Letter sent to Bremerton Mayor
NWH Director, Anton Preisinger, composed the following letter and sent it Mayor Wheeler of Bremerton, WA, in response to Ordinance No. 5482 to update BMC Chapter 9.32 entitled “Unauthorized Camping” that is listed on the 9/6/2023 City Council Meeting Agenda.
Dear Mayor Wheeler,
The last time that I got to say “hi” and shake your hand was at the Open House for the Eagles Wings Coordinated Care Clubhouse on August 5th, almost exactly one month ago. I was genuinely happy to see you there because Eagle’s Wings and our other service organizations in the region need all of the support and accolades we can provide them.
With that celebration in mind, and your evident support for our unhoused neighbors, it is impossible for me to imagine that you would breathe a single word of support for the proposed “anti-camping” ordinance being discussed at today’s meeting. Anything short of denouncing this ordinance outright will be a betrayal of everything the social services groups in the region are fighting for. Hypocrisy and cowardice are viewed by many as synonymous with politics and politicians, please take this opportunity to set at least one counter-example.
You cannot walk both sides of this issue. If this ordinance had been constructed in good faith, then we would know the locations of the sites being proposed for people to move to. The city would have recognized that vital need (as we have been begging them to do for years now) and started by providing the essential services and safe spaces rather than tacking those in at the end in a very weak attempt to satisfy constitutional requirements. You and I both know that proposing a site like that is only the first step in a long and harrowing quest that is as likely as not to end in failure - at least in any jurisdiction with such a weak commitment to its unhoused residents that there has been no emergency declaration to facilitate real solutions.
This ordinance is being pushed for only one reason - to give the city the tools it needs to perform sweeps and disappear the people it has failed in a last-ditch effort to appease housed constituents. Sweeps have been proven over and over to be ineffective and harmful. We need to house people from where they set up their communities or actually give them better places to be in the meantime. Forcing people to move with no effective support structure - the nonsense in the proposed ordinance is a joke - will result in people losing touch with vital resources and setting up new encampments elsewhere, all while we make them feel ever more like castoffs rather than severely traumatized members of our community that we want to see find safety and success. The very fact that we keep having these discussions and “debates” is evidence enough that there is little hope for rational and humane responses to the problems of poverty and homelessness; cowards keep demanding of those in service that we not only solve all the problems without adequate resources and while navigating conjured obstacles, but also endlessly affirm why and how we do so.
Please do whatever you can to take action in support of the people who need it most, our unhoused neighbors and those working to provide them with support and services. Quash this obscene waste of everybody’s time. Let us gather the people and groups who have been leading the positive efforts toward actual solutions on Dr. Martin Luther King Way and build a real plan. This would likely include some established open-air shelter locations around the city and county as proposed - but those need to be active and successful before there is any discussion like the proposed ordinance. Take action in this order, service and compassion first, rather than flipping everything on its head, and you will find that the problem solves itself because housed people don’t camp on your city streