On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez ruled against the ACLU on two motions it had filed in its case against the city and WSDOT over the ongoing “sweeps” of unsanctioned homeless encampments.
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Office of Civil Rights once again monitoring homeless encampment cleanups
Earlier this year, the city issued an update to its protocol for cleaning up unsanctioned homeless encampments. Notably missing from those rules was a formal role for the Office of Civil Rights in monitoring implementation and compliance, as it had been doing last fall when the city was accused of not following its own rules. The Office of Civil Rights stopped its monitoring work in January, but after public outcry the city backtracked and said that it would use the department in an “audit capacity.” Last month, three city departments quietly signed a Memorandum of Agreement re-establishing a formal monitoring …
Continue readingJudge denies ACLU’s motion for temporary restraining order on sweeps
This afternoon U.S. District Court Chief Judge Ricardo Martinez issued an order denying the ACLU a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop WSDOT and the City of Seattle from seizing and destroying personal property without due process in cleaning up unsanctioned homeless encampments in Seattle.
Continue readingCouncil takes up homeless encampment legislation
Yesterday morning the Council had its first substantive discussion on the merits of the bill introduced earlier this month to rewrite the city’s protocol for clearing unsanctioned homeless encampments. While yesterday’s meeting was intended to be just a forum for discussion with no decisions, it nevertheless highlighted just how much work needs to be done on the details of the bill before it’s ready for adoption – and how unlikely that work will be finished before the Council’s self-imposed deadline of the end of the month.
Continue readingCity staff get grilled over homeless encampment sweeps
This morning three Seattle city staff members had the unpleasant duty of briefing the City Council on the city’s approach to removing unauthorized homeless encampments.
Continue readingThis week at City Council: sweeps
Now that committees are starting to meet and the Council has dealt with most of the substantive holdover legislation from last year, the waiting game begins for new legislation to start appearing. But first, we’ll hear about the city’s sweeps of unauthorized homeless encampments.
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