KGMI News
BELLINGHAM, Wash. – A small town of tents has been pitched outside Bellingham City Hall.
It started as a protest, but now it’s starting a dialogue on homelessness.
David Morse said he’s been appointed the mayor of the camp, which includes about 65 people and 37 tents.
“We’re trying to get a safe place for people to have a camp and to put tiny homes. We’re petitioning the city to help us find land where we may do this,” Morse said.
Morse said the community, local stores and agencies have donated food and other necessary items to the camp over the past two weeks.
Morse said they want police to stop sweeps of homeless camps. “The police will come into rogue camps, and they take everybody’s belongings,” Morse said. “That could be their birth certificates, that could be their mother’s jewelry. These people have nothing, it’s the last thing they own, and they take it and throw it in the trash.”
Lieutenant Bob Vander Yacht with Bellingham Police said they respond to camps based on complaints by property owners on a case-by-case basis.
Vander Yacht said the camps get a warning and have five days, sometimes longer, to gather their things and move.
“We certainly are respectful of people’s personal property, and we will do the best that we can to help them manage it, if we can,” Vander Yacht said. “My property is mine, yours is yours, theirs is theirs. We want them to be accountable to their property as well.”
Regarding any criminal activity in the tent city, police said it’s been minimal.
Members of the tent city have talked at council meetings and recently met with Bellingham Mayor Kelli Linville to discuss the issues they have, but Jim Peterson with the group “Homes Now” said he’s not happy with how things are going.
“There’s a lot of lip service,” Peterson said. “They keep pounding on the cost, and I keep coming back with, ‘You spent $300,000 last year doing homeless camp sweeps.'”
Peterson said they want land to build tiny homes and have a stable place where the homeless can take care of themselves.
At this time, the camp must pack up and move by noon on Monday, unless the city decides to extend a permit that has allowed them to stay this long.