Police make several arrests after activists occupy downtown Olympia hotel
At least six people associated with Oly Housing Now, a group of homeless advocates who occupied a downtown Olympia hotel for several hours on Sunday, have been arrested in connection with the incident.
According to information from the Thurston County Jail, six people were arrested, five on suspicion of first-degree burglary, with one of them also facing a possible charge of obstructing an officer. The sixth was arrested on first-degree criminal trespass and unlawful possession of a narcotic.
According to the city, about 11 a.m. Sunday, people inside Red Lion Hotel at 621 Capitol Way S. began calling 911 to report a group was attempting to forcibly take over the hotel, which is across from Sylvester Park and used to be known as the Governor Hotel.
Employees reported that some members of Oly Housing Now inside the hotel were armed with hatchets, batons, and knives and had gas masks, helmets and goggles.
Olympa police estimated about 45 members of the group were inside and outside of the hotel. About 40 rooms in the hotel were booked with guests who remained in their rooms during the occupation.
Before the occupation, the activist group had reserved rooms for people who were homeless. Olympia police Lt. Paul Lower said Sunday night the city’s crisis response unit was working with those who needed housing.
“Making sure our unhoused residents have access to safe and affordable housing has been Olympia’s priority for more than a decade,” said Mayor Cheryl Selby in a statement. “Olympia has led on responding to homelessness, on coordinating shelter and other basic needs. The tactics used today by Oly Housing Now are unproductive and won’t make the mission more attainable.”
The Sunday occupation
On Sunday, Oly Housing Now organizer Emma Deitz said they purchased 17 hotel rooms for homeless people from nearby encampments and planned to stay until the county commits funds for permanent housing.
The concierge desk was empty when The Olympian arrived around noon and no employees were visible.
Several organizers brought boxes of paper towels and ramen upstairs. About a dozen people were sitting in chairs looking at their phones and reading zines, one of which was titled “It’s Vacant, Take It!”
An Olympia Police Department SUV was parked in a lot across the street, but left sometime after 1 p.m.
About 6 p.m., a hotel employee who did not want to be identified said that she was locked in a room inside the hotel with several other employees. The Olympian contacted a hotel manager but they were not immediately available to comment.
About 6:30 p.m., a large contingent of law enforcement, including Thurston County SWAT, closed off Capitol Way near the hotel and went through the hotel floor by floor, Olympia police Lt. Lower said.
A group of hotel employees, who had fled into a room in the basement after the activists entered the hotel earlier in the day, were safely removed from the building, he said.
How it started
Deitz said she has been volunteering with a group called Olympia Anarchist Mutual Aid that brings supplies like propane heaters, blankets, hand sanitizer, and food to people living in tent encampments at Capitol Lake and on Wheeler Avenue adjacent to Interstate 5. She said that the combination of rain, cold, and rats make conditions there intolerable.
Deitz said Oly Housing Now is a new group with about 40 members that formed for this action.
On Saturday night, Oly Housing Now purchased one night in the hotel rooms and moved 33 unhoused people in.
They want Thurston County to apply for funding that’s being offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to pay for “non-congregate” shelter for people who are 65 or older or have pre-existing health conditions that put them at elevated risk for COVID-19 complications.
Olympia Housing Now also released a list of demands for the city of Olympia that include providing sanitation, restrooms, and other “resources to meet the COVID-19 CDC hygiene recommendations.”
The city currently supplies several encampments with port-a-potties and dumpsters.
Another demand is for the city to “increase impact fees on luxury and commercial properties in Olympia’s downtown,” as well as build permanent housing for “extremely low-income” people making less than $26,200 per year.
Keylee Marineau, the homeless coordinator for Thurston County, said she went to the hotel and talked with organizers Sunday afternoon. She said the county is looking into the federal funding program.
“We’re actively pursuing avenues to understand how the homeless-specific funds for FEMA work,” Marineau said.
The Thurston County Public Health Department currently has a “quarantine and isolation facility,” a hotel where people can stay temporarily if they test positive for COVID-19 or are awaiting test results and do not have a safe place to quarantine.
County officials have not disclosed the name of that hotel, but said it is not the Red Lion Inn.
Another organizer who goes by the name Tibor said the county’s current actions are inadequate.
“You have to get sick just to get a roof over your head,” he said. “It’s not right.”
A similar occupation of a hotel in Fife in December was organized by a group called Tacoma Housing Now and ended with police in hazmat suits removing more than 40 homeless people who’d been staying in the rooms for close to a week without paying, according to CBS News.
One member of Tacoma Housing Now, who asked to be identified by the name Banshee, cited examples of similar actions in cities such as Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Portland.
“There’s a national movement of people being militant about securing housing for the houseless,” Banshee said.
Inside the hotel
There are already several homeless families staying in the Red Lion Inn. Family Support Center, a local nonprofit that runs a shelter for homeless families, currently provides special vouchers funded by Thurston County Public Health and the United Way, which come from federal grants tied to COVID response, including the CARES Act and Emergency Solutions Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Family Support Center Executive Director Trish Gregory confirmed that the organization has 27 families staying at several local hotels, including the Red Lion Inn.
Gregory says hotel management reached out to her and said that staff were “going to lock down.” Family Support Center staff then reached out to the families currently at the hotel and asked them to stay in their rooms.
“Family Support Center is currently spending approximately $80,000 per month to provide hotel rooms to families with children who otherwise would be forced to sleep outdoors,” Gregory wrote in a text.
Upstairs in his room on the fourth floor of the Red Lion, a man with a curly mohawk named Kristopher Mallotte points out the window towards Capitol Lake at the encampment where he sleeps most nights.
Mallotte has been homeless on and off since he was 13 years old.
He says Deitz approached him about the idea of occupying the site, and it sounded like it could raise awareness to spur officials to act.
“I imagine this will pose enough of an eyesore for us to say ‘Hey, you want us out of here? Give us another building to live in,’” Mallotte said.
This story was originally published February 1, 2021 at 9:40 AM.
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