Guess Who's Back

So, I was in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood yesterday, and guess what?

Even though the tents are still gone, one or more homeless persons with a pair of campers have moved onto the street. (It's not evident in the picture, but the two campers are chained together. You can see it if you look closely.) I'm not sure of what it is about this particular block that draws people here. I know there is a food bank in the area, but I suspect it's about a thirty-five to forty-five minute walk away. So there must be something else that they feel the need to be in proximity to. I would guess the local hospital, but it's a few blocks away; maybe the police are more diligent about preventing long-term camping in the hospital's immediate environs. There has to be something, as the empty area where other homeless people have been setting up their RVs is only a few miles to the south of this spot, and it strikes me as much less likely to result in a towing.

In any event, clearing the tents, and putting up barriers to new ones, only solved part of the problem. Actually, let me rephrase that. It only moved part of the problem. There are homeless people who still see a need to be in this area, and they still understand themselves as being in the right when they use the space. We'll see if they manage to antagonize the local businesses and residents enough that the city of forced to remove them again. Something tells me that they will.

It's worth noting that the city is in a tough spot. The fact that land for new housing has been scarce for the past 20 years, give or take, has resulted in home prices being very high, and many people simply are not interested in that state of affairs ending any time soon. The people who own the local housing stock view those valuations as money rightfully theirs, people who have just bought in aren't interested in being under water to help the homeless and the jurisdictions that collect property taxes need the revenue. And without anywhere nearby that has lower home costs and access to relatively well-paying jobs, the area simply shuffles the homeless from place to place, as they wear out what little welcome they have in one place after another.