‘Totally out of hand’: West Seattle homeless encampment cleared after years of crime, drug use

After years of complaints about crime and violence, City of Seattle crews are sweeping a homeless encampment in West Seattle on Wednesday morning.

Neighbors said the encampment is the source of crime, drugs, and violence that have been intermittent for several years.

Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka, who represents the area, said the homeless encampment has become a health and safety issue for the public.

“There’s a huge public safety challenge there,” Saka said. “It’s public safety related, it’s public health related. Now, with an overdose death situation there, it’s totally out of hand. There is a lot of unauthorized encampment activity, and it has resulted, tragically, in some very brutal beatings and rapidly devolving public safety situations.”

KIRO Newsradio was at the scene in West Seattle and noted several city departments were working to clear the encampment, located at the Rotary Viewpoint Park near the West Seattle Golf Course.

“We’re just getting our stuff to the sidewalk so they don’t throw it away,” unhoused camper Adyn told KIRO Newsradio. “And from there, we’re just going to sleep wherever we fall asleep, I guess. We got a paper taped to our tent that said that we had three days to pack our stuff and move. Outreach came out, too, three days before to offer help.”

The goal extends beyond cleaning the encampment and protecting the neighborhood to ensuring homeless individuals can access shelter if desired.

“A lot of people just don’t have any regard for the rest of the community, and so doing everything on front street doesn’t help us,” Adyn added.

Contributing: James Lynch, KIRO Newsradio

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