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Olympia to clear out trail-side camps

Parks and trails: Complaints from neighbors prompt city to evict homeless

MATT BATCHELDOR; Staff writer | • Published March 21, 2010

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OLYMPIA - The City of Olympia plans to clean out homeless camps in city parks and along the Woodland Trail after receiving a number of complaints from neighbors about zoning, sanitation and drug-abuse issues.

Olympia Police Lt. Bill Wilson said the police department has given residents of camps along the Woodland Trail about 30 days notice that they need to move. He said residents will be warned again before camps are cleared.

“We are just now starting the process that will invite the police department, the parks department, Community Planning and Development, possibly the Public Works Department to address the homeless encampments in our parks,” Wilson said.

Camps have become larger and more visible, particularly along the Woodland Trail, a hike-bike trail that runs through Olympia and Lacey, and another hike-bike path, the Chehalis Western Trail. Many of the camps are on private property.

Some neighbors have brought their concerns to the Olympia City Council in the past couple of weeks.

“In the past year and a half, things have changed here dramatically,” said Carol Rainwood, who lives a couple of blocks from the trail. “Camps are huge, built right off the trail, boldly claiming ownership of the woods. We cannot walk from Eastside Street to Frederick Street without seeing piles of sodden, left-behind clothing, sleeping bags and trash strewn on and next to the trail.

“I am no longer comfortable walking here alone.”

She said the city needs to address the situation before there’s a confrontation between trail users and homeless people.

“Please address this problem before something truly regrettable happens,” she said.

Her husband, Jim, suggested the city needs to go after landowners who allow illegal acts on their property, such as violations of sanitation, zoning and drug laws. He said some squatters have built shanties on properties.

“We have landowners that are allowing human waste to just be disposed of on their property,” he said.

City Manager Steve Hall said the city plans to clear camps but was waiting until the city conducted a count of homeless people in January. He said the plan is to move the camps away from parks and trails in the next month.

“We, too, are concerned about confrontations, about accidental encounters, about safety and sanitation,” Hall said.

The annual Thurston County Homeless Census, conducted by the city, found 1,082 homeless people in an initial tally. The number of unsheltered homeless people increased from 164 in 2009 to 344 in 2010, a 110 percent increase, according to the count.

Advocates for the homeless have said that moving people from camps doesn’t solve the problem that they don’t have a place to sleep at night.

“I think it’s kind of a futile effort for the city,” said Phil Owen, a volunteer host at Bread & Roses, a shelter for single women and families in Olympia. “What they’re doing is reshuffling the problem.”

Wilson acknowledged that.

“We do know that there’s a ripple effect we have to consider,” he said. “It’s almost like we’re playing … a Whac-A-Mole-type game.”

Wilson said he doesn’t know of any confrontations between campers and hikers. He said they’re people who want to be left alone and that makes it difficult to house them because they’re not interested in living in a homeless shelter or a formal tent city, such as Camp Quixote.

Wilson said the city has been working on the homeless-camp issue since last summer, when a large number of the camps were discovered in the area of Grass Lakes Park on the city’s west side. The discussions have involved multiple city departments.

“It’s not simply a law enforcement issue, where we just go in and kick people out of the park,” he said. “It’s more complex than that.”

Wilson said the Police Department, to his knowledge, hasn’t forcibly broken up camps. Typically, once campers have been asked to leave, they do, he said.

Dealing with camping on private property is more difficult than camping on public property. It means sorting through numerous legal issues – and Wilson emphasized that the city hasn’t adopted a strategy yet.

“We have to work with the private property owners,” he said, “get their permission to go on the property to help remove these people if the property owners desire that.”

Jack Horton, president of the Woodland Trail Greenway Association, which made the trail possible, agrees that the camps should be moved away from trails and parks, but he thinks a permanent camp needs to be offered as a solution.

“I believe if somebody needs to or wants to camp out, there should be a safe place for them to do that with sanitary facilities, some showers, a place to lock some things up and the support of a community,” he told the City Council on March 9.

But Owen said the solution is permanent housing, particularly rental subsidies that allow people to be placed immediately in existing housing. Moving homeless people around doesn’t work, he said.

“I personally don’t know what the city expects to gain from it,” he said.

Matt Batcheldor: 360-704-6869

mbatcheldor@theolympian.com