Gannon says. "We have been in contact with the @cityofseattle, but up until now, resources from the City of Seattle have not been made available to Seattle Public Schools."

Gannon says the city recently contacted the school district and asked to meet about the encampment, which he sees as a promising sign. The district is hoping to move some of the 50-60 folks living here into a county-owned hotel that's supposed to open soon.

How soon is "soon?"  

Mike Mathias, who singlehandedly runs the nonprofit Anything Helps, has been out at the encampment daily for many weeks.

He's taking questions now. The first is from a woman who says she saw sex workers and wants to know how he feels about that. He gives a nuanced answer, and she says, "Oh, so you think it's okay then." He responds: "None of this is okay."

The next guy is yelling that MIke hasn't gotten rid of the tents. "WHAT. WENT. WRONG." Mathias planned to use a specific federal housing program to get people indoors, which didn't work as well on a huge scale as it does on a smaller scale, he says.

Candidate sighting! Ann Davison, the Republican candidate for Seattle City Attorney, is in the back of the room.

School board member Liza Rankin, who's been standing in the back, expresses her frustration that @mayorjenny's position has consistently been that the encampment isn't the city's problem and that the district should "stand up its own system" for addressing homelessness. 

My reply to Rankin would be, "Don't be disingenuous." Because when President Chandra Hampson and (at the time) VP Zachary DeWolf issued a throw down to the mayor - sans the rest of the Board - I'm not sure what Rankin would expect the Mayor's reaction to be. A major leadership failing of Hampson is the ability to be cordial and respectful to OTHER leaders.  

In addition to new fencing around the encampment, the school district installed tarps so that kids attending the school don't have to see the encampment from the school.

Now a woman asks if there are registered sex offenders living at the encampment, given that people live in the apartments nearby. Mathias says that at one point there were, but there aren't anymore.

Really? 

A man asked why the school district doesn't just sweep the encampment. A woman starts yelling at Gannon directly: "Where do you live? Where do your kids go to school?" over and over.

I would rank the frustration in this room as mid-grade for a public meeting in Seattle; people are asking questions that are really statements and applauding each other for doing so, but the bottom line is that they have one guy working on this and no help from the city.

People here are directing their ire at Gannon and the school district instead of Anything Helps volunteer Mike Mathias, but it's the usual diffuse anger without a solution: "Trespass them" (as someone is currently suggesting, to applause), build bigger fences, sweep them along.

"What good would tespass do other than move them off that property?" Gannon asks rhetorically. Two-thirds of the room start screaming at him. "Move them to school district headquarters!" one person screams.

A woman says, "We're feeling desperate for an answer from. the district—we've made an effort we're done, we're going to clear the camp." Gannon says the district is "not going to engage in a full-scale sweep" without offering people adequate alternatives and resources.

Someone wants to know why the city didn't sweep the encampment when someone broke into the school. School district COO Fred Podesta says the person who broke in had no connection to the encampment.

This from a Broadview-Thomson parent:

My kids attend Broadview Thompson & the way in which the school & its students—who have not actually faced harm—are being wielded as weapons to justify inhumane treatment of those experiencing homelessness &, frankly, the public servants trying to help is immoral & embarrassing. 

Back to Barrett:

Mathias points out that people who are ostracized are unlikely to interact with kids because everyone assumes they're criminals. A woman says kids may be so traumatized by seeing homeless people that they don't come to school for free lunches and then go hungry.

Is this true? Hmm. 

Gannon says he's meeting with the mayor's office tomorrow to renew the district's request for city resources to help at this encampment—which, as a reminder, the city has refused to assist because it's technically not their land.

Last few questions! How will the district handle parents who want their kids to stay at home to avoid homeless people? Answer: There's remote schooling, but it already has a wait list, and hybrid teaching for elementary kids doesn't really work.

The answer from the district is likely to be no to remote learning because of the encampment. 

The last question is a statement: "If you're forcing me to choose between kids and the homeless, I'll choose the kids every time. If there should be any limit, children should be the first and biggest limit! Is there no limits to anything?"

As the meeting winds down, that's a timely reminder that the city has washed its hands of this encampment, tossing the district into the uncharted waters of responding to homelessness.