‘This enablement needs to stop’: We Heart Seattle founder describes finding 9-month-old in tent because mother refused housing

We Heart Seattle founder Andrea Suarez said her team moved a 9-month-old baby from Kinnear Park in Queen Anne on Tuesday.

Suarez described the situation on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio, saying the mother had refused housing and treatment multiple times, leaving the infant in a drug-filled tent.

“We moved a 9-month-old baby from Kinnear Park who was living with an addicted mother who trades tricks for drug money,” she said. “The camp was full of needles, and I’m advocating: Where is CPS? Where’s law enforcement? Where’s intervention? Why aren’t our parks safe? Why aren’t our babies safe?”

Suarez said a concerned dog walker reported the baby living in the park. We Heart Seattle responded and learned that the mom and baby were known within the system, and had been housed at Mary’s Place and previously helped by The More We Love.

“Why are they not still in housing?” KIRO host Jake Skorheim asked.

“Because there’s rules and requirements, and those are places that want you to progress, and they didn’t work for her,” Suarez responded. “Instead, she has camps and parks that enable her to stay addicted and trapped and birth this baby. And sadly, she just rolled right off of her tongue. I said, ‘Where’s the father?’ She goes, ‘Oh, he was just a trick.’ So now we’re talking unprotected sex on the track, spreading disease, making babies, and this is somehow an affordability crisis.”

Suarez added that the mother had housing, but continued to abandon it. She said the mother also has two other children who are with family.

“She said it was mentally traumatizing for her to be around other people,” Suarez said.

We Heart Seattle works to amend Keeping Families Together Act

She said her team is working on lowering the threshold for the Keeping Families Together Act, which bars law enforcement from intervening unless the child is in imminent danger.

“This enablement of — ‘you don’t have to get off of drugs, even if you’re a mother with young children’ — needs to stop,” Suarez said. “We were in Olympia on Saturday marching against the Keeping Families Together Act in the name of dead babies. I think 11 plus have already died this year. The Keep Families Together Act people are now celebrating, ‘Oh, we’ve given out 7,000 cartridges of Narcan this year. Yay, us. And reversed four babies a day on average, yay, Narcan.’ I’m like, that’s your measure of success? We’re managing the crisis, and meanwhile, babies are still dying.”

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