On June 24, 2022, I sat down with Noah Fey, director of the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) Housing Programs, at the DESC building in Pioneer Square. We discussed his work, first as a volunteer at DESC, then as an outreach worker, and now in DESC administration overseeing all of their varied housing programs. That morning, I had walked past tent encampments on the sidewalk just north of DESC. Noah talked about his nuanced views of encampment clearances (sweeps), encampments that grew exponentially in Seattle during the COVID-19 pandemic. Noah said, “I am not a fan of sweeps, but I am not a fan of simply saying, ‘We need to leave people where they are and leave them be.’ Neither of those are good alternatives and neither of those are informed by what we know works for people. Sweeps on their own are highly disruptive for people. (…) There’s already such a feeling of insecurity when you don’t have a place to live. Losing it time and time again is inherently pretty traumatic. (…) But I also think we’re shortsighted (…) if we are just adamantly saying, ‘No sweeps,’ and not saying what should come instead.”
Various cities around the country, including the Seattle area Burien, enforce stricter “anti-camping” bans, allowing more encampment sweeps and legal fines for unsheltered people. Many people and advocacy groups, including the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, point to the mounting evidence that sweeps harm people experiencing homelessness. Other groups like the National Homelessness Law Center have the campaign, “housing not handcuffs,” highlighting the fact that encampment sweeps are a form of criminalizing homelessness and poverty.
This past Monday, April 22, I conducted a workshop on homelessness in a large medium-security correctional facility in a rural area of Washington. The forty-five men who attended wanted to discuss the just-opened Supreme Court case, City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, which will decide whether laws regulating camping on public property constitute ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Many of the men had experienced homelessness and had family members still living on the streets. Obviously, they were in prison for other crimes, but homelessness had complicated their lives. They asked me for resources on re-entry programs for when they are released from prison to reduce their chances of becoming homeless and churning through the homelessness, jail, and prison pipeline. Through the librarians at the facility, I was able to provide some of these resources. The Central Library of Seattle Public Library has a list of re-entry services, as does the Emerald City Resource Guide from Real Change. Seattle University’s Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, which advocates for legal and policy changes to prevent homeless people from entering the criminal justice system, also has a list of sources. My experience with the men at the prison made me even more grateful for the dedicated work of people like Noah Fey in providing compassionate, evidence-based housing and support services in our region.