Homeless encampments return to Seattle park as advocates fear policy reversal under Mayor-elect Katie Wilson

The majestic views of downtown Seattle from Dr. Jose Rizal Park once drew tourists from around the world. The hilltop park in Beacon Hill was a must-see spot for its sweeping vistas of the skyline and stadiums, while local families gathered for picnics and children played on the jungle gym. Now, more than a dozen tents crowd the park, fentanyl foils litter the ground near the playground, and a man lies motionless under a dirty gray blanket in the picnic shelter, barely responding when We Heart Seattle Director Andrea Suarez gently kicks his feet to check if he’s alive.

The rapid return of homeless encampments to this park overlooking the city’s skyline has neighbors and advocates worried that it signals what’s to come when Mayor-elect Katie Wilson takes office in January with promises to end encampment sweeps and expand Housing First policies.

“This is going to be an inflow nightmare,” Suarez said during a recent tour of the park with KIRO Newsradio. “What’s going through my mind is what’s going through the mind of the drug addict, what’s going through the mind of the criminal. They are going to come to Seattle.”

The park sits next to the Pacific Tower Complex, the former Marine Hospital where Amazon was once headquartered for a decade. After years of being kept clear, the encampments have returned with what neighbors describe as shocking suddenness. The families who live in this diverse neighborhood bordering the Chinatown International District (CID) can no longer use their park.

A crisis deepening

The scene at Dr. Jose Rizal Park reflects a broader crisis that shows troubling signs of worsening. King County recorded a staggering 1,339 overdose deaths in 2023, with more than 80% involving fentanyl. While deaths began declining in 2024, early 2025 data shows them trending upward again, dashing hopes that the worst had passed.

“This is worse than I have seen since 2020 during the middle of the pandemic,” Suarez said, her voice heavy with exhaustion as she surveyed the debris-strewn park. “This is not an encampment. This is a drug scene.”

The evidence of that drug scene is heartbreaking and everywhere. Small squares of aluminum foil used for smoking fentanyl carpet the ground like deadly confetti. In the picnic shelter where families once gathered, a man’s feet poke out from under a pile of garbage. When Suarez announces she’s doing a welfare check, all he can manage is a mumbled request for snacks.

But the most gut-wrenching moment comes when Suarez approaches another figure sprawled on the concrete, mostly hidden under a filthy blanket. She has to kick his feet, pleading for any sign of life. His head barely lifts from the concrete. He whimpers. When she offers to connect him to services, he simply lowers his head back down and passes out again. Suarez walks away, visibly shaken by an interaction she’s had too many times before.

‘We need to learn how to even be inside’

Benny’s story cuts deepest. He lives in Lewis Park, which is directly across the street from Rizal Park. Holding a torch lighter and a yellow straw, his right thumb wrapped in a bloody bandage, he speaks with painful clarity about what years on the streets have stolen from him.

“Don’t you think I need to learn how to even be inside?” Benny asked Suarez, who had just offered him a spot in a 90-day treatment program. His voice carried a mix of desperation and resignation. “There are people who are institutionalized. All they know is how to live out here. It would even be dangerous if we housed them.”

Benny has been using fentanyl for more than five years, homeless for even longer. The drug has become “like air,” he explained, “something that’s normal.” In perhaps his most devastating admission, he describes himself and others as having become almost feral after years outside.

“We need training. We need to be trained on how to talk, how to communicate, how to live, how to take showers,” he said, his words coming faster as he tried to explain the depth of what he’s lost. “Every single thing, how to speak, how to communicate.”

Benny expressed deep concern about housing people who have lived outside for years, saying it would be “dangerous” to put them directly into apartments because they’ve forgotten how to live indoors.

He painted a stark picture of potential disasters, saying, “I can imagine how many apartment buildings have burnt up because of the way that they live or the tools that they use because they’re outside.”

His point was that, after years on the streets, people have become so accustomed to outdoor survival methods, such as using open flames and makeshift cooking tools, that they could inadvertently cause fires or other damage if placed in housing without extensive training in basic indoor living.

His conversation with us exposes an uncomfortable truth that many advocates fear: simply providing housing without addressing addiction and the profound deterioration that comes with years of street living may be setting people up for failure, or worse.

“Tell that to the new mayor,” Suarez responded, her frustration evident. “Because putting people inside before treatment is a complete failure and it’s dangerous and cruel, and you’re 100% right.”

When policy meets reality

Wilson, who defeated incumbent Bruce Harrell in November’s general election, campaigned on creating 4,000 new emergency housing units and ending what she called ineffective encampment sweeps that displace people without offering real alternatives. Her Housing First approach treats drug use as a public health crisis rather than a criminal matter.

But the people living in these encampments, the very ones she aims to help, express deep skepticism about housing without treatment.

Eric and Nick barely tried to hide their fentanyl use as we approached, Nick still holding his lighter and foil. Despite being high, they spoke with surprising clarity about why housing without sobriety doesn’t work.

“There’s some apartment complex that’s wet, it’s all dealers and users, it’s insane,” Nick said, describing certain downtown buildings that have become magnets for drug activity. “That place is crazy.”

Even Eric, who lost his housing during a jail stint, knows what he needs. His counselor in the HEND program, he explained, wants him in treatment before giving him housing again. He agrees with her.

The forgotten neighborhoods

There’s something particularly troubling about where these encampments concentrate. Dr. Jose Rizal Park serves a lower-income, predominantly immigrant neighborhood, not the wealthy enclaves of the city that somehow remain clear.

“These underserved, poorer, lower-income communities just don’t hold the same weight, and it is racist,” Suarez said bluntly. “We’re pushing people from the CID to this neighborhood, and then they’ll go from this neighborhood over to Rainier Avenue South, and then they’ll go there down to Columbia City.”

The inequality stings. While downtown stays relatively clear to protect tourism and convention business, families in Beacon Hill can’t use their neighborhood park. Children can’t play on equipment surrounded by drug paraphernalia. Elderly residents can’t enjoy the views they’ve treasured for decades.

Erica emerged from her tent at 10 a.m. wearing a gold cocktail dress and costume jewelry, a jarring sight that somehow emphasized the tragedy of her situation. She came to Seattle from Everett after that city passed strict no-sit, no-lie ordinances. A breakup in December cost her everything: her apartment, her car, her job.

“It’s pleasant to know that there are places like this that allow people to camp,” she said, though she quickly added that this isn’t ideal. When offered placement in a women’s shelter in Renton, she declined. She needs to stay in Seattle for school, she explained, even if it means remaining in a tent through winter.

Help exists, but sits unused

Perhaps the most maddening aspect for outreach workers is that treatment beds exist. They’re available. They’re funded. But they go unused.

Suarez can list facilities with openings without pausing for breath: Lakeside Milam, Valley Cities, Cascade, and Sundown Ranch. The problem isn’t availability. It’s a harm reduction philosophy that waits for people to ask for help rather than insisting they need it.

“We’re not going to put everybody into detox in one big tidal wave,” Suarez explained. “But one person at a time, one arrest, one diversion at a time is: you can go here and connect with We Heart Seattle, and you can go to rehab, or you can go to jail. But you can’t pass out in a pavilion next to a children’s playground.”

The city recently passed an amendment ending funding for distributing foil and methamphetamine pipes, which Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson called a win for recovery over enabling. But with the incoming administration’s promise to end sweeps and expand services without requiring treatment, advocates fear even modest progress will evaporate.

What comes next

As Seattle prepares for another policy shift on homelessness, the scenes at Dr. Jose Rizal Park offer a sobering preview of the challenges ahead. Every person here needs help, whether they can articulate it or not. But the form that help should take remains painfully contested.

Benny captured the complexity when he asked for “something that’s a little bit long-term,” but couldn’t commit to getting clean. He wants incremental change, to learn to “be a functional addict.” The impossibility of that request hangs in the air.

“With me, I feel like my steps should be, okay, well, how do I minimize it?” he said, still clutching his lighter and foil. “How do I make sure that it’s clean?”

There are no easy answers here. But as winter approaches and overdose deaths climb again, both the families who once used this park and the people now living in it deserve better than what they’re getting.

Standing amid the tents and debris, looking out at Seattle’s gleaming skyline from what was once a jewel of a neighborhood park, the distance between the city’s prosperity and its street-level crisis feels insurmountable. The question isn’t whether Seattle will act, but whether it will act in time for people like Benny, or the man under the blanket who could barely lift his head, or the families who just want their park back.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. And everyone involved, from advocates to addicts to the incoming mayor, knows it.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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