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LIBERTADKORPS
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Nickelsville Seattle: An Essential Hooverville for America's New Great Depression

Interviews, Writing, Photos
by Tom Hastings � 2008
www.geocities.com/libertadkorps    [email protected]

�I awake in the morning, the sun to my back,
I�ve traveled for miles by foot and pack,
A new place and new life is all I want,
Can�t stop and rest, must hunt and hunt.
Not running, exploring. Not losing, scoring.
To say I�ve been there and it was some fun,
And when I awoke my back was to the sun.�
Aaron Elijah Colyer, �The Sun To My Back�
[email protected]

�Toohoolhoolzote was not impressed. He crossed his arms and shifted on his feet and muttered something angrily: �Who are you, that you ask us to talk, and then tell me I shan�t talk? Are you the Great Spirit? Did you make the rivers run for us to drink? Did you make the grass to grow? Did you make all these things, that you now talk to us as though we were boys?� General Howard noticed a few heads nodding in agreement. �What did he say?� the general snapped at the interpreter�. Now it was White Bird�s turn to speak. He was an old medicine man, a chief from the Salmon River gold regions, and his people had seen their share of trouble with the whites. White Bird looked at Howard sternly: �If I had been taught from early life to be governed by the white man, I would be governed by the white man. But the earth rules me!� General Howard moved forward threateningly: �Then you do not propose to comply with the orders of the government?� Toohoolhoolzote stopped for a moment: �The Indians may do what they want, but I am not going on no reservation.��
Diana Yates, CHIEF JOSEPH: THUNDER ROLLING DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAINS

Corporate Media often portray the homeless as victims of their own bad decisions, as if decades of Unregulated Job Outsourcing have nothing to do with their situation. We are now seeing a demographic shift of the homeless population in America�s New Great Depression: New Hoovervilles such as Nickelsville and Tent City are now emerging, welcoming residents who are underemployed, hardworking families, just as they were in the 1930's.

Nickelsville is today�s Hooverville, dozens of homeless folk who got together to build their own community to help each other survive: Nickelsville is about SURVIVAL. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, a democrat, vowed to property owners to clean up the streets through a series of police sweeps that removed anyone found sleeping on sidewalks or under bridges. Police sweeps have been arresting the homeless for years now, precisely as affordable housing has been disappearing in the Real Estate Speculator Bubble that has doubled rents since 2000.

HOUSING FUBAR

The Real Estate Speculator Bubble of the past decade destroyed housing markets in Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and other coastal cities, making these cities so expensive that only millionaires can afford decent housing. Teachers, police, janitors, clerks and those who work for a living are forced to flee many miles away to more affordable exurbs. But moving faraway for a two-hour commute is not an option for those who cannot afford a car.

American jobs got outsourced by executives who moved our entire manufacturing base to China. Countless workers are suddenly finding themselves homeless, sleeping in cars, on sidewalks, under bridges, many in denial and shock, since they never imagined this could happen to them. Nickelsville, named after an easily reelected popular democrat, might as well be called Bushville, Neoconville or NAFTAville, since Neocon Free Trade Policy, NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, IMF, World Bank and unregulated job outsourcing are root causes of the homeless problem today.

My interviews began the week of November 30 2008, Ninth Anniversary of the WTO Riot Battle for Seattle. On November 30 1999, these same Seattle streets were full of National Guardsmen, police riot squads, clouds of tear gas, smashed windows, fires, tens of thousands of WTO protestors and violent anarchists in the infamous riot that shut down the World Trade Organization 1999 Free Trade Conference. A decade later, the Homeless Crisis has proven those protestors correct: NAFTA, CAFTA and WTO Free Trade Agreements were job-killers for everyone throughout the world, especially Americans.

