Above: David and Kathleen Bellefeuille-Rice were among dozens of volunteers who helped on Saturday to clean up The Jungle, a wooded area between Martin Way and Pacific Avenue near 3200 Pacific Avenue, where an estimated 150 – 200 people live. The cleanup continues on Sunday.
CleanUp Efforts Underway this Weekend
By Janine Gates
Little Hollywood
Editor’s Note: Little Hollywood was provided an extended, in-depth tour of
The Jungle on Saturday. Photos of specific areas and individuals were taken with
permission. Interviews were also granted to Little Hollywood with permission
that the information could be shared. Little Hollywood has chosen to use
discretion in revealing some names and information in this and future articles.
Dave, 49, is
a lifelong resident of Olympia, born at the old St. Peter Hospital on the
westside and is quickly slipping through the cracks of society’s safety net.
Waiting for Social Security payments that could qualify him for about $800 a
month, he has a blood vessel that puts pressure on his brain,
occasionally causing seizures. He’s going to counseling, which is the start of
a long paper trail, but isn’t optimistic that he’s going to get the help he needs. He said it took a
friend of his who had lupus ten years to qualify and start receiving payments.
Dave is
homeless, and has been a resident of The Jungle, Olympia’s largest homeless
encampment in the wooded
area between Martin Way and Pacific Avenue adjacent to the former Desire Video business
at 3200 Pacific Avenue, for the past two and a half months.
The Jungle, a
1906 classic novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton
Sinclair, portrayed the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in Chicago
and similar industrialized cities.
In Olympia,
however, The Jungle is spread out over ten acres and several parcels belonging
to three separate property owners. Three of the ten acres is a sensitive
wetland in the Woodland Creek watershed.
A major cleanup
there is underway this weekend. Instead of
the area being known as The Jungle, word is out that it is now called the
Jungle of Hope.
Sponsored by
Just Housing, a local housing advocacy group, the Socialist Party USA – South
Sound Organizing Area, and United Love in Action Coalition, the cleanup event
called Jingle of Hope continues on Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
As
volunteers gathered at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, the temperature was a
bone-chilling 35 degrees. Volunteers signed liability waivers and were urged
not to touch anything they didn’t want to, but to summon assistance from others who were trained to deal with sharps and other hazardous
materials.
Wheelbarrows,
gloves, rakes, shovels, and sharps containers were distributed. Groups were initially dispatched to specific areas in groups of three, but as the morning wore on, more
volunteers arrived to help, leading to an all-out cleanup of several areas.
A huge
dumpster, paid for by Indivisible Thurston County, is on site for the entire weekend.
A local
business, Kell-Chuck Glass, arrived early and offered their truck to help sort
and return shopping carts on the property to area businesses. By the end of Saturday, they had returned
about 120 carts. There are about 180 left.
Grassroots Efforts
Event coordinators
reached out through social media to spread the word about the cleanup of the camp,
which is home to an estimated 150 to 200 people who have nowhere else to go.
Volunteers arrived and offered their cars and trucks to take loads to the
landfill. Jungle of Hope residents also helped.
The amount
of debris is massive as years of discarded trash, human waste and needles have accumulated on
the property. Part of the area was a former housing site that burned down in
1969, remnants of which are still clearly visible.
Above: Tye Gundel, left, and Chelsea Rustad help coordinate cleanup activities at The Jungle on Saturday morning.
Of the cleanup
effort, “one property owner is supportive, one has not been able to be
reached, and the other, when contacted, allowed volunteers to use the former Desire
Video parking lot to stage and coordinate the event,” said Chelsea Rustad, one
of the coordinators of the cleanup.
“It’s been
interesting because the first question people usually ask isn’t how they can
help or what to bring, but whether we have permits. Permits of this nature
don’t exist because survival camping is illegal in Olympia, even with the
property owner’s permission, and that’s besides the fact that some of these
people will die from exposure if they are forced to vacate their homes in the
middle of winter. So there was also an opportunity to advance understanding of
the city’s ordinances and how they are designed to perpetuate houselessness,”
said Rustad.
“My stance
and that of the Socialist Party is that legality is not morality, and helping
human beings survive is more important than whatever oppressive laws happen to
be on the books at that time. We also recognize that many municipalities
intentionally criminalize the state of being houseless so that they can push
this vulnerable population away using the police force, and dehumanize them by
getting the general population to see them as criminals.
“Overall, I
feel it’s not my place to judge why anyone ended up where they are. They were
asking for help, and to be seen as human beings. Taking direct action to help
them without talking over them or putting myself in the spotlight was the very
least I could do,” she said.
Above: Tye Gundel of Just Housing, left, uses a pair of grabbers to pick up several needles discovered by Jungle cleanup volunteer Joanne McCaughan.
