Speaking Up

By Christy Houghton

I signed up for Homeless Advocacy 101, a workshop sponsored by the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness (SKCCH), to learn something new about helping the homeless. Geared towards ordinary people like me, who aren’t professional lobbyists and don’t remember much about American Government lessons from high school social studies, this free workshop was informative, interesting, entertaining – and sobering. On any given night in the Seattle area, 10,000 people are homeless, with 4,500 people still outside after shelters close. There is clearly a need for solutions.

Kate Baber, who works for the Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance, kicked off the workshop by reviewing some current legislative priorities which could benefit the homeless. But how to get our legislators to listen to our concerns about our neighbors who are without shelter?

That was the focus of Nancy Amidei’s talk. Nancy has influenced public policy for years in both Washigntons before retiring from teaching civics and advocacy at the University of Washington. She gave a short review of how our elected representatives work for us at the state and federal levels and the way that bills are turned into laws.

Nancy’s definition of advocacy is, “Speaking up!” Our government representatives have staff for facts. They need us for personal stories. Stories that are brief and compelling will help influence their colleagues on our behalf. One easy way to speak up is to call the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000. It’s a free call to a helpful person who will get your message to the right people. Nancy also advises signing up with a good advocacy group that's tracking the issues you care about and will inform its members about opportunities to act.

Alison Eisinger, SKCCH’s Executive Director, facilitated the workshop. Her goal, she told us, was to have us leave with tools, knowledge, and a sense of empowerment. I left with all of that, plus the conviction that I can make a difference by speaking up to share stories about the homeless with my elected representatives.

Resources:

• Sign up for free community workshops: Homelessness Advocacy 101 Workshops.
• Go to http://leg.wa.gov to look up your legislative district.
• Call the free Hotline to Olympia 1-800-562-6000, 8am - 8pm, Monday through Friday. 
• Join Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness at www.homelessinfo.org
• Check out the website of the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance at www.wliha.org.
• Greater Seattle Cares also has links to find your representatives at http://greaterseattlecares.org/effecting-change/contact-representatives/.

We sent an email to Shoreline City Council

Shoreline City Council was considering passing an ordinance that would have made hosting an encampment nearly impossible for most churches in Shoreline.

GSC's President, Cindy Roat, wrote an email letter on behalf of the Board of GSC.

Here's what it said:

Dear members of the Shoreline City Council,

This email is a request to the City Council to consider alternative language to the proposed amendments to the Shoreline zoning code that will affect transitional encampments in the city. These proposed amendments do not reflect the spirit of the directive that the City Council gave to the Planning Council, nor do they reflect the overall spirit of support that Shoreline residents have demonstrated for homeless populations over the past eight years.

I am writing as President of Greater Seattle Cares, a small non-profit organization serving four transitional encampments in the Puget Sound area. I myself am a Shoreline resident since 2003, serving the homeless since 2009, and I have always been proud of the support that this community has shown to individuals who are experiencing homelessness. Permitted encampments have found hosts here in Shoreline since Tent City 3 first came to Calvin Presbyterian Church in 2009, and many churches have since hosted camps with no problems, inspiring amazing levels of moral and material support from families in the surrounding neighborhoods. In late 2015, the City Council passed Resolution 379, in which the Council directed the city’s Planning Commission to review the city zoning codes with a view to reducing barriers even more for people experiencing homelessness in this community. Our Mayor, Chris Roberts, has even taken time out of his busy schedule to visit Camp United We Stand, one of the camps currently hosted in Shoreline. This personal interest meant a lot to the residents of that camp: people who often feel slighted, ignored, or actively ostracized because of their housing status, but who have felt accepted and welcomed in Shoreline.

Considering the degree to which so many of the people of Shoreline and their representatives in government have shown great compassion to those who are homeless, Greater Seattle Cares is chagrined to see the proposed amendments to the zoning code that are the results of the Planning Commission’s recent work. These proposed amendments do not reflect the spirit of the directive given to the Planning Council. Instead of lowering barriers for people experiencing homelessness, they will instead make it more difficult for churches and other organizations in Shoreline to host formal encampments. Specifically, the required 20-foot set-back will make almost 90% of the churches in Shoreline ineligible to host an encampment. The requirement for a “managing agency” that owns or leases the land on which the camp resides creates another barrier and ignores the successful relationships that these self-managing camps have had over the years with their church hosts.

