After Tumultuous Relocation, Tent City 4 Contemplates Its Next Move

Although Cathy Moore and Mayor Bruce Harrell expressed surprise that Tent City 4 planned to stay in Lake City, emails show their offices were working to make the move happen as early as February.

Although Councilmember Cathy Moore and Mayor Bruce Harrell expressed surprise that Tent City 4 planned to stay in Lake City, emails show their offices were working to make the move happen as far back as February.

By Erica C. Barnett

Back in May, when the city told SHARE/WHEEL, the group that operates Tent City 4 in Lake City, that it would no longer be able to move to a long-planned new site where the Lake City Community Center was previously located, North Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore, who will leave the council on July 7,said she opposed the site because the neighborhood had not been asked to weigh in on having a self-managed encampment at that location, just a few blocks away from its previous site, the Lake City Mennonite Church.

The neighborhood, Moore told PubliCola in a statement, opposed the encampment. "The community directly impacted by the TC4 siting at the Mennonite church and now at the LCCC site is requesting that KCRHA find a different site outside of Lake City," Moore said.

It's unclear who, specifically, Moore meant by the "community"; by all accounts, the encampment was welcome at its previous location, and a representative of the Mennonite Church told PubliCola they would be thrilled to have them back any time. Long before their anticipated move date in mid-May,SHARE Tent City 4 residents did door-to-door outreach and held a well-attended public where only one person raised any objection—a woman who erroneously believed the encampment would block access to the Lake City Farmer's Market.

But by May, the city had made up its mind: Under no circumstances would the encampment be able to stay at its new site for a year, as previously planned. After a flurry of last-minute negotiations, the city agreed to allow the encampment to relocate to the new site for one to six months, until they can find what Mayor Bruce Harrell called a "more appropriate" location.

Since they moved, SHARE/WHEEL representative Michele Marchand said, the group has not received "a single complaint" about the encampment. "We've gotten all kinds of donations." Tent City residents provide 24/7 security, and do litter pickups in the neighborhoods around their encampment sites.

On a recent weekday, the camp was quiet and largely unoccupied—a collection of closely spaced tents, including many set up directly on the grass, sizzling in the early-summer heat. By early June, the camp still didn't have electricity or water hookups, and was using a noisy portable generator to supply the power that kept a fan going in the large open tent that served as the camp's front office. Apart from the generator, which a Tent City representative said they shut off at night at the request of neighbors, the camp was silent.

Justin Fain, who's currently living in a large tent covered by a silvery tarp, said uncertainty around the encampment's future was making it harder than expected to get electricity and water to the site. SHARE/WHEEL representatives told PubliCola the city had just informed the group that they needed to be out within three months. Later, Harrell's office said they would once again have six months to leave.

Overall, Fain said, the group is getting along well with the neighborhood. "Everybody's been very welcoming," Fain said, including staff at the Lake City library branch, who recently ordered pizza for encampment residents.

Moore, who spoke to the Seattle Times about her opposition to the encampment, said her problem wasn't with "Tent City per se, but the profound lack of investment in Lake City and the (feeling) that Lake City is being asked to shoulder a responsibility that other parts of the city are not being asked to do."

"To say Lake City doesn't need shelter is ridiculous," Fain said, noting that the city does regular encampment sweeps at Albert Davis Park, just outside the Tent City 4, and along 33rd Ave. NE. "There's tons of homeless around here." On the streets around Tent City and in the park, several tents were visible on the day I visited. And it isn't just single people in those tents; it's also families.

The Mennonite Church is still hosting a small family shelter in a vacant dental building near Tent City 4's previous location, but it's perennially full. In the week before I visited, Fain said, six families had arrived at Tent City 4, with a total of 24 children; they'll stay at the encampment until space opens up at the family shelter.

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Moore's comments last month, and the swift action by Mayor Bruce Harrell's office to put the kibosh on a one-year lease between the King County Homelessness Authority and the city, suggested she just heard about plans to move Tent City to a new site shortly before it was supposed to move in May.

Harrell, similarly, suggested that the planned community center location was news to him. In a statement announcing that the city would allow the encampment at the site for up to six months, Harrell said, "Improving coordination among the City, KCRHA, and Share/Wheel will allow for strengthened community engagement and more effective process timelines that lead to better outcomes and remove uncertainty from similar situations going forward."

Emails obtained through a records request, however, show that Moore, Harrell, and the city's Human Services Department, which answers to the mayor, were aware that SHARE/WHEEL was planning to move to the community center site as far back as February. Not only that—HSD suggested the location. On February 26, a KCRHA staffer told SHARE/WHEEL that the city's department had identified the Lake City Community Center site as a possible location for the encampment, and suggested that the organization start talking to Moore's office about that site as soon as possible.

"The site is the old Lake City Community Center, which was demolished last summer and is currently awaiting redevelopment into a new community center and housing," the HSD staffer wrote. "HSD has confirmed with leadership of both the Parks Department (who owns the property) and the Office of Housing (who is financing the redevelopment) that the site will be available for this interim use through May of 2026. We have the approval of the Mayor's Office to proceed."

In a March 6 email, one KCRHA staffer told another, "Tent City 4 has met with CM Moore already." On March 14, SHARE/WHEEL met with a group that included Moore's aide Harry Pollet, and reported to KCRHA that "CM Moore's Office is starting to consult with District stakeholders about Tent City4’s request for the Lake City Community Center site," as well as a short-term family shelter at the Mennonite Church, and was working with Seattle Public Utilities to figure out what it would cost to provide utilities at the site for a year.

Emails show that the city continued communicating with SHARE/WHEEL and the KCRHA in April, discussing the need to expedite permits and get a one-year lease signed "ASAP." During this period, the group held its public meeting and did door-to-door outreach to the surrounding community.

But then, in May, something changed, and city officials, including Moore and Harrell, started saying the site, and the Lake City neighborhood as a whole, was not an appropriate site for the sanctioned encampment.

PubliCola sent Moore a list of questions about what happened between February and May, when she appeared to go from working with SHARE/WHEEL and KCRHA to secure the Lake City Community Center site to opposing any encampment in Lake City.

In a statement, Moore responded, "I think the entire siting process was poorly managed and resulted in needless angst for everyone involved." Moore added that she heard in May that the site was "unavailable due to lack of utility hookup and need for a quick turnaround for the forthcoming affordable housing project." According to the Seattle Times, developer Mercy Housing won't break ground on the project until 2027.

Fain said Tent City residents were gratified that, before and after the move, four Seattle City Council members have visited Tent City 4 and talked to its residents directly. Cathy Moore, who represents the neighborhood, was not among them.