‘It looks like District 9’: Jake, Spike rip Seattle’s response to sprawling South Seattle encampment

A growing homeless encampment near Beacon Hill is spanning multiple acres, and Jake Skorheim and Spike O’Neill, co-hosts of “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio, said the city’s response — or lack of one — is indefensible.

The encampment at 42nd Avenue South near Beacon Avenue South has expanded across public and private property, with neighbors reporting stolen vehicles, fires, drug activity, and trees being cut down, according to KOMO News. Neighbor Andrew Rauch told the media outlet he’s been raising alarms for four years.

“It is a humanitarian crisis of the worst possible measure,” Rauch said. “The city needs to come in with a hammer and clear these encampments right now.”

The city’s Unified Care Team told Rauch and neighbors in emails that it is aware the encampment is growing and is “monitoring the site,” KOMO News reported.

That response set Jake off.

“The city says they’re just watching the situation,” Jake said. “What are they waiting for?”

“What catastrophic event are they waiting for?” Spike added.

Jake on South Seattle encampment: ‘Why not just arrest them?’

Jake pointed to the drone footage KOMO aired showing the scale of the encampment, including gas tanks, stolen vehicles, and what neighbors describe as a makeshift chop shop.

“If somebody’s doing something illegal, and you can’t get them into housing, and they’re addicted to drugs, and they don’t even want the help to get into housing, I have a response,” Jake said. “Why not just arrest them?”

“Maybe just count the number of stolen vehicles,” Spike said. “There’s a makeshift chop shop.”

Spike said the public health risks alone should be enough to force action.

“We’re not even talking about the drug or the garbage. Just the mountains of garbage,” Spike said. “Imagine the vermin infestation, the public health factor.”

‘It looks like District 9’

Jake compared the drone footage to scenes from dystopian films.

“You know what it looks a lot like to me? District 9,” Jake said.

“I’ve talked about this in the past. I got to travel the world for humanitarian reasons with World Vision,” Spike said. “We went to Bangladesh, and this is what people were living in. The kind of conditions where there was a sect of society whose space was at the landfill. That’s where they were able to put a hovel together to keep their family as safe as was possible in those conditions. We’re allowing this in the city limits of Seattle.”

Private property owner inviting campers raises questions

Part of the encampment sits on private property, where the owner has reportedly invited campers in, according to KOMO News.

“Why is that guy not being arrested?” Jake asked. “Why is it legal to let people onto your property and do illegal things? It’s still illegal to do illegal things, even if it’s your private property.”

“Are you aiding and abetting crime if somebody on your property has a chop shop, stolen vehicles, selling drugs?” Spike asked.

City says encampment isn’t the top priority

Jake said the most frustrating part came at the end: the city told neighbors the encampment isn’t at the top of its list.

“They’ve essentially told these people who’ve been trying to fight this horrible problem for four years — it’s becoming very, very bad — they said, ‘This isn’t the top of our list. We have other encampments that we think are even worse than this,'” Jake said.

“At what point is their self-harm and their self-endangerment going to spill over to the rest of us?” Spike said.

“Somebody’s going to die here if they haven’t already,” Jake said.

KOMO News first reported on the encampment in the summer of 2025, when a man was killed in a shootout there. Drone images from then and now show the site has grown dramatically.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3