The homeless
who live there could also be called domestic refugees. They pitch their tents
and create flimsy shelters out of tarps and pallets, enduring year round
weather extremes. Mazes of paths run through the property. The terrain is
uneven and undulates with ravines. It would be easy to get lost at any time of
day or night.
Many
residents of The Jungle face medical challenges, unable to get proper medications,
and lack support of family. Many are lifelong Olympians. Some are mentally
challenged or addicted to drugs or alcohol. Some have been kicked out of group
homes that have failed them or are escaping domestic violence. Others are new
arrivals, down on their luck. Some are veterans, mothers, elderly and disabled.
Until
recently, a 21 month old child lived in The Jungle, amid the unsanitary trash
and debris and needles.
This past
week, Olympia area evening temperatures dipped into the 20s. Around the wetland
portion of the property, the temperature is at least seven degrees cooler.
Several
volunteers were asked how they heard about the event and why they came to help.
“We felt
like this community needed to be supported…we feel responsible. We need to work
together to make a community that is clean and safe and livable for all of us,”
said Joanne McCaughan. She and her husband Doug arrived early to deliver
several wheelbarrows and tools and work for as long as they could hold out.
“For me, as
a Christian, it’s part of the Gospel. The Gospel says that everyone deserves a
home. It’s that economic justice that Jesus talked about, and the prophets
talked about, and the dignity of all people. I believe God is concerned about
the dignity of all people,” said Kathleen Bellefeuille-Rice of Holy Wisdom Inclusive
Catholic Community Church.
“And we were
invited! That’s the other thing,” her friend Saima Scott interjected. “Phoenix
came to us and asked for help. When someone asks you for help, you can’t just
ignore it, you know? I mean, what do you do?”
Above: Phoenix Wendt is a resident of
The Jungle and started the idea for the Jingle of Hope cleanup effort. She has also
created a new group, United Love in Action Coalition. She provided Little Hollywood an extended tour of the Jungle of Hope. In front of her is The Thinking Tree.
Phoenix
Wendt, 35, is a resident
of The Jungle, and started the idea for Jingle of Hope. She most recently formed the
United Love in Action Coalition. Her efforts looking after The Jungle’s most
vulnerable residents and maintaining safety and order has been met with
appreciation and praise from others. She was busy along with others on Saturday
coordinating supplies and cleanup efforts.
Wendt has
lived in The Jungle since early June. She introduced me to residents and showed
me debris strewn areas with specific names like The Mansion and The Amphitheater,
trees with special names like the Thinking Tree, and a path named Blackberry
Lane.
One area is
comprised of residents who were cleared out by code enforcements officials from
behind the Veterans of Foreign Wars building on Martin Way near Applehill
Court.
“About
sixty-five percent of our residents have chronic conditions like lupus,
multiple cancers in various stages, and mental health issues….I can’t work
because of cancer and other medical conditions and I’m not letting go of my
people,” said Wendt, who is working to get 501(c) 3 nonprofit status for her
new organization.
The area has
been an encampment for decades but attracted more attention when Wendt
distributed a flyer earlier this month to Olympia city councilmembers during a council
meeting suggesting that the property was being cleaned and prepared for the
building of tiny homes for the local houseless community.
Near or at
the same time, the city, in response to recent complaints about the encampment, sent
courtesy notices to the property owners informing them of the encampment on
their property and requested that they correct the situation within 14 days.
Just Housing
says that courtesy notices have historically led to the eviction of an
encampment, but in this case, the next step is up to the property owners, who
have asked the city for more time to figure out how to proceed.
“We are
trying to work with the city, the property owners, the area businesses, and our
houseless neighbors in The Jungle to come up with a humanitarian path forward
that addresses the concerns and needs of all parties involved. This is a
complicated situation with many moving parts,” said Tye Gundel, a spokesperson
for Just Housing.
Just Housing
is also working with the city to work on possible revisions to the city’s
existing houseless encampment ordinance.
Interviewed early on Saturday, Kevin Neiswanger, general manager of the Mullinax Ford dealership, welcomed cleanup volunteers to use their restroom, eat their donuts, and get some hot coffee.
He says residents of The Jungle are pretty respectful.
“They come over and use the facilities and grab a cup of coffee. Sometimes we chat. We don't mind that. There's good people over there. I haven't had any issues with them,” he said.
He also said he doesn't want to see the residents kicked off the property in winter.
“That's not cool,” he said.
How to Help: The cleanup will continue on Sunday, December 17. Tents, trash bags, canopies, winter clothes, gloves, socks, bedding, hand
warmers, food and drinks, first aid kits and more are being accepted by Just
Housing.
For more
information, go to Just Housing at https://www.facebook.com/JustHousingOly
or attend a Just Housing meeting from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. every Monday at
the POWER office at 309 5th Avenue SE, Olympia. To
contribute monetarily, Just Housing uses a PayPal account at https://paypal.me/justhousing.
Above: A child's stuffed animal lies amid debris and leaves in the Jungle of Hope.
