As Seattle considers sanctioned homeless camps again, we stand at a familiar crossroads. I’ve spent five years with We Heart Seattle doing boots-on-the-ground outreach and cleanup, alongside lived experience advisors who have worked in and managed prior sanctioned camps, including Share/Wheel, Nickelsville, Camp United We Stand, and run low-barrier shelters. We’ve seen what fails. More importantly, we know what could work.
The skepticism about sanctioned camps is warranted. Past attempts became semi-permanent encampments with no path forward. But dismissing the concept entirely ignores a critical gap in our system: where do people go when they’re too unstable for housing but desperate to get off the streets?
Seattle’s homeless crisis isn’t one problem—it’s many. The “crisis population” living on our streets often needs psychiatric care or medical detox long before housing navigation. Yet we keep trying to move people directly from tents to apartments, and we’re watching them die. Overdose deaths among the recently housed are rising because we’re skipping essential steps. Think of it like emergency medicine. You don’t discharge a trauma patient from the ER directly home. There’s triage, stabilization, and appropriate care placement. That’s what’s missing for our most vulnerable neighbors…