Anitra/news

"At the new homeless encampment there's confusion and debate about whether Mayor Greg Nickels kept his pledge to provide shelter beds to about 50 people who call the camp home."

A spokeswoman for the Mayor kept telling reporters that 13, or 14, or 16 people from Nickelsville had "taken the offer of shelter." Campers reported that what they were given was the address of a shelter referral agency. One of those campers said he wasn't offered a bed, but he was offered "a bus ticket back here to Nickelsville."

Nickelsville continues. I'm headed back out there tonight.

Good news for one of the shelters.

Video report just before the arrests at Nickelsville. Helicopter views of the Nickelsville site. Repeats the Mayor's claim of creating 50 to 70 new shelter beds for the evicted campers, without verifying the reality. Repeats the false claim that SHARE/WHEEL "a homeless activist group" manages Nickelsville.

Before the police cleared the Nickelsville site Friday afternoon, dozens of campers moved tents and supplies from the field to an adjacent parking lot on state land. Under an agreement between Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and Gov. Chris Gregoire, we will be allowed to stay there until Wednesday, and possible later. Nickels' spokeswoman said, "It's now the responsibility of (the state Department of Transportation) to address illegal camping on the site." The city has no authority to clear the parking lot.

Gregoire asked Nickels "to allow time for the council and other local clergy members to find a solution." The optimum solution, from our viewpoint, is to allow us to set up Nickelsville on the state-owned stretch of grassland right next to where we were.

John Iwasaki corrects a previous error, and reports that Nickelsville is "a project of the local chapter of Veterans for Peace, with support from several organizations that advocate for the homeless." Would have been even better if he had said "homeless people," but at least the child is trying. :)

Interesting comments, too.

From the page: "City officials executed their order of eviction at a makeshift homeless encampment in South Seattle Friday, but just as sweeping arrests started, the state of Washington gave residents of "Nickelsville" land to stay on for at least a few days. A spokesman for Gov. Chris Gregoire said a parking lot where some of the homeless campers have now relocated to is state owned and they'll have another five to seven days to stay there."

"The arrests broadcast Friday on KING-TV appeared to be peaceful, with officers escorting people away from the south Seattle property lot where homeless advocates set up more than 100 pink tents."