A Seattle homeless encampment that sat near I-5 close to North Northgate Way and Corliss Avenue North was cleared through Gov. Inslee’s initiative. The Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) announced the cleanup of the longtime encampment in the Northgate community. Some nearby residents are happy the problems that were associated with the camp may now be gone as well. Some want more compassion.
This encampment is not the first. The Portland Medium has been reporting on this issue for months. The Northgate encampment cleanup is the fourth clean-up done under the governor’s initiative, according to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority announced this was done under Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Right of Way Initiative.”
KCRHA has reported that 20 people were housed that were in the Northgate encampment. They claimed most of those living at the encampment went to emergency housing facilities and some to permanent supportive housing. The organization also said that the emergency housing consists of a room with a door that includes a bed, closet, and possibly a microwave, or hot plate.
The Right of Way initiative aimed to remove encampments on state property, near roadways and provide people services and housing. The state-wide program started in Seattle in June, with the removal of an encampment in Capitol Hill.
Inslee and Mayor Bruce Harrell toured a tiny home construction company in Seattle recently.
Their focus was on scaling up builds like tiny home construction and to get people housed and not just move them around without services.
“We’re building them all across the state of Washington, with some of the $800 million that we’ve appropriated,” Inslee said, “We are moving the needle. Tents are getting off of our right of ways and we’re making progress on this, but we’ve got to accelerate that progress and have it as efficient a system as we can.”
