Burien leaders voice opinions as city council votes to ban camping by razor-thin margin

BURIEN, Wash. — Starting November 1, public camping will no longer be allowed within the Burien city limits. A controversial ordinance passed by the Burien City Council bans camping in public spaces between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.

Ordinance 818 passed by a razor-thin margin, with four council members in favor and three opposed. There was quite a lot of public comment at Monday night’s meeting. Many people spoke passionately about the ordinance, some in favor and some opposed.

“We must stop enabling homeless encampments and start working on sustainable solutions,” Linda Akey said, during public comment.

Others said the ban would do more harm to the houseless than good.

“Arresting or ticketing people who have nowhere else to go doesn’t help them find permanent housing,” Patricia Hudson said.

Council member Cydney Moore said the ban wasn’t the right move for the city and was opposed to its passage.

“It’s not going to help anybody, it’s not going to get anybody off the streets,” Moore said. “It’s going to disperse people who are in crisis potentially cutting them off from service providers.”

On the other side of the issue, Jimmy Matta, also a council member, voted in favor of the ban.

“Yes I will be voting for it and yes I’ll take the heat that comes from it because that’s why I ran for office,” Matta said.

The ordinance makes camping a misdemeanor but wouldn’t criminalize someone if a shelter bed isn’t available. It also allows the city manager to set aside specific areas used for public camping. It’s modeled after the camping ban in place in Bellevue.

“Bellevue still has unsheltered homeless, let’s not act like they passed a ban and it was a cure-all and they just disappeared, they didn’t, Bellevue also has a shelter,” Moore said.

At this point, there still hasn’t been any information on how exactly this will be enforced.

“Having an officer shortage and allocating their time and resources to displacing homeless people instead of violent crime I think that’s something that should be concerning for all of our community,” Moore said.

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