Stop Seattle From Turning Our Parks Into Homeless Encampments

Parks should be a safe place. Build them homes, spend money to build homeless shelters, please don't take parks aways from your citizens. I'm not saying they can't use the parks like the rest of the population, but they shouldn't live there.

Please keep our parks and public places safe for our children, and for us! Seattle will be a terrible place to live it we don't feel safe in our public spaces. Already we pick up broken glass, needles etc from our neighborhood parks, in our children's play sreas, it would just become unbearable if we condone this. Not too mention presence of feces, urine, etc as a risk to our health.

No way! This has failed in Portland, Boston and other cities. No more Free-attle.

Unfortunately this will only make conditions around these camps even worse with trash and filth. The public will revolt, just take a look at the Ballard bridge as an example.

City Council please don't do this!

Please keep our parks clean and safe for the communities. This is an absolutely terrible idea and shows limited creativity in solving the homeless problem. Please try to think about this long term as in 2, 5, 10-years from now - will Seattle be better off if all public spaces are full of tents and homeless people?

An estimated 26% of homeless adults staying in shelters live with serious mental illness and an estimated 46% live with severe mental illness and/or substance use disorders. (1) It is estimated that this prevalence is higher among those who chronically live on the street. A significant number of these individuals with psychiatric disabilities fall into the category of “a danger to themselves or others or gravely disabled” which would qualify them for inpatient/residential care under state health laws; however the State of Washington does not have facilities for these individuals, so if they are not actually convicted of a crime, they are simply released to the street. If they are convicted of a crime they may go to jail for a period of time, where they get little or no treatment — before being released to the street. Most of these people are not violent —indeed, they are vulnerable to violence. A few, however, are irrational, psychotic or desperate for drugs, and there will be occasional attacks on children, the elderly, and other vulnerable individuals if they are camping in communities where children and families live, work, and play. A second and equally worrisome issue is infectious disease. In the homeless population, the incidence of highly contagious infectious disease is high. HIV/AIDS has been measured at 5-12% in various samples, Hepatitis C 10-18%, and Tuberculosis 6-18%. (2) These diseases can be treated and many patients can be kept relatively healthy with appropriate drugs and long-term careful care and followup. This cannot be done, however, if the patients are scattered in parks and neighborhoods with no address and no public health followup/monitoring. And more alarmingly, the issue of body substance sharing, particularly with drug users and needles is significant. A needle hidden in the grass will easily penetrate the toe of a child’s tennis shoe. A needle on the sidewalk or street will infect the sandaled mom w

This will ruin our city parks, this was recently tried in Portland and repealed soon after as the parks became unusable by the general public.

Too dangerous - cannot

Do not do what failed in Portland.

I am strongly opposed to the idea of allowing unrestricted camping in Seattle parks.

Not healthy for anyone to allow this. As a society we must take care of the homeless properly.

the council members who proposed this are out of their minds.

I will vote for Bill Bryant and Mark Miloscia if the council passes this bill. I've never voted for a Republican in my life. Drastic times call for drastic measures.

Please don't go forward with this insanity. I agree that homelessness is an issue that needs our support, but not like this. This will turn the entire city into a new Nicklesville. It failed in Portland, this bigger plan will fail here too, in a much bigger way.

I hate to be a privileged NIMBY and I have so much compassion for the homeless, particularly children, but I live right next door to a park where people have camped before and sadly it's always been a problem. I have a 2 year old and he and his dog love running through that park. If people are allowed to camp there, it takes away the use of the park for those of us in the neighborhood. I am sorry to oppose this, but this is not the answer.

Our parks belong to all the citizens of the city, and are our only green space in a jungle of concrete towers. Please keep them free and open to ALL, not just the homeless!

Please listen to the taxpaying citizens who desire to see their parks paid for by their tax dollars kept clean and safe!

Let reason reign, please.

I am not in favor of this bill that proposes turning out parks in seattle into homeless shelters.