#1,627 - Seattle sweeps record number of homeless encampments

New records obtained by Real Change indicate that the city of Seattle oversaw a massive rise in sweeps of unhoused people living in tents and vehicles in 2022. According to the log, the city conducted 943 sweeps, averaging more than two-and-a-half per day. 

The vast majority of these removals — 771 — were classified as “obstruction” sweeps, meaning that staff were not required to provide any notice to camp residents before initiating the sweep. In 158 sweeps, residents received prior notice, ranging from between one day and four days ahead of the sweep. Fourteen of the sweeps did not have a known classification or were labeled as question marks, suggesting potential clerical errors in the city’s logging methods.

Previously obtained public records showed that Seattle conducted 53 sweeps with prior notice in 2021, indicating a sharp increase in the number of sweeps conducted with notice as the city relaxed its pandemic quasi-moratorium on sweeps. It is not known how many no-notice obstruction sweeps the city undertook during that time period.

Coinciding with this rise is the inauguration of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, who pledged during his campaign that addressing encampments would be a top priority for his new administration. In an August 2022 press conference, Harrell announced that the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation had cleared a number of parks and green spaces that had been impacted by people taking shelter there.

The increase in sweep numbers may also indicate that many of the bigger encampments, which had experienced relative stability during the pandemic, had now been displaced, with the final big encampment in Woodland Park cleared in May 2022. Most of the 2022 sweeps were small in nature, involving only a handful of tents, vehicles or sleeping bags.

For years, community advocates have decried the city’s sweeps policies as violent, harmful and counterproductive. At the reopening of the Ballard Commons park on March 11, dozens of activists interrupted the celebration to protest the city’s sweeps policies, delaying the event by about an hour. The park was closed in December 2021 after a sweep in which city officials cleared dozens of tents and displaced about 100 residents.

🛍️ Merch - https://Store.ReasonableTV.com/

🌟 Go PREMIUM with Reasonable+ for uncensored access to our entire content library: https://ReasonableTV.com/

💬 JOIN our FREE Discord Community! Share stories, chat with fellow enthusiasts, and stay in the loop: https://discord.com/invite/uJGWFpgDcY

👍🏼 SMASH that LIKE button & SUBSCRIBE for daily videos that dive into the latest news! https://youtube.com/c/NewsForReasonablePeople

📲 Stay connected and never miss an update!

🔗 Rumble - https://rumble.com/c/NewsForReasonablePeople
🔗 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NewsForReasonablePeople
🔗 iTunes - https://apple.co/2MkFziJ
🔗 Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2Dh8EoL