When Church Parking Spaces Rule

I got a little pissed off today after reading an article (thanks Makeba). These days (for good or for ill, or perhaps both) I can be pretty passive. Here's the excerpt that made me nuts (see the bold):


No place for mobile homeless

People sleeping in their cars ain't news.

That's what a man living in a Volvo wagon in Seattle's "rolling slum," a car-camping colony in Ballard, told me two years ago. I met him while writing about the mobile homeless -- people moneyed enough to own a car, but too poor to pay the rent. They park in industrial parts of town and make a life of it. Many work jobs. The story two years ago was that 100 or so had congregated in Ballard. It was Hooverville on wheels.

This year [The One Night Count] found that urban car camping soared 25 percent in King County. In Seattle, it's up 45 percent. The mobile homeless now are by far the largest group sleeping on this city's streets.

Yet out in lower Ballard, near where the Ballard Bridge touches down, the streets are mostly empty. The other night, in a 12-block area, I found only five people overnighting in vans or campers. The old rolling slum is gone.

What happened is the city told them to beat it.

"There were a lot of complaints from businesses and from _____ Church," said Beth Miller, head of the Ballard Chamber of Commerce. "There were so many camped on the street that there wasn't much room for anyone else to park."

So the city put up signs: "No Parking. 2-5 a.m." That rousted them all out of there.

It's true something had to be done. The Ballard colony had grown out of control. It was bigger than a tent city, yet unregulated. Trash was strewn around. Campfires were set on sidewalks. Two denizens died of heroin overdoses.

But here's the thing: All the city did was put up signs and then enforce them. At which time the slum predictably rolled off to ... somewhere else....

* * *

A homeless advocate I spoke to called the city's crackdown "a cruelty campaign." To me it seems less cruel than dumb.

Faced with its own rolling slums, here's what a smarter city did. Santa Barbara, Calif., started a "Safe Parking" program. It allows people to park overnight in a dozen lots owned by the city, churches and businesses.

There are lots of rules. You have to have car insurance. No more than five vehicles per lot. You must leave in the morning.

Police there say the program hasn't ended street camping, but it is working. So why don't we try something like it here?

Because we don't want to be too inviting to the homeless?

Because it's dehumanizing to just give them parking lots?

Because the path of least resistance is to put up no-parking signs?

I don't know. I'd guess it goes to what that guy living in his Volvo said. People sleeping in cars ain't news. It wasn't story enough to matter much then. And it still ain't today.

Written by Danny Westneat, for the Seattle Times

* * *

As my husband says (always giving people the benefit of the doubt), maybe I'm missing something (or maybe I am being self-righteous). Hopefully, this church was doing more than complain; the article doesn't make that clear. Either way, it's a good reminder for us that people are more important than parking spaces. The churches are not a business; we have a different agenda than making sure our consumers are happy and entertained (and conveniently have space to park). We're called to reach out to those on the margins of society, not push them out of our backyard.

It's a good reminder for me to get off my comfortable, entertained tush and do something.