Nickelsville's Not What It Set Out to Be

Nickelsville, that collection of pink tents that cropped up overnight in September on vacant city property, is not the semi-permanent shantytown its organizers envisioned, having weathered three city-forced moves in its six weeks of existence. But it has accomplished something notable: It's survived.

Contrary to what Mayor Greg Nickels recently said in an interview on the Seattle Channel, the people living there aren't "homeless advocates." The majority of Nickelsville residents are homeless, and had been living on the streets or camping elsewhere before coming to the tent city.

"It's a place where people who are homeless can not only find shelter but community together. It's a necessity," says Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness. "I know providers, when forced to turn people away because they don't have room, send them to Nickelsville. That says it all."

Seattle city councilmember Nick Licata agrees, stating that, "If it wasn't offering a solution, those tents would be empty. It is meeting some immediate need."

In fact, the encampment, now located on the University Christian Church's parking lot and more than 90 residents strong, has had to turn people away. Residents say their primary concern is shelter, and they are acutely aware that Nickels thinks their plight is just a protest.

"The mayor says everybody here has a home to go to; I don't understand it," says Nick Hoffner, 28, an Iraq War veteran who says he tried to make it as a chef before his money ran out. "I've slept on the doorsteps of churches and under bridges. I've slept in a lot of places. Here you don't have to worry about people coming to kill you."

"I don't want to fight the mayor. I don't care about him any more than he cares about me," adds Aaron Beaucage, an out-of-work truck driver and former fisherman who was staying in a hotel on Aurora until he could no longer afford it. He's lived in Nickelsville since it was in SoDo.

Though the deadlines imposed by the city for the camp to move have grown increasingly longer at each location (three days in SoDo, seven days in Discovery Park, three weeks in the U District), Nickels remains undeterred. The city is pressuring the church either to move the encampment inside or kick Nickelsville out. But the Nickelodeons are patient and hopeful that time is on their side. They're still looking for a place to build that shantytown.

Nickelsville has evolved from its early days, when there were no rules or leadership structure. That changed about a week after its inception, when alcohol increasingly became a problem and a man was seriously injured after setting his tent on fire one night while burning candles. Open flames or smoking in tents were subsequently banned, as were liquor, drugs, and weapons. Other rules followed, including no violence, no begging, and no visitors between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Nickelsville then created a process for removing anyone who breaks the rules. It includes an arbitration group to help mediate disputes and a "show-of-force team" to make sure that those who are kicked out stay out. All told, it appears the Nickelodeons are successful in policing themselves. Though a couple dozen people have been kicked out of the encampment for not following the rules, the Seattle Police Department says it's only had to respond to one incident, in which a 42-year-old male was booked for unlawful use of weapons after he pulled nunchucks on a fellow Nickelodeon last month.

"I'm not seeing Nickelsville being a place of chaos," says Licata. "It sounds like it's well-ordered."

"They've been really easy to work with," adds University Christian Pastor Janetta Cravens Boyd. "They've been good neighbors."

For the first few weeks, Nickels chased Nickelsville off city and state property by threatening fines for being an illegal use of land, but the game has changed now that the encampment has landed at a church. Religious organizations have protection under a federal law that allows them to carry out their mission on their property as they see fit. This law has been tested at churches in cities surrounding Seattle that wished to host tent cities and were taken to court by the neighbors. The churches so far have prevailed.

Seattle, however, didn't challenge church rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, opting instead to sign a consent decree with tent city operator SHARE/WHEEL in 2002 that allows one encampment within the Seattle city limits at a time. Nickels argues that because there's currently a tent city in Haller Lake, SHARE/WHEEL—and by extension, Nickelsville—is in violation of that agreement. But SHARE maintains it's separate from Nickelsville, despite the fact that SHARE founder Scott Morrow had a hand in organizing Nickelsville.

SHARE attorney Sean Russel argues that Morrow is no longer an employee of the organization. (Morrow will not speak for the record.) Russel adds that any other people affiliated with SHARE who have been helping out with Nickelsville are doing so on their own time. "These are concerned citizens, the same as you and I participating in something because we believe in it," says Russel.