Western Reader
The residents of an upscale Seattle neighborhood are angry because homeless individuals constructed a swimming pool at their encampment. Officials refuse to remove it.
After months of expressing their concerns, residents in Highland Park, where the average cost of a home is nearly $600,000, describe the development as a slap to the face.
WHO DO YOU THINK THEY VOTED FOR? “Homeowners in the Highland Park neighborhood of Seattle are furious after a large homeless encampment installed a blow-up swimming pool and engaged in open drug use.”
— Irving Spud (@IrvingSpud) July 13, 2023
An Appalling Sight
A KOMO video captures a woman taking fentanyl in broad daylight while resting on a couch next to a swimming pool.
Herb Egge, who resides nearby, complained that strangers would completely desecrate the area. Someone stated that a pipe was used to fill a swimming pool.
Egge and other inhabitants of a senior living facility across the street from the camp fear one of the homeless individuals will shoot or rob them.
The encampment was the site of a recent homicide, but authorities in the crime-ridden city continue to drag their feet in removing it, despite the indignation of nearby law-abiding taxpayers.
There’s a heated discussion happening in the Highland Park neighborhood where someone inflated and filled a swimming pool right in the middle of a homeless camp. #FOX13 https://t.co/7xFB93Z0Wh
— FOX 13 Seattle (@fox13seattle) July 14, 2023
Residents claim they do not know where the pool originated or how it was filled with water.
The logistics are irrelevant to the residents who are concerned and angry about the expanding compound along SR 509 and Myers Way.
Initially, they claimed there were only a few RVs. Now, there are more than a dozen. The locals added many elderly individuals frequently hear gunfire from the encampment and therefore keep their draperies closed at all times.
Action Plan
Since a man was murdered at the encampment in May, the fears have only grown.
In a May interview with KING 5, Diane Radischat, a resident at Arrowhead Gardens, stated she and others in the multifaceted community care about the homeless catastrophe and that both concerns can coexist.
The Seattle Mayor’s Office stated in a letter shared by Radischat with KOMO that plans are being developed to resolve the encampment.
The Washington State Department of Transportation and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority must collaborate on these efforts. The residents’ worries come from the region’s continuous homelessness and drug crises.
This article appeared in NewsHouse and has been published here with permission.
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