Murray’s Middle Way: Seattle’s approach to homeless sweeps

Mayor Ed Murray’s office is saying it’s found the best way to clear homeless camps as the City of Seattle continues to sweep unauthorized encampments.

“Extensive outreach plus the addition of new services is what we like to call the ‘Murray middle way,'” said Murray’s Public Safety Adviser Scott Lindsay. “We’ve received some criticism about the number of cleanups being done and we’ve received some criticism of not enough cleanups being done. We’re trying to ramp those up and do these cleanups in the most humane way possible.”

Related: Seattle struggles to assist homeless who refuse help

Lindsay said the city has cleared out 179 encampments since they began last fall. They’ll continue “into the foreseeable future.”

He said the city gives three days warning before clearing out a site; they always bring social service providers to offer shelter and the opportunity to get into other programs; and they keep some personal belongings in a safe for 90 days for campers to retrieve later.

The city doesn’t call the cleanups “sweeps,” but its critics definitely do. Over the last few months, Mayor Murray has been hit with a magnitude of criticism, with some homeless advocates complaining that the three-day warning period isn’t always followed and also that the phone number to retrieve personal belongings only leads to a recording.

But others, as Lindsay noted, argue that the city ignores the homeless problem and needs to double or triple its efforts to clean up encampments.

Lindsay said that sometimes city crews have to return several times because encampments pop up again in the same spots.

“In some locations, individuals do go back. We have to go back time-and-time again and that’s a frustrating part of this process,” he said. “In other locations, we’re able to send a message that the area is really unsafe or unhealthy and we’ve been able to prevent people from going back.”

Meanwhile, the city has started a pilot program that will provide trash pickups for encampments. It is aimed at getting homeless campers to clean up their own trash. During the month of April, the city is handing out bright green trash bags at four select encampments. Crews are asking residents to keep their trash in the bags, and the city will come by and pick them up.