Institutionalizing Structural Unemployment

The 65 or so tents that make up Tent City 3 are mounted on wooden pallets and set up in tidy rows. But there’s no hiding the contrast between them and the homes next door – colonial-style houses with big yards, some of which were planted with “no tent city” signs in the months before the encampment moved here in November.
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Tent cities don’t typically enjoy a warm welcome anywhere. But in Seattle, where Tent City 3 and other similar camps have operated in an uneasy truce with officials for nearly a decade, there’s a plan to institutionalize the concept.

Seattle officials are considering setting up encampment on city property. Unlike current tent cities that are required to move every three months, this one would stay in one place, operate with the city’s approval and feature storage lockers and trailer-style facilities for showers and cooking. The proposal reflects the scope of Seattle’s homelessness problem and heightened political tension over the issue, which came to a head with the establishment in 2008 of an encampment dubbed Nickelsville – after former mayor Greg Nickels, who was criticized for his homelessness policies. Current Mayor Mike McGinn, who was elected in 2009, acted on the recommendation of a citizens review panel to propose a permanent encampment.