Neighbors find elaborate landscaping at Seattle homeless encampment

Neighbors frustrated with crime and trash from a Seattle homeless encampment decided to tackle it themselves by going in with cameras.

The plan: document the problems and present it to the city council.

“We very much have our own Jungle,” neighbor Ben Calot told KIRO 7, referring to the controversial “Jungle” homeless camp underneath and along I-5.

Related: Seattle neighbors worry about impact of “Jungle” cleanup

Seattle police agreed to escort the residents through the encampment along Myers Way near White Center.

“These folks that are living out here are not criminal in nature in every single instance,” Officer Todd Wiebke said.

He estimates that in addition to the people living in RVs on one side of Myers Way, there are about 25 to 30 people living over the side of an embankment on the other side of Myers Way.

Neighbors said they need more action from the city.

“We don’t feel safe being in our neighborhood because there is crime, there are people who are high on whatever,” neighbor Kim Scherer said.

The latest incident was this Saturday, when Washington State Patrol responded after a man darted through traffic with a knife on the other side of the greenbelt.

He told troopers his sister had overdosed and died in his van on Myers Way. They found the woman shortly afterward.

Inside the encampment on Tuesday, neighbors saw tents, bikes, tools, and what Seattle police call “the grotto.”

“This is all the imagination and effort and work of one of the guys that lives out here,” Wiebke said.

The landscaped section in the trees includes a sitting area with a chair by a stream, cemented rock stairs, and a fire pit.

“These people are not down here destroying everything. Yes, there’s thieves down here. Yes, there’s drug addicts down here,” Wiebke said. “Yes, it’s happening, I’m not denying that to you. But what I’m saying is in the midst of that there are folks out here who are eking out an existence and not causing problems.”

Marty Robinson said he is one of them. He lives in an RV on Myers Way and told KIRO 7 he’s applied for and is waiting for housing.

“I’m not trying to be part of the problem,” he said. “I’m trying to be part of the solution.”

KIRO 7 requested the numbers and learned the city has paid private companies more than $80,000 to clean up at current encampments or, more commonly, after they’ve been warned and moved by the city. These actions are above and beyond the regular clean-ups done by Department of Corrections teams. The biggest clean-up was more than $26,000. The smallest was on Myers Way for $352.

But residents say more work, like the trash hauling they saw on Tuesday, needs to be done, especially when it comes to certain areas of the encampment that are full of trash.

“We’re not uncompassionate,” Calot said. “We recognize that this is a problem not just across our city but across the whole nation. But it’s not an acceptable situation either. These people aren’t safe. Our neighborhood’s not safe.”

Wiebke said he has made arrests and towed some problematic RVS. He said every time he goes down the embankment, he tells people they are trespassing, but unless they’re committing a crime above that, they are allowed to stay.

At neighbors’ requests, he said he is also going to start checking serial numbers on bikes.