City of Olympia to remove Deschutes Parkway homeless encampment on Dec. 8
One of Olympia’s most visible homeless encampments will soon be dismantled.
Tents sprung up in the wooded area just across Deschutes Parkway from Capitol Lake in 2019, shortly after the city swept an adjacent camp underneath the Fourth Avenue bridge.
Now the city has set a Dec. 8 deadline for the Deschutes Parkway camp residents to move out. The camp numbered nearly 70 last summer, although city staff estimate that number is currently lower. Outreach workers familiar with the camp describe it having high turnover, with residents cycling in and out.
It also has become known as one of the more violent camps in Olympia. There were three violent incidents at the camp in October, including two shootings that sent people to the hospital.
Neighboring property owners in west Olympia have been trying to get the city to step in and dismantle the camp since at least the summer of 2020, to no avail. But an increase in violence and pressure from landowners has moved the city to intervene.
“We have decided that there are too many risks associated with allowing that site to continue to operate,” said Assistant City Manager Keith Stahley.
On Oct. 5, a 47-year-old man was found dead underneath an adjacent bridge. Police later made an arrest in connection with his death, and a suspect in that case is now being charged with second-degree murder. There is also a cold case stemming from a November 2019 homicide that has yet to be solved.
It’s not clear where residents will relocate to. The city’s sanctioned camping site, known as the mitigation site, is mostly full. The city is working on temporary hotel stays for the most vulnerable and cooperative residents, but Stahley didn’t offer specifics on how many people could be lodged or for how long.
“The city does not have the resources to provide alternative shelter options for all the individuals from the encampment, and unfortunately, there are not enough shelter beds available in our community,” a statement released on Tuesday read.
City staff have been notifying residents of the deadline for the past two weeks, and formal vacate notices will be posted on Dec. 3.
Deschutes Parkway will close from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the day of the sweep, and the city’s Crisis Response Unit and outreach workers from OLYMAP will be at the scene.
Stahley expects the camp to be totally clear by Dec. 10, and said the city plans to enforce trespassing laws at the site going forward, adding that formal evictions may be necessary if people do not leave.
“Police will not be directly involved on December 8,” Stahley said, “but ultimately people could be arrested if they don’t move.”
Multiple property owners have land that is touched or impacted by the encampment, including a thin strip of railroad-owned property, but one person, Sean Threatt, owns the majority of the land that is being camped on. Threatt purchased those three parcels in 2020 for $15,000, according to county Assessor’s office records.
The previous owner of that land, Kevin Murphy, filed multiple trespass complaints with the city’s police department and even considered donating the land to an environmental conservation group after no enforcement action was taken.
At the time, Stahley said the city would not intervene due to Gov. Inslee’s eviction moratorium. He echoed that rationale in an interview with The Olympian this week, citing the expiration of Inslee’s order as a reason the city is now closing the camp.
The eviction protections in Gov. Inslee’s “bridge” proclamation, which expired on Oct. 31, did not explicitly address homeless encampments. But the governor’s previous, more expansive eviction moratorium, which expired on June 30, contained broader language that protected people living in “less traditional dwelling situations” if they’d been there for 14 days or more.
This story was originally published December 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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