Is it legal for ‘Tent City 6’ to camp outside the King County Administration Building?

About 60 people were still camped on the plaza outside the King County Administration Building near 4th Avenue and James Street on Friday, and they were not being asked to leave. Instead, county officials are offering them services and available space in the men’s shelter funded by King County.

Many of the people staying outside the county building were displaced when the Seattle Housing and Resource Effort, or SHARE, had to shut down several shelters for lack of money, KIRO 7 reports SHARE applied for county funds, but did not win any county contract the last two years.

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Instead, they have a contract with the city of Seattle for more than $600,000 to operate shelters, which has not been enough to pay their bills. In fact, the group said they are in debt and had not paid their employees in a month.

Some of the people camping at the so-called Tent City 6 are volunteers and staff of SHARE.

Andrew Constantino, a SHARE volunteer, said, “It isn’t so much about bringing the fire to them, and making them feel bad or anything like that. It’s to show that SHARE wants to partner with them.”

Constantino said he hopes this will result quickly in a conversation about funding the nonprofit, but he said he’d be prepared to stay there through Christmas.

KIRO 7 asked King County Facilities Management spokesperson Cameron Satterfield if the camp there is legal.

“Technically, it is prohibited to be on the plaza after hours. But we do know that these are people who think that they don’t have another place to go,” Satterfield said.

So instead of kicking them out, Satterfield said the Health and Human Services Department will be offering help to the people there. It will also give those people an option to take a bed in the King County building’s shelter for men, which has 100 total beds. Another King County-funded shelter nearby can take 50 men with pets.

Jennifer Shaw, the deputy director of ACLU Washington, said there have been previous cases of groups camping out in public spaces in protest.

“In a case that Real Change brought against the city of Seattle several years ago, that is in fact protected speech. So it doesn’t surprise me that King County is not raising a ruckus,” Shaw said.

In that case, Shaw said a judge ordered a temporary injunction against the city of Seattle to stop trying to move protesters out of Westlake Park.

Shaw said because this gathering is directed at King County, the First Amendment covers their right to be there.