Lawsuit Filed against the Seattle School Board And Seattle Schools over Homeless Encampment

Editor's note: the encampment was finally cleared last week.  

Here's the filing. (FYI, it's Broadview Thomson, not Thompson.)

What is interesting is the lawsuit names all the directors as well as the school district. I'm not sure if the directors will have to defend themselves given they are named individually, rather than as a board.

To note, this is in Director Liza Rankin's district and she has been closely involved with this issue. 

The plaintiffs state:

SPS is not legislatively or administratively charged with or empowered to undertake regional homeless issues. Instead SPS is solely crated and enabled to address, administer and meet its education directives.

This charge under RCW 28A, Washington State Administrative Codes and the Board's own adopted policies. 

Defendants secretly approved the illegal use of its property without notice, hearing or official action. 

The lawsuit speaks of the impacts on students and families, noting BT's large immigrant and minority populations. At the GoFundMe page for this lawsuit is stated that the school has lost 100 students this year. 

As well, the lawsuit says that the defendants have violated Washington EPA regulations, especially around the condition of Bitter Lake. The GoFundMe page states:

Bitter Lake is designated an Environmental Critical Area (ECA) and a Riparian Waterway by both the city of Seattle and the State of Washington and there are serious concerns with the ongoing harm to the area due to the amount of trash and biohazardous material, including syringes and human feces, being disposed of in and around the lake. In addition, members of the encampment are cutting down trees, digging up shrubs, and setting uncontrolled fires, further endangering an already stressed ecosystem.

The defendants note that no other school with an adjoining playground/playfield has had this issue. As well, the Board, specifically when Hampson was Board president, had SPS clear the encampment at Meany Middle School. They seemed to have no problem doing that. 

There were about 500 calls made to police during the time of the encampment. SPD estimated it might take years to address all the FOIA requests made for those calls. At any given time, there was an estimate of between 50-80 tents at the site. Recently, gunshots were heard and residents found casings along the fence. 

The plaintiffs go on to talk about the "encampment manager. " Have you heard about this? SPS gave him $20K thru his group, "Anything Helps" to work with the residents of the encampment. Turns out this guy appears to have not been vetted well by the district and apparently was asking residents for meth. 

This from KOMO News:

Mathias is the man Seattle Public Schools hired earlier this year to relocate dozens of campers. Originally his non-profit called Anything Helps was just him, but over time other volunteers joined in the effort. Now some of those volunteers, as well as a few of the homeless people who got assistance have come forward claiming Mathias took advantage of his position.

Adriana Krieger was living out of a tent with her husband when she said Mathias offered to let her shower at his home, since the encampment had no running water.

“He brought me to his home and that was the first time he asked me to hit him which means to shoot him up,” Krieger said.

Mathias said it was "one time" and it was "an administrative shot of meth." Huh?

However the school district is not aware of any funding that is unaccounted for, and the money was transferred in two lump payments. According to Mathias, that $20,000 hasn’t even been spent.

A spokesperson for Seattle Public Schools said, "we are aware of the allegations about mr. mathias, and they are concerning...We will assess the situation to determine if we need to do any investigating.

From an article in Publicola:

It also raises a number of questions for the school district, the city, and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. Why did Seattle Public Schools place so much responsibility in the hands of an untested, brand-new nonprofit run primarily by a single volunteer? Should the district have done more to monitor what was going on at the encampment, including the power dynamics between the nonprofit and encampment residents? Why did the city take so long to step in and help encampment residents? And how did 14 housing vouchers end up in the hands of an unvetted nonprofit with no track record—or staff? 

Last week, volunteers for Anything Helps sent a letter to community members, the school district, and other homeless service providers making a number of disturbing allegations about Mathias. Among other charges, the letter alleges that Mathias used some of the money Anything Helps received from the school district and individual donors to pay for drugs; that he threatened and used federal Emergency Housing Vouchers as leverage over several women at the camp; and that he engaged in “verbal aggression, threats, and retaliation toward staff,” including accusing one volunteer of stealing money.