SEATTLE — At a meeting with citizens concerned about a planned homeless encampment on city land, a strategist for Seattle police revealed the department had just finished a look at crime around existing homeless camps. She said stats show there is no increase in crime around regulated camps.
“We didn’t see anything for the managed encampments that was different from the regular rise and fall of the crimes in that particular district,” Virginia Gleason, a SPD Strategic Advisor.
The announcement came at a meeting at Q Café Monday night where some neighbors expressed concern about a planned encampment on city land off 17th Avenue West near West Bertona Street.
The crowd of about 200 people was split about 50-50. The meeting was far more evenly divided than the crowd of a thousand people in Ballard last week. Most in Ballard were downright angry about the encampment planned for their neighborhood.
At Monday’s Interbay meeting there were two things city leaders promised to look into. First, one resident demanded to know how the camps impacted the revenue of local businesses. Second, some longtime residents thought there might be soil contamination concerns at the site picked for the camp.
The city of Seattle is already spending more than $100,000 to remediate the site planned for Ballard.