In fact, some parts of these amendments may have legal implications for the city.

·         The federal land use provisions of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc, et seq., protect individuals, houses of worship, and other religious institutions from discrimination in zoning and landmarking laws. In particular, the law protects against any “land use regulation that . . . unreasonably limits religious assemblies, institutions, or structures within a jurisdiction.” Since the provision of sanctuary to the poor and homeless is a long-standing, even ancient, right of religious institutions, the two stipulations mentioned above could be construed as in effect placing the city out of compliance with RLUIPA. For more information on RLUIPA, see https://www.justice.gov/crt/religious-land-use-and-institutionalized-persons-act.

·         State laws RCW 35.21.915 and RCW 35A.21.360 also prohibit local government from taking any action that “imposes conditions other than those necessary to protect public health and safety and that do not substantially burden the decisions or actions of a religious organization regarding the location of housing or shelter for homeless persons on property owned by the religious organization.” The limitations described above that would be created by the proposed amendments have nothing at all to do with public health and safety.

Respecting the work of the Planning Commission, and realizing that those unfamiliar with permitted transitional encampments often misconstrue how these function, Greater Seattle Cares would like to propose alternative language to parts of the proposed amendments to the zoning code. I attach these suggested changes, written in Microsoft Word with the “track changes” function. We hope that you will adopt them as you vote on January 30^th, or that you will send the entire amendment package back to the Planning Commission for revision, with clear instructions about the nature of the changes to be made.

Thank you for your dedicated work on behalf of the citizens of Shoreline. Please show that you stand for ALL of Shoreline’s citizens, even those who are having difficulties in their lives.

Sincerely,

Cindy Roat

Cynthia E. Roat, MPH

President, Greater Seattle Cares

cindy.roat@alumni.williams.edu

info@greaterseattlecares.org

www.greaterseattlecares.org

You can read the entire letter online here, at Shoreline's public comments page. You can also see many other people's comments about the matter, including those of Michael Ramos (Church Council of Greater Seattle), Alison Niebauer (Calvin Presbyterian), and Prince of Peace Lutheran. We'd like to thank everyone who commented against the ordinance as proposed.

Homelessness Advocacy 101 Workshop

Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness is conducting workshops on Advocacy!


Per their website,

Our workshops are fun! We'll discuss the funding proposals for shelter, housing, and supportive services currently being considered and review the steps that everyone can take to make sure housing and homelessness concerns are prioritized in our local government. Nancy Amidei, an incomparable pro-democracy cheerleader, local policy experts, and Coalition staff will present details about 3-4 important issues. We'll provide you with simple actions, sample messages, and the chance to practice your skills. You will leave informed and inspired with tools for engaging your classmates, fellow congregants, neighbors and others to speak up and make a difference.

Dates are February 22, February 26, and March 5.

Registration is required, so head for their website and sign up!

Lloyd Pendleton and Utah’s Homeless Approach

Everett Housing forum hosted Lloyd Pendleton at their November meeting.

He is the architect of the efforts in Utah that housed 98% of their homeless population.

We can learn a lot from their efforts to build positive action and strong teamwork in the over all plans.

Watch the video or download the slide show presentation and share your thoughts.

2015 One Night Count: 21% increase in homelessness

Greater Seattle Cares Board members participated in the one night count. The count has gone up from the year before by 21%. A lot of effort is made to make the count accurate.

We know that not every homeless person is counted. What is clear is that counting the same places in the same way every year can show us if there are more homeless people in our community than there was the year before.


FULL ARTICLE: 2015 One Night Count by Huffington Post

Homelessness Myths and Facts

Homelessness Myths and facts

Tent City 3 video, by Seattle Pacific University

This video discusses the issue of homelessness and includes Tent City 3 residents, volunteers and other supporters sharing their voice. Produced by Seattle Pacific University. Copyright 2009, Clapping Trees Media.


Tent City 3 from Seattle Pacific University on Vimeo.

Watch this video on Vimeo

Teen raises over $10,000 for Tent City 3

Using her bat mitzvah celebration as a way to collect donations thirteen-year-old Hannah Fleischmann managed to raise over $10,000 for Tent City 3 in 2011.

 Watch the video and read the article (Seattle's King5, Making a Difference)