by Ansel Herz
City Council Member Tammy Morales is proposing Seattle create a new, smaller homelessness outreach team called “HOPE.” She says it would be more effective at sheltering people and addressing safety concerns and would cost less money than the city’s Navigation Team, which is being cut after reductions this year to the Seattle Police Department’s budget.
Continue reading Tammy Morales: New Homeless Outreach Team Will Be More Effective, Less Expensiveby Erica C. Barnett
(This article was originally published on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
On Monday, Seattle City Council homelessness committee chair Andrew Lewis introduced a proposal that would restore funding for outreach to homeless encampments and lay the groundwork for what Lewis described as a new City “unsheltered outreach and response team” that would replace the controversial Navigation Team.
The surprising part is that the council and mayor’s office worked together on the legislation.
Continue reading A Precarious Compromise on Homeless Outreach Inches ForwardThe Morning Update Show — hosted by Trae Holiday and The Big O (Omari Salisbury) — is the only weekday news and information livestream that delivers culturally relevant content to the Pacific Northwest’s urban audience. Omari and Trae analyze the day’s local and national headlines as well as melanin magic in our community. Watch live every weekday at 11 a.m. on any of the following channels, hosted by Converge Media: YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Periscope, and whereweconverge.com.
We’ll also post the Morning Update Show here on the Emerald each day after it airs, so you can catch up any time of day while you peruse our latest posts.
Today on the Morning Update Show:
by Erica C. Barnett
(This article was originally published on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
On Wednesday afternoon, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan announced in a press release that she is suspending the operations of the Navigation Team — which removes encampments and provides outreach and shelter offers to their displaced residents — and pursuing “out of order” layoffs for 70 Seattle Police Department officers, “with the expectation that layoffs cannot be completed by November 1, 2020.”
The City Council’s adopted budget, which Durkan unsuccessfully attempted to veto, calls for a reduction of 100 police positions and the elimination of the Navigation Team. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Navigation Team has not been removing encampments in significant numbers.
Continue reading Durkan Suspends Navigation Teamby Carolyn Bick
The mountain of trash that caught fire in South Seattle on the afternoon of May 18 has been sitting under Interstate 5 for several years, according to both residents of the encampment in which the trash pile is located, and outreach workers. But though officials from both the City of Seattle and Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) have in that time visited the encampment, and the city’s Navigation Team appears to have done a full encampment sweep in late May 2018, neither city nor state officials have taken action to remove the trash.
Continue reading Encampment Residents, Outreach Workers Say Trash Pile Beneath I-5 Six Years Old, But Officials Haven’t Taken Actionby Erica C. Barnett
People wheeling suitcases, lugging hand baskets, and pushing grocery carts trailed slowly out of a large homeless encampment on South Weller Street Thursday morning, passing through police barricades and a crowd of onlookers as the city’s Navigation Team removed an encampment that, as recently as last weekend, included nearly 70 tents. About 30 police were on hand to escort an estimated 36 residents away from the area. Continue reading Despite “Suspension,” Encampment Sweeps Continue in the Chinatown-International District
