Here’s what it cost Bellingham to clear homeless campers from Geri Fields
Removing homeless campers from Frank Geri Softball Fields cost Bellingham more than $27,000, bringing the price of dismantling two tent villages to more than $100,000 during the past two months — even as a third encampment has returned to Laurel Park.
City expenses to remove campers, store salvageable items and collect trash from Geri Fields on March 16 cost $27,000 in labor and materials, Public Works Director Eric Johnston told the City Council in a committee meeting Monday afternoon, March 22.
“There was an extraordinary amount of waste that was created of things that were not salvageable at this particular encampment,” Johnston said.
Rain and mold ruined food, pet food and new clothing that apparently had been donated, and all of it went into dumpsters, Johnston said.
Undamaged items were stored and campers could claim them, Johnston said.
But the city’s focus on cleanup costs “demonizes everybody” and proves that the money the city is spending to keep homeless people from camping in public parks is a foolish expense, said homeless advocate Markis Stidham.
“I think that that conversation (about trash) could be used as an argument about why it’s cheaper to house people,” Stidham told The Bellingham Herald.
“Donations do hit the streets and stuff does get wet,” said Stidham, who is on the board of the nonprofit Serenity Outreach Services and an appointed member of the Whatcom County Homeless Strategies Workgroup.
Stidham said a cheaper solution would be to buy as many as 100 emergency shelters such as those built by Pallet SPC of Everett, which markets 8-foot by 8-foot shelters that can be assembled without tools for $4,900, according to its website.
They’re designed as homeless shelters or for victims of natural disasters, and include two beds, shelves, lighting, a heater and an air conditioner.
Such shelters could not only house those living on the streets, but also allow social services agencies to stop using motel vouchers for temporary shelter, he said.
Removal costs could go higher, as the city moves to dismantle the new Laurel Park encampment.
And the $27,000 price tag for Geri Fields doesn’t include the charge to dump 240 cubic yards of waste that Public Works and Parks & Recreation crews collected from the parking lot and ball fields, Johnston said.
Sanitary Service Co. hasn’t sent its disposal bill, Johnston told the council.
“We are doing our best to strive to follow the standard process for dealing with camps that are reported to us by members of the community,” Johnston told the council.
Several police officers were there to observe, with more on standby in case the Bellingham Occupied Protest attempted to prevent work from continuing as they did during the Jan. 28 removal of a similar tent village from City Hall and the Public Library.
That effort cost nearly $75,000, according to public records obtained by The Bellingham Herald.
“We were careful, slow and deliberate,” Johnston said. “We proceeded with caution. Wherever possible, we talked to some campers individually. In many cases, we were not allowed to talk to campers because we were somewhat blocked by protesters.”
Some tent sites had been abandoned, Johnston said, and some campers left and told the city to remove their belongings.
Waste collected at the Geri Fields camp, which lasted about six weeks, would have filled the beds of 220 pickup trucks, he said.
“That’s the equivalent of about 550 people over the same period of time,” Johnston said. “Clearly the conditions there were less than sanitary for anyone.”
Meanwhile, Mayor Seth Fleetwood promised that the Laurel Park encampment would be dismantled soon, but he didn’t set a timeline.
Officials at Base Camp, a temporary shelter run by Lighthouse Mission Ministries, said that 147 people stayed Monday, with space for 43 more people.
“(Base Camp) is not right for everybody, we acknowledge that,” Fleetwood said in Monday’s committee meeting. “There’s also a lot of overstatement. There is a process for re-entry.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Here’s what it cost Bellingham to clear homeless campers from Geri Fields."
