Spokane rousts homeless camp

A 10-day camp-out in downtown Spokane ended peacefully Thursday when the city evicted the homeless protesters – but neither side budged on the essential issues. Protesters complained that their civil rights were violated by their forced removal, and they continued objecting to a pending city ordinance that will outlaw transient shelters on city land. Spokane Mayor Jim West, meanwhile, insisted that the ban would take effect and said camping on city land is an affront to other taxpayers. “You cannot go in and squat on other people’s property, and that property belongs to 197,000 others,” the mayor said. The campers pulled up stakes Thursday morning and moved away without incident after city officials ordered them to leave. No arrests were made. Leaders of the protest said going to jail in an act of civil disobedience would have discredited their cause of seeking help for the city’s homeless and protesting the new ordinance. What started as a small protest by several campers – they spent their first night under a large blue tarp strung between trees – ballooned. Tents and makeshift shelters were spread for more than a block on the tree-lined median of West Riverside Avenue, between the Spokane Club, the Catholic diocese office and the production building for The Spokesman-Review. “Last night, we had 50 souls in camp,” said protest leader Dave Bilsland of the People 4 People organization on Thursday morning. Signs scrawled on cardboard outside Bilsland’s tent read: “Camp Serene Freedom. Home of the Island Campers.” While a score of police officers stood by to ensure a peaceful decampment, Mayor West simultaneously announced at City Hall that he would sign the newly approved ordinance on Monday, making it a misdemeanor to erect or occupy a transient shelter on city-owned property. He also announced a task force on the problem. Spokane City Council members adopted the ordinance in a 4-3 vote on June 28. Homeless advocates, who argued against the ordinance, began erecting their camp the same night as the vote. If West changes his mind and vetoes the ordinance, the council would need five votes to override it and force the measure into law. Bilsland said his group intends to mount a referendum petition drive. The mayor said the protest helped convince him the new law is needed, and that he ordered the camp removal. The campers, he said, had become a public nuisance. “We have been patient with them,” West said, adding he supports the right of citizens to protest, up to a point. City officials said the campers were ordered to move because their tents and bedding were preventing parks staff from maintaining the trees and grass, and water was blocked to feed the roots of aging linden trees along the picturesque median. Speaking to a group of the protesters later in the day at the New Opportunities apartment building on West Sprague Avenue, Police Chief Roger Bragdon said it was his decision to allow the protesters to stay on Riverside parkway for as long as they did, but it was time for them to get out of the way of Parks and Recreation Department workers worried about the lawn. He complimented Bilsland for not allowing anyone to get hurt or arrested. “I want you to continue keeping the issue (of homelessness) in front of the mayor and the people,” the chief said, “but it has to be reasonable. Breaking the law is not reasonable.” Just a day before, West poked fun at the protest. After teasing county Commissioners Phil Harris and Kate McCaslin for wearing Hawaiian shirts at a Wednesday meeting about a proposed sewage treatment plant, West bolstered his own decision to wear a tie. “I’ve got to distinguish myself from the homeless,” he said, joking that he planned to deal with the issue by sending the campers to Commissioner John Roskelley’s rural home. On Thursday, West told The Spokesman-Review editorial board that he didn’t care if the homeless camp is in “your yard,” but they weren’t welcome on the public parkway. “The bulk of the people down there were protesters. They weren’t homeless,” he said later, adding that he has reassembled his transition team committee on poverty and human services to come up with a city plan in the next 30 days to help those who are homeless in the short-term. The city is already working with Spokane County and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to end chronic homelessness within the next 10 years, he said. But in the meantime, West said the campers had to go. At 7 a.m. Thursday, park maintenance manager Taylor Bressler went from tent to tent handing out a single-sheet order detailing the city’s authority to force the campers’ removal. “Please take notice that the courses of activity in which you are presently engaging constitute a violation of the Spokane Municipal Code,” the order read. The order advised campers they were maintaining structures in public right of way, physically occupying a right of way to the exclusion of others, preventing necessary maintenance and obstructing vehicular traffic. “We just got woke up and told, ‘You have an hour to move out,’ ” said camper Brian Hensley. Office workers, Spokane Club members and passers-by stopped to watch the commotion. On the terrace of the Spokane Club, Manager Alan Arsenault ate his breakfast from a club bowl. Just yards away, boxes of doughnuts lay on the ground outside one camper’s tent. Cliff Tvedten was downtown to pick up his mail when he walked past the encampment and saw the police telling the homeless to leave. “They ought to leave them alone,” Tvedten said. “They’ve been around since the time of Christ. They need a place.” By 8 a.m., nearly all of the campers were packing their belongings, taking down shelters and clearing refuse from the island. But Bilsland initially decided to remain in his tent and wait to be arrested as a protest against the ordinance. He sat cross-legged on bedding, rolling a cigarette. A book titled “A God in Ruins” lay on his lap. “I have found my niche in helping the homeless,” he said. “This is where I want to stay.” Bilsland said the campers for several days had been receiving gifts of food. He said some people had ordered pizzas delivered to the encampment. “We had fewer problems than I expected, and it was bigger than I expected,” he said of the protest. Across the street, Arsenault stood on the sidewalk watching the decampment. He said that during the protest, overnight guests at the club were being kept awake by motorists responding to protester signs asking them to honk. Also, some club members said they’d been asked for money by protesters and that the protesters didn’t represent Spokane well. Rob McCann, associate director of Catholic Charities, eventually persuaded Bilsland to leave the camp peacefully rather than go to jail. “I’m going to stay out so I can continue to lead the good fight,” Bilsland said. Then Scott Stanger, another of the protest leaders, took Bilsland’s place, and waited to be arrested. Again, McCann approached the tent, this time persuading Stanger to leave. But Stanger stood stubbornly against a tree, even as sprinklers soaked him at about thigh level. Sprinklers had been coming on four times a day during the protest. Park officials said they upped the watering schedule to protect the landscape from drying out, not to chase off protesters. Protesters responded by putting cans over the sprinkler heads. This time, the cans were gone, and the spray became cause for commotion. Protester Charles Clemons ran to a broken sprinkler head and stood over it, sudsing himself with soap and shampoo. “I might as well use it when I’ve got my chance,” he said after finishing his impromptu shower. When the sprinklers stopped, a park maintenance crew fired up machines and began edging and aerating the grass. At 9:12 a.m., Stanger left the median, the last protester to give in to the city order.