Group believes Seattle council members want to scrap homeless team

Seattle residents are planning to rally at City Hall in opposition to council members’ desire to defund the city’s Navigation Team.

“I’m upset with the proviso that would defund the Navigation Teams,” said Elisabeth James with Speak Out Seattle. “They have been doing good work. There’s a lot of misinformation being spread that people are being forced from encampments and not being offered shelter. But that is not the case. Navigation Teams work between weeks and sometimes months with an encampment of the last people who won’t take shelter are removed.”

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Speak Out Seattle is a grassroots group composed of residents and businesses who want to address issues plaguing the city — homelessness, the opioid epidemic, and public safety.

Seattle’s Navigation Team includes specially-trained police officers and social workers who engage with the city’s homeless community. Team members work with people living in encampments the city deems unsafe, and help them move to a safe location, or to a shelter.

While Seattle struggled with its shelter system in the past, it has opened two, 24-hour shelters — its Navigation Center and Compass Center. The Navigation Center offers low-barrier entry, 75 beds, and allows people to stay for up to two months. The Compass Center opened in September and can host 100 people. Seattle also has six sanctioned encampments for people living in tents. Some of the encampments also have tiny homes.

“But we can’t do that because some of these encampments are extremely dangerous,” James said. “They are dangerous to the people who live in them. We can’t let that happen. We can’t let the garbage pile up.”

Before the Navigation Team was established, city officials toured through some of Seattle’s encampments, including the now-defunct Jungle under I-5. There, they found children living in tents. They also happened upon a sexual assault in progress, purely by chance. After the Jungle was shut down, another camp was formed by former residents. This is where a 16-year-old runaway girl was held captive, raped and continually trafficked before police stepped in last January. That camp has also been shut down.

These are the stories that Navigation Team supporters reference as a reason for their existence — to have someone checking on vulnerable communities and providing options.

Speak Out Seattle is taking their concerns to the council’s next budget hearing on Nov. 1. They will hold a rally at City Hall at 4:30 p.m. to show support for the Navigation Team program.