Seattle clears Woodland Park homeless camp

SEATTLE — Seattle Parks staff began dismantling more than 40 tents and structures at Woodland Park on Tuesday morning, capping months of outreach to the people living there and tension with neighbors and parkgoers.

Just after 9 a.m., city staff cordoned off a section of the park with caution tape and began tearing down the more than half-dozen tents and structures. The encampment was located mostly on the northwest edge of the park near Aurora Avenue, but sprawled into nooks and crannies out of sight. It had grown early in the pandemic, when the federal public health agency recommended that cities stop moving homeless camp residents from one place to another.

The Woodland Park encampment, which is among the largest remaining ones in a Seattle park, has been a top focus for Mayor Bruce Harrell. An encampment at Green Lake, at the north end of park, was cleared about six months ago after neighbors and people who recreate in the park complained loudly that their access was being limited by the growing number of tents and people living outside.

For the last several months, outreach workers have been visiting Woodland Park to try to move people into shelters or housing.

On Tuesday morning, rain poured on the encampment as people began to pack up. Volunteers who said they were neighbors helped residents load garbage bags full of belongings into cars to transport them someplace else. Two former residents of the park embraced before one of them got in a car.

As city crews worked, 10 police officers stood by, corralling spectators away from the deconstruction site. Once the tents came down, two excavators began scooping up the remains of people’s belongings and trash to load into dump trucks.

This bought the people living in other sections of the park additional time to gather their tents and belongings before they’ll be forced to move. At least 40 tents and seven RVs were spread throughout the park.

The mayor’s office reported the city had referred most of the 61 park residents it identified in February to a tiny home, shelter, or permanent supportive housing unless they’d moved out of the park voluntarily.

The mayor’s office said additional people had moved to the park since February.