Neighbors increasingly worried, want changes after shooting at Ballard encampment – KIRO 7 News Seattle

SEATTLE – A homeless camp in Seattle is becoming increasingly violent, but the city is inadequate. That’s what a group of companies, the Ballard Alliance, pretends to be in the neighborhood.

Now calls are getting louder for the city to take action after a gunfight injured someone in the park two weeks ago.

Tents in Ballard Commons Park have been an almost permanent facility for years. But recently neighbors said things have changed.

“I’ve experienced levels of violence and malice in the past six to eight months that have really never happened before,” said a Ballard resident who refused to give her name but has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years .

A video shared by the Safe Seattle Facebook group shows a man damaging vehicles and jumping onto a Seattle police vehicle earlier this week.

“It’s been escalating in the last few months and I don’t know how much more we can take,” said Legh Burns, a Ballard resident and business owner.

Burns ran a children’s program in the park called Ballard Thrashers Skateboard Club. But now the park is largely unusable.

“Parents don’t want their children to be supervised in this park. Not anymore, ”he said.

On Wednesday, Deedee Sun from KIRO 7 counted the park with currently more than 50 tents. A spokesman for the Seattle Mayor’s office Jenny Durkan said there are up to 70 unhodged people living in the immediate vicinity of the park.

“It’s about the height of the number of tents and people,” said Mike Stewart, executive director of the Ballard Alliance.

The group said they reached out to the city in early July last month with concerns about escalating violence in the park. Then, in August, Seattle police said someone shot someone in a tent. The bullet brushed the victim’s head.

There were also other worrying incidents this month.

“There was an attempted knife attack on a homeless field worker and a man who lived in a van was brutally assaulted,” Stewart said.

The Ballard Alliance wants people to be offered services and the warehouse cleared. She also wants a plan and schedule from the city.

“Enough is enough with that. We just don’t want it to escalate any further. The last thing we want to see is a death or a murder in this park, ”said Stewart.

The mayor’s office said Seattle Parks and Recreation is actively working to keep the park clean, and emergency teams have been liaising with the camp residents. A spokesman said six people in the Ballard Commons had been transferred to shelters since April and the city was working to build more shelters.

“The city shares the Ballard Alliance’s concern for residents who are currently living unprotected in Ballard Commons,” a mayor spokesman said via email. “While it is true that this camp is not currently a priority for removal in August, the city has invested significant resources in managing this camp, including ongoing education, cleaning and sanitation efforts that take place on a daily basis.”

The spokesman said Ballard Commons Park was on a priority list and that space for housing is one of the factors the city is using in deciding whether to remove the camp.

The mayor’s office added that outreach workers have made over 770 lodging transfers citywide so far this year, with the second quarter seeing the most lodging transfers and confirmed bookings.

I count 51 tents in the Ballard Commons Park homeless camp.

Some neighbors say the violence is escalating here. This month I was told:

– Person shot dead in tent August 13th – Attempted stabbing of field workers
– Man attacked in the van and taken to hospital

Public relations work is ongoing. pic.twitter.com/ESUVjn5sIk

– Deedee Sun (@ DeedeeKIRO7) August 25, 2021

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