Updates from Chaplains on the Harbor: Homeless Plaintiffs Reach Settlement in Lawsuit Against the City of Aberdeen
From the Rev. Sarah Monroe of Chaplains on the Harbor. Reposted from www.ecww.org.
Early this year, a group of plaintiffs who lived along the Chehalis River filed a lawsuit as the city of Aberdeen announced its intentions to sweep and bulldoze their camps. Today, the city is settling with those plaintiffs. In the time since this lawsuit has been filed, it has become harder to survive as a homeless person in Aberdeen; you cannot rest on the sidewalks during the day, you cannot legally pitch a tent in most places, and public opposition around the issue has led to an increase in vigilante violence. Due to the lawsuit initiated by the plaintiffs, for the first time in Aberdeen, the city has allocated funds to open a sanctioned tent city, housing roughly 70 people.
In this settlement, all of the plaintiffs are offered a place in this sanctioned tent city and a guarantee that at least some measures will be taken to respond to the cold winter weather. This is much harder to do in a tent city with no options for heat than it would be with weatherized shelters such as those destroyed by the city at the river. I have been working alongside people on the streets for six years and I have seen so many people get sick or even die due to cold weather.