Sacramento looks to Seattle for ideas on homeless tent cities

[KamaAina]

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article62332232.html

Sacramento City Council members and top city officials will travel Friday to explore Seattle’s network of authorized tent cities for the homeless as they consider creating a similar “safe ground” here.

The idea has been floated for years, but neighborhood and political opposition has kept it from becoming a reality. With Sacramento’s homeless population becoming more visible – and a protest of homeless-rights activists outside City Hall nearing a third month – city officials have begun to give the idea more serious thought.

Last year, Seattle approved the creation of three homeless tent cities on public or private land. Two of the facilities are operating and Mayor Ed Murray – who late last year declared a state of emergency in the face of an exploding homeless population – approved the site for a third encampment this week.

Other homeless encampments have been allowed to operate throughout the Seattle region for more than a decade, mostly on the properties of houses of worship. But the most recent wave of camps are the first to be permitted and supported directly by city resources. Seattle provides waste management at the camps, pays rent on the land and has contracts with organizations to provide social services at the sites.

San Jose should, too.

[99th_Monkey]

1. 3RD World nations have way more decency than US cities.

They have many many poor people, but they at least allow them to come together and form
tent cities, shanty towns, barrios and such. The US should be ashamed first for having so many
very poor people in the first place, and second for abusing and criminalizing them simply for
being extremely poor.

[Lordquinton]

2. I have a friend in Seattle

and she says the tent cities are just big corrals and they don't have enough oversight, so the crime spikes way up and no longer feels safe there.

The solution to homelessness is very simple: Give them homes.

[LeftyMom]

3. It's routinely over 100 here in the summer. Tent cities are not an acceptable or humane option.