Landowners are evicting residents of Deschutes Parkway encampment

Residents of the Deschutes Parkway encampment along Olympia’s Capitol Lake were given a notice to vacate by landowners on Tuesday morning. It gives them until Saturday to leave or be “subject to removal” by police.

The encampment, which stretches along train tracks parallel to Deschutes Parkway, has grown over the past few months and is home to at least 50 people, according to Teal Russell, the city’s homeless response coordinator.

Russell has been in meetings with at least five different private landowners who expressed concerns about open fires and the camp’s growth, and met with residents of the encampment three weeks ago about fire safety. The notice was delivered by a representative of the multiple landowners.

Maps from the Thurston County Geodata Center show that three of the largest parcels behind the train tracks are owned by Cynthia and Kevin Murphy of Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

Notice to vacate amidst pandemic

Some property owners had been contacted by the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA), a local regulatory body that enforces the national Clean Air Act. According to spokesperson Dan Nelson, ORCAA received a number of “nuisance smoke” complaints related to fires at the encampment. Nelson said that those complaints usually come from residents who live nearby and were disturbed by the smoke.

On Tuesday morning, a representative acting on behalf of the landowners distributed vacate notices to campers. The representative was joined by Russell, along with two Olympia Police officers and a code enforcement official. However, no public notices were visible when The Olympian visited on Tuesday afternoon.

A copy of the notice provided to The Olympian reads: “Property owners have tolerated this illegal trespassing for several months but can no longer do so due to multiple safety considerations.”

While the notice states that the Olympia Police Department will enforce the eviction, the OPD could not be reached for comment as of Wednesday evening.

Because the land is private property and not owned by the city or state, the so-called “Boise ruling” — which requires cities to offer an alternative shelter before evicting people from public land — does not apply here, said city spokesperson Kellie Purce Braseth. The city’s role is only to communicate and provide outreach to help relocate people.

“It’s a private property owner serving notice on their property,” Braseth said.

With the city’s mitigation site and local shelters mostly full, it’s not clear where many of the campers will go. The only thing certain is they have to leave by Saturday.

“I’m not sure if there’s a lot of options right now. There is limited space right now because of the pandemic in our mitigation site,” Braseth said. “We’re there to do outreach and try to see if there’s services we can connect those campers into. Over the next few days, [our crisis support unit is] going to be connecting with them and seeing what things they can support them with.”

While it does not address private landowners, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidance in March advising municipalities not to clear encampments due to the risk of spreading COVID-19.

Pushed from one camp to another

People began camping along Deschutes Parkway earlier this year, after an encampment under the Fourth Avenue bridge was cleared. Some of the early arrivals had initially been in touch with one of the landowners, according to Becca Chrisler, an organizer with Just Housing Olympia.

“It’s really disheartening when you see another camp get swept, because they have nowhere else to go,” said Chrisler. “When you forcibly evict someone, it is cycling them back out onto the street – but this time it’s even more dangerous because of the current pandemic situation. There is nowhere else to go. A lot of encampments have swollen to the point where they can’t take any more people.”

Chrisler worked closely with residents of the previous camp under the Fourth Avenue Bridge when it was cleared. She thinks that sweeps in general, whether by the city or private landowners, are unproductive and “tactics that just shuffle people around.”

“It doesn’t stop anyone from being houseless. It only makes the situation worse because then they have to start all over again.”

Over the past few weeks, residents of the encampment have made attempts to address landowners’ concerns about fires and trash and have requested a meeting with them, according to Chrisler.

“That’s what they want, really, is just to be allowed time to find another way to move on or to find a way to manage what’s already happening,” Chrisler said. “They want a conversation, they don’t want to be evicted, they don’t want to go through that again. Many of them have gone through it so many times.”

Chrisler encouraged the landowners to at least give residents more time.

“It’s just edging people out farther and farther and it’s really hazardous. If they have nowhere else to go, if they don’t have easy access to food, water, toilets, how are they going to survive?”

Brandon Block is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. He is covering housing and homelessness. His position is supported by Report for America and by donations from Olympian readers, the Washington State Employee Credit Union (WSECU), and the Community Foundation of South Puget Sound.

This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 5:45 AM.