Most Nickelsville residents don�t know or care about Free Trade Policy or the 1999 Battle for Seattle. They only know the 2008 police sweeps violated their civil rights: �No, don�t call it NAFTAville!� one scolded me: �We proudly call it Nickelsville because Mayor Nickels� police sweeps cuffed me up, roughed me up, tossed me in jail and threw out all my possessions. Cops threw out all my clothes and everything I need to survive. I now have nothing at all!�

SHELTER FUBAR

Many at Nickelsville began their homeless odyssey in downtown shelters, but the experience was so humiliating and dangerous, many vowed to never again use those nasty shelters. Since many shelters only open at night and kick out everyone at 6AM, no one gets a chance to know anyone. Since everyone in the sleeping room is a stranger, theft and fights are constant dangers. You must share communal rooms with dangerous schizoid psychotics, professional thieves, end-stage drunks and drug addicts, lost souls who eat out of dumpsters, and those who snore so loud you never get any sleep. Staff kick you out at 6AM. Exhausted, all you can do is crawl to the nearest park and collapse on the grass to finish sleeping.

Many shelters don�t offer storage lockers, so you must carry all you own in big bags everywhere you go. Many don�t even let you shower: You must walk to another community center to shave and shower, then walk to Worksource to look for a job. In this situation almost no employer will hire you. Day labor temp agencies like Labor Ready or Express fail to offer a living wage or enough work to afford even the cheapest room. One waiter told me these shelters were a disaster for him, since he must work until 10PM but shelters demand sleepers sign in by 9PM.

Shelters seem deliberately designed to humiliate: Why do shelters kick out everyone at 6AM?   Why do shelters lack storage lockers? They must WANT you to carry bags everywhere you go, in no condition to work any job. Mayor Nickels insists there is a bed for every homeless person. Everyone told me Mayor Nickels is wrong: There are no reservations, so you never know each night if you�ll get in or get turned away to sleep on the sidewalk. Even women with children get denied shelter due to lack of beds.

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY EMPOWERMENT

American Indians thrived in tent cities on this land for over 12,000 years. There have been many tent cities over the centuries. Nickelsville is essential for survival, just as Hoovervilles were essential in the 1930�s.

�Nickelsville costs taxpayers not one penny,� one resident boasts: �We live on donations and pay for everything ourselves. Prisons cost a fortune, but Nickelsville uses not a single penny of tax funds!� Nickelsville enjoys Community, Solidarity and Empowerment: Every decision is discussed and passed by majority vote in meetings everyone attends each night at 6PM. Residents take turns at chores, happy to serve as security, coordinators, cooks and cleanup crew.

�We�re all family here,� Nickelsville residents boast. Nickelsville residents told me comradeship here lowers stress and improves mental health. Those vulnerable to depression say Nickelsville comradeship eases depression. This is obvious as you watch a bearded old man tell stories to his neighbors� kids as he pets their big chocolate dog, the perfect camp dog who seems to be everyone�s best friend.

Nickelsville is composed of around 100 pink tents about 7�x6�x5� high. Tents are donated or bought, though everything in camp is free for those without money. Sleeping bags with blankets in tents with tarps allow enough warmth to sleep. Some couples share a single tent. Residents cook on barbecue grills using charcoal. One grill is constantly fed firewood for a fire that never goes out.

They heavily rely upon food banks and local donations of firewood, charcoal, clothing and supplies. The cleaning bill for four Honeybucket Portapotties is their biggest expense, at $1,100 each month. Cellphones shared by all have bills over $500 per month.

Residents shower at the church from 5-7PM. They carry water jugs drawn from taps inside church. An orange electrical cord from the only available outlet at a church house snakes 50 yards across the camp to a floodlamp. A garbage truck picks up one trashcan per week for free, but 100 people produce dozens of bags each week. Residents depend upon volunteers to drive to the local dump.

The only entrance is a security post constantly staffed by volunteer security. The perimeter is guarded by a fence of orange plastic netting four feet high. It is not easy for trespassers to get over or under this orange netting, and if they do, residents would quickly confront them and toss them out. Unlike shelters, Nickelsville allows residents to leave all their possessions as they go to work jobs. There are no storage lockers.   Everyone is hyper-vigilant about trespassers intent on stealing their last worldly possessions.

Turnover is high. Population fluctuates at around 100 residents. Nickelodeons are every race and age, from teenagers to seniors in their 70�s, including a family with kids. Most residents are male, but 30% are women of all ages. Demographics reflect the local urban population: 50% white, 30% black, 10% Latino, 10% American Indian. Also one big chocolate dog, several cats and a half dozen goldfish.

Many residents are fit and robust, resembling rugged 19th century western frontier pioneers, complete with full beards and frontier wives. It falls below freezing on winter nights, so Nickelsville is not for the infirm. Nickelsville is not ADA compliant, since it is just an illegal hobo camp in the eyes of regulators. The infirm in wheelchairs may be better served by indoor shelters.

Many residents work some kind of part-time or full-time job, and some boast they buy all their own food, clothing and supplies. Others complain of barriers to employment: If you lose your ID, it is almost impossible to get a new WA State ID card or social security card if you have no mailing address or proof of residence. Prison parolees complain no employer will hire them for anything at all. For such folk, Nickelsville and Tent City are essential, if they�ll accept them. Both camps run background checks using public records at the public library, to screen out and deny sex offenders and other violent felons.

They are restaurant waiters and retail clerks. We wished good luck to one young fellow with a job interview at Big 5 Sporting Goods. He got the job. Another has worked for a year as a waiter in a fancy restaurant downtown. Yet waiters and clerks still cannot make enough money to actually sleep indoors. Many young people work two or three jobs but only get a few hours at each job, so employers offer no health insurance, paid sick or vacation days, or even holiday pay.

Many men and women here smoke. Smoking may be decreasing among yuppies, but Joe Camel still has a death-grip on the Worker Class. When uninsured lifelong smokers need end-stage cancer-related urgent care, they simply go to the nearest county hospital ER, Harborview Medical Center Emergency Room in Seattle, and stick huge ER bills to taxpayers. Way to go Joe. Many in camp roll their own using rolling papers and tobacco pouches. And yes, these rolled ones are tobacco�I checked. Pot has a very distinct sweet smell, and I didn�t smell any here, since pot means instant eviction.

Many men and women here have terrible teeth, gum disease, crooked teeth, some missing entire rows of teeth. I saw many brushing, but no one flossing. Many never once in their lives had dental insurance or cash for the dentist, and it shows in their smile. I enjoy perfect teeth and floss every day. Frankly I was shocked by their teeth on my first visit to this camp: Is this 21st Century America or Georgian England?

Diet is not balanced here. Because they rely upon University Food Bank, they often have no idea what they�ll scrounge up. Someone might grill sausages on white bread for a group lunch; someone else might grill sliced turkey on white bread for dinner. Your next meal might be an apple or banana, or a donated Weight Watchers TV dinner. Top priority is anything that can be grilled and served hot, especially fatty protein, meat of any kind, favored by many in this freezing gray drizzle.


BAKUNIN ANARCHY

Nickelsville leadership is the closest I ever experienced to Mikhail Bakunin�s Anarchy Ideal: Who leads the nightly meeting as dozens gather around the fire at 6PM? YOU DO, if no one else raises their hand fast enough. Who offers a proposal to be discussed and voted upon? YOU DO! I was impressed by the SPEED of these 6PM nightly meetings: Dozens huddle around the fire in silence, yielding to whoever has the floor. Anyone can raise his hand. Chair recognizes the raised hand as the resident quickly states his proposal for vote. Chair barks: �All in favor raise hand say Aye! All opposed? Ayes have it proposal approved! Next!� Laws and actions are proposed and passed in as little as one minute. A half dozen proposals are approved or denied each night in barely 15 minutes.

�We need someone to fix this!� Say that here and they�ll laugh: �Now just who is that someone?� Obvious answer: Take ownership and fix it yourself. In these nightly meetings you rarely hear �someone.� You mostly hear: �Me, I�ll do it, I volunteer.�

I was impressed by a dozen examples of generosity among penniless residents: Without being asked, one man bought Spud a new leash because he felt Spud needed it. If someone could use your help, help! Take ownership. Fix the problem. Be the Good Samaritan.

COMMUNITY. SOLIDARITY. EMPOWERMENT. Such values are amply evident at Nickelsville. This may indeed be the Solution to this Neocon Great Depression, just as Hooversvilles were the solution to the 1930�s Republican Great Depression.

POLICE RAIDS

Nickelsville began in South Seattle, but was torn apart in a September 2008 police raid that arrested 22 for �criminal trespassing.� Nickelsville then established in Discovery Park at the invitation of United Indians of All Tribes on their land at Daybreak Star Center. Police posted �NO TRESPASSING� signs and threatened to arrest them again for �criminal trespassing,� chasing them out after just one week in October. The first U-District location at 50th Street was a church parking lot across from University Christian Church, the host, but only for two months until December 5 2008, since Seattle was threatening the church with zoning fines.

On November 30 2008, the congregation of a neighboring church, University Congregational United Church of Christ, voted to host a new site in their parking lot across from UW campus for another 90 days. The congregation vote was 166 for, 99 against.   It will cost them thousands in lost parking revenue. The new camp was erected on December 5. The church is the only reason police allow Nickelsville to stay: According to city, state and federal law, churches are allowed Safe Haven Sanctuary: Police are forbidden to harass and arrest folk on church grounds without substantial probable cause.

But when those 90 days are up, Nickelsville must once again sail like the Flying Dutchman to strange new shores. Even if they find a property owner happy to host them, some city will undoubtedly sue both Nickelsville and the property owner for zoning violations. For all the lawyer fees and raids, it would be much cheaper and easier for all concerned to let Nickelsville anchor at a permanent home.

SECURITY

To decrease possibility of a �Probable Cause� police raid, Nickelsville security is hyper-vigilant and rules are strict, some say too strict: You can be evicted just for cracking one beer. Instant eviction if they smell pot coming from your tent. Instant eviction for any drink or drugs. Instant eviction for fighting, theft or littering. You might be evicted just for saying, �I can�t stand this cold muthafukn rain!� One resident explained: �We have kids here so we have zero tolerance for cursing.� One security volunteer claimed: �No more than 2% get denied or evicted here.� Another security volunteer just laughed when I repeated that: �Nah man!   We deny and evict a lot of people for behavior and drugs and booze and even just for cursing. In fact I think we can be too strict!�

Off the record, two security volunteers offered this, in bits and pieces over a few days: �When we first set up at 15th and 50th, we found out the Ave where all the junkies and drug dealers hang out was just one block away�. Ave Rats, teen runaways, junkies, meth-tweakers and drug dealers tried to trespass, because they assumed we were just like them, just a bunch of drug addicts and runaways�. We just had our Discovery Park location destroyed. Aint no way we gonna let these Ave Rat junkie teens cause another police raid�. My security slapped those fools right back to the Ave. I won�t say what we did. But I�m a big dude and fearless�. For a security emergency we do this thing we call a �Show of Force,� when a bunch of us back up security to do whatever is needed�. Now when I go shopping at Safeway or Rite-Aid on the Ave, those punks and drug dealers run when they see me coming�. My security will narc �em out, call the cops, get �em arrested fast�. Now they know their territory is the Ave, and our territory is this church parking lot, and they know it is strictly off-limits to them!�

What must it feel like to get evicted from a homeless camp? How low can you go? Some evicted wind up sleeping on sidewalks with no tent or sleeping bag, in danger of freezing to death on icy winter nights. But don�t expect sympathy from camp staff who are themselves living on the edge. They aint gonna cut you no slack no how: �That dude screwed up and broke our rules so we kicked him out,� they shrug, dismissing the miserable wretch shivering under the highway bridge. �Hell with him; we got plenty of other homeless folk happy to take his place.�

AMERICAN APARTHEID

The December 2008 Nickelsville location is across from University of Washington campus, one of the largest and most beautiful in America: Upper Campus is blanketed with redwoods, friendly gray squirrels and majestic century-old libraries. Lower Campus has one of America�s top ten hospitals, UWMC, a stadium, athletic fields, and a wetland wilderness full of bald eagles, great blue herons, ducks, Canada geese, seagulls, crows, chickadees, ruby-throated hummingbirds, raccoons and muskrats. Thousands of 3-foot-long Chinook and Sockeye salmon return each year to these shores on Union Bay.

I know every public computer and resource hiding on this magnificent UW campus. I could not understand why some Nickelodeons live just a block from campus but never once visited. So I handed out campus maps at Nickelsville and invited residents to my campus tour. A few declined to take my tour, self-conscious of their long gray beard and crooked teeth: �Sorry I just don�t fit in with them rich kids�I really stick out!� The few who did walk with me were under 30, white and clean-shaven. They easily could pass as UW students. Or so I thought. They had some community college but none had a university degree. Perhaps that is why they abandoned my tour before I was halfway done.

It was like trying to herd cats: Deeper into campus we walked, the more impatient they grew. I showed them my favorite libraries, public computers and phones. I wanted to show them upper and lower campus, but they abandoned my tour after only ten minutes. When we got to the HUB Student Center food court packed with students, they disappeared into the crowd. I assumed they lost me in the food court because they had money and wanted some lunch. I returned to Nickelsville and was shocked to find them all back at the fire grilling lunchmeat on stale rolls, as if they never left camp. One had already �lost� his campus map. One explained: �I have no use for phones or libraries and don�t type well enough to use internet computers.� One shrugged: �We don�t belong with them students.�

It was like taking a few Zulus on a tour of some white financial district in South Africa during the Apartheid Era. Class Apartheid is alive and well in America, so strong it brainwashed the public into steering away from their own resources. UW is a public university funded by sales tax. Each time a Nickelodeon buys a soda at the Safeway, 9% of his bill goes to support this university. Yet they saw only a campus of rich white kids and foreigners from Asia mumbling in some bizarre foreign tongue. UW campus might as well be some alien planet in a galaxy far, far away.

Is this 21st Century America or Georgian England? Class Apartheid in America is as strong as it ever was in England: Homeless camp residents in long beards and ponytails, missing teeth, covered in tattoos and piercings, wearing second-hand red NBA jackets, speaking in hip hop street slang, do resemble Georgian Era pirates. I swear I met Long John Silver and Captain Jack Sparrow.

Walk through frat row: Fratboys who never worked any job, business majors who drive huge gas-guzzling SUV�s, keep blond hair cropped in a Marine Corps buzzcut and consider any kind of beard or sideburns as some kind of commie pinko subversive statement. See buzzcut fratboys in Ralph Lauren sweaters guzzling beer outside their frat, staring as some Nickelsville resident in long hair and beard struts past to his tent: Property Class and Worker Class are now wholly separate species in this New Georgian Era.

INTERVIEWS

Over four hours of tapes caught their stories: Over a few weeks they filled my tapes with properly balanced demographics. Listening to these tapes, I am impressed by the stories of these folk and their dedication to Community, Solidarity, the Future of America:

NICKELSVILLE INTERVIEWS

NICKELSVILLE NEWS LINKS

WISDOM Y INSPIRACION

Spud Brubaker, Aaron Colyer

Dave, Aaron Beaucage, Aaron Colyer

Matt

Billy

Robert and Aaron Colyer

Local Hero Spud Brubaker, with Cory and Butch Brubaker