By Hailey Murphy
In what started as a two night event, community members are camped out on the lawn of City Hall to stop the sweeping of homeless camps.
The event was held by local organization Homes Now. Not Later. Started in June by Jim Peterson and Doug Gustafson, the organization seeks to bring an end to homeless. Their guiding principle is that the issue of homelessness is easy to solve– give people a home, and they’re no longer homeless.
“We can solve homelessness in a year in America. All we need to do is take the boards off the boarded up buildings and build tiny homes,” said Jim Peterson, acting president and founder. “Everyone wants to go and make it all complicated about the drugs and alcohol, when people who are housed have the same problems. Everyone deserves to have a place to sleep.”
Homes Now. Not Later. held the demonstration to get the attention of the city, so that they may voice their five demands. These demands include designating safe areas for the homeless to camp without being swept (preferably at Maritime Heritage Park), constructing four tiny homes and a services building, designating parking areas for those living out of their cars, providing toilets and dumpsters to the homeless and providing storage for the homeless at no cost.
The campout had attracted between 35 and 45 campers by Wednesday morning, many of them homeless, according to the Stop the Sweeps Bellingham Facebook page.
The campout originally was going to go from Friday, December 1 through Sunday, December 3. It was extended so that the campers would be present on Monday morning as people arrived to work, according to Peterson, and they would continue to be present until the City Council Meeting Monday night, where they presented their concerns.
However, after the City Council Meeting, it was announced on the Stop the Sweeps Facebook event page that the event would continue so long as the city let them remain there.
“Homes Now has decided to support the camp as long as the homeless want to stay,” it said on the Facebook page.
A fire has been going to keep people warm. Community members provided tents, food, beverages and firewood. Signs were put up, reading “Homes first!” or “Stop the sweeps!” Lieutenant Morrison of the Bellingham Police Department, on his own accord, provided a portable toilet for the campers.
Every day, the Homes Now. Not Later Facebook has posted a list of current needs at the camp, such as food, firewood, water, etc. They also have a GoFundMe page. The donations will go towards purchasing an acre of land, on which the organization will build tiny homes for the homeless. You can donate to the page here.
On Wednesday, Peterson said in a livestream on Facebook that the sleepout has led to progress.
“We do have a dialogue going with them. I would say they’re very supportive of what we’re doing,” said Peterson. “They’re listening and they understand they have a crisis and an emergency. As long as we keep the camp clean and like it’s been– peaceful, no weapons, no drugs, no alcohol– I don’t see the mayor moving us until we come up with some solutions.”
On that night, Homes Now personnel left the camp, leaving the homeless to run it themselves.
This event comes after a frustrating start for Homes Now. While Homes Now has been advocating for the construction of tiny homes, more portable toilets and designated camping areas for months, they made little progress.
“Right here in these two buildings, the county building and the city building… I won’t call it corruption but I’ll call it no will to solve problems,” said Peterson on the first morning of the campout. “I keep telling people, you want things not to get done, ask the government for help, they’ll make sure it doesn’t happen. And that’s what we’re running into here. We talk to the city and talk to council members, testify about what we want to do, and all they’ve given us is reasons why we can’t… No path forward. Just always, no no no.”
Their only victory at that point, according to Peterson, was the city granting them the right to use a building at Maritime Heritage Park for their homeless summits.
These homeless summits occur once a month at Maritime Heritage Park. At these summits, Homes Now provides warm food and clothing for the homeless. The next summit will be on December 17 at 2 p.m.
“For me, the summits are about getting to know the homeless, building a relationship with the homeless people,” Peterson said.
These summits also seek to break the stigma around homelessness. Peterson says that volunteers come in expecting to be encountered with drug addicts, alcoholics or the mentally ill, but leave with a much different perception.
on Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017. She helped prepare the new tents for their second night on the lawn. Hailey Hoffman // AS Review
“The Whatcom County Coalition for the homeless says there are 814 people in Whatcom County that are homeless. Only 22 percent of them are drug addicts or alcoholics or mentally ill,” Peterson said.
Peterson was himself homeless for seventeen years until getting off the streets in 1991. He’s been advocating for the end of homelessness ever since. He first came up with his tiny house plan in 1994, which was presented to Housing and Urban Development in Washington D.C.
“They told me it was too easy, that it’d never work,” Peterson said.
These are objections still heard by Homes Now today. Prior to the campout, Bellingham Mayor Kelli Linville said, “Providing solutions for homelessness in our community has been a top priority in the past several years. This complex issue requires strong partnerships with social services, housing advocates, residents, neighborhoods and other government agencies… We appreciate the members of our community who peacefully demonstrate to bring awareness to the homelessness crisis that our community is facing, and hope that others will work with the City and the County to address this pressing need.”