Tent City 4 moved to its new location Friday, April 23 at Lake Washington United Methodist Church on a busy street (132nd Ave. N.E. on the Kirkland-Redmond border). Some neighbors have voiced concern for Tent City 4 residents being in such an exposed location. Read More.
By Matt Phelps
Kirkland Reporter
4/27/2010
Tent City 4 | Kirkland | Focus Northwest - Photos of move-in to TC-4 on April 23 - 26
By Chad Coleman, 4/27/2010
Photo Journalist for Focus Northwest
Tent City must be on a busy street. These people need easy access to the city bus, which has best service on busy streets. "Residential neighborhoods" have limited bus service, and limited employment opportunities.
ReplyDeleteCarrie Hafner
Is Tent City a way to help people out of homelessness or is it a political theater?
ReplyDeleteI think most of us have believed that it was designed as a way to offer temporary ‘shelter’ to those people who fell on hard times – but I’m beginning to question this idea.
Since these tent operations have been moving from place to place for several years, it strikes me as very strange that they have not found a permanent location to provide temporary housing. There are many such shelters currently available in the region which offer temporary residence. The fact that they are living outside in blue tents makes me wonder if they are going out of their way to be ‘seen’ as a way of advocating for a cause.
I think it is great to offer help to those who need it, appreciate it, and are working hard to be self-sufficient. I don’t think that having people camp out in different neighborhoods is the most efficient way to do that. If you were down on your luck in a big way, would you prefer to live in a tent or in a residential shelter? I have spoken to several of the tent city residents in Redmond while riding the bus. A couple of them seemed to be mentally ill and I wonder if the extra stimuli caused by the constant change of residence is helpful for them; or safe for their temporary neighbors.
I did a little research on this group and found a few articles that lead me to believe that this organization may be taking advantage of our impulse to “help” people, but they may have a different agenda than you might assume.
Look at some of this information and draw your own conclusion:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5484078
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=305495