Love thy (homeless) neighbor: From fear to fellowship hosting Tent City 3

Last fall, when the University Unitarian Church announced that it might serve as the next host of Tent City 3, which calls itself the nation’s longest running legal camp for the unhoused, some homeowners in the View Ridge, Bryant and Wedgwood neighborhoods of Seattle began to sweat. I am a member of the church and of its TC3 Planning Team, and some of us began to sweat, too.

No, we weren’t afraid of the campers; we were nervous about the neighbors who were flooding the church with angry phone calls and emails. That anxiety reached a crescendo on a cold Sunday in December, when one neighbor showed up with a can of bear spray and threatened a church staffer. If we were to go ahead with our proposal to house a collection of poor people in our parking lot, he growled, there would be violence.

But that never happened. In fact, Tent City 3 spent three months, from mid-March to mid-June, in one of Seattle’s “nicer” neighborhoods, and campers ended up making more friends than enemies. One homeowner adjacent to the church praised them as “great, very respectful neighbors.”

A local business owner is also grateful that TC3 helped thwart a burglary. In the small hours of a May morning, a camper on security heard the noise of power tools, hustled down the street to investigate and found someone trying to break into a convenience store. He yelled out, and the would-be burglar ran away.

Not everyone shares that positive view. Police did have to visit the camp a few times this spring, mostly when barred members tried to return. And there was at least one incident of crime. A neighbor across 35^th Avenue Northeast showed up at the camp with a video of two people stealing a package from his porch. Camp leaders recognized and confronted the couple, retrieved the parcel and booted them from camp. “We are not perfect,” one leader told me. “But when we screw up, we take responsibility.”

A Seattle nonprofit, Share/Wheel, launched Tent City 3 in 2000 as a democratically self-governed community, making it quite unlike the random homeless camps that pop up almost everywhere these days. Participants must sign a code of conduct that prohibits alcohol, drugs, weapons, littering, public disturbance or abuse of any kind. Those who violate the code are expelled. In addition, sex offenders are turned away.

Roughly 60 campers lived in our parking lot this spring. TC3 brought several portable toilets and a hand-washing station with them. We supplied electricity, water, pavement and our social hall. To enter the labyrinthine camp, visitors had to register at the executive committee tent, jammed with desks, paperwork and file cabinets. Behind that was a tent filled with donations, including too many clothes and too few blankets; back farther was the kitchen tent, which had shelves of donated food but only one microwave (and no fridge).

TC3 participants are required to participate in various tasks, from picking up litter to logging donations. They also must attend a weekly meeting, where they discuss and vote on all kinds of issues, including whether a Seattle Times photographer could come and take pictures.

Those meetings took place in a large social hall inside our church, with chairs fanned out in a circle. I attended one, fielding questions about my plan to write about their community. The first query surprised me the most: “Would you like some ice water?”

That spirit of openness and communion was present throughout the spring. The church opened its doors for campers not only on Tuesday nights for meetings, but also on Wednesday nights for dinners prepared either by us or members of nearby Congregation Beth Shalom. In mid-May, when temperatures soared to unseasonably high levels, campers again came inside the church to cool off.

Although he ended up with a lot more work than usual, our evening custodian didn’t complain. Instead, he did something Unitarians rarely do. He quoted a passage in the New Testament where Jesus tells his followers: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

TC3 participants gathered with us, sharing stories about their lives and offering advice on everything from urban hikes to joint surgery. Shawn — residents asked that I not use their full names for privacy — encouraged me to hop onto his electric skateboard, but I demurred. Mostly I tried not to treat campers as “others,” even though my life has been relatively free of trauma and deprivation. I tried to just listen and learn.

As moving day to St. Mark’s Cathedral came closer, the two communities organized events that demonstrated appreciation for one another. The church hosted an ice cream social in what remained of our parking lot; missionaries living in the camp competed over cornhole, teasing one another in Spanish. The tent city hosted a barbecue in Magnuson Park, persuading one of our health-conscious churchgoers to enjoy a messy hamburger for the first time in years.

Rex Hohlbein, a Seattle architect who founded Facing Homelessness, believes the proliferation of folks living outside is a function of social breakdown, not a set of individual failures. He met with us before TC3 moved to the Unitarian church, and advised us to “become proximate,” to overcome our own fears and prejudices about the unhoused.

For me, this isn’t always easy — especially when I witness a scruffy-looking guy puffing on tinfoil in the park, or a half-naked person screaming at passing cars in the middle of a busy street.

But as I got to know different members of TC3, my monolithic view of “the homeless” began to splinter. In its place stood a wonderfully diverse community.

It includes Andrew, a warm, soft-spoken young man from Chicago. After his brother died of alcoholism and his small business faltered, he felt deeply lost. Eventually, he says, he felt “found.” With new faith, he hopped into his car and headed West — until it broke down. Now, when he isn’t looking for work, Andrew tries to serve his community and his God. “Within an hour of arriving at Tent City 3,” he says, “I had an armful of blankets and a bunch of people helping me set up a tent. I want to try to pay back that kindness.”

It also includes Jesara, who received her master’s degree from the University of Washington and enjoyed a well-paid job with a local biotech firm — before her entire division was laid off. She now calls herself a “refugee from capitalism.” She doesn’t suffer any mental health or substance abuse problems; she just can’t afford Seattle rents.

Then there is George, who acknowledges he once smoked too much crack cocaine. He “got tired of living on the treadmill,” quit his job and biked to Wenatchee. Since then, he has been homeless “on and off” for 12 years.  He works a few months, saves enough money to travel, and then looks again for work.

Finally, I became friends with Kevin, a jovial Okie who fell off a construction ladder, breaking several bones, and later had an even bigger “health scare” (cancer), all of which drained his bank account. A former linebacker who lifts wooden pallets like they are yoga mats, he still enjoys physical labor. Lately, though, he has been helping a formerly homeless friend restore a boat at Elliott Bay Marina. Kevin dreams of sailing the Pacific Ocean one day.

The common denominator uniting these very different individuals is a desire for community, for belonging. Living in Tent City 3 is, for many, an act of desperation and, for many more, an act of love.

Before the recent move to Saint Mark’s Cathedral on Capitol Hill, one camper confided to me: “This is my family now.”