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Friday, April 1, 2016

Camp Dearborn receives another eviction

Camp Dearborn is staying at 2314 E Spring St, at Umoja Fest Peace Center.
Yesterday, they and the primary tenant received a notice of eviction. A picture of it is shown (it's posted on the FaceBook page of the External Affairs Coordinator, Troy Morgan.

About Camp Dearborn

I stopped by their camp this afternoon, and they seemed fairly well organized. The camp was peaceful. I introduced myself, and asked a few questions.

So, Camp Dearborn, having split from Nickelsville, is still following somewhat of a Nickelsville model of governance structure, but not the Nickelsville model of governance style.

So, they have an Arbitrator, a Chief of Security, and an External Affairs Coordinator, elected by the camp.

They've decided that their rules are... not set in stone at the moment; they want some flexibility. So they've decided to call their rules "guidelines." So I asked the obvious question: What happens when someone refuses to follow the guidelines?

Their response: we'd bring it to the camp, democratically, and if the person refuses to follow the guidelines, we'd eventually have to kick them out.

So I asked about their needs. They said, "Water."

I could see, neatly stashed in a box, 5 empty gallon-sized water jugs. With about 20 people in camp, the need for water would be a no-brainer.

They probably also need food. I could see a propane grill, and they mentioned their meal calendar was bare. Which we can see after looking at it.

So, in 9 days they have to leave again. The City of Seattle seems to be stuck on repeating the past. This is approximately what happened with Tent City 3 16 years ago. They moved around a lot because the City of Seattle, despite the lip service it pays to "sheltering the homeless," doesn't seem to really like the homeless doing things for themselves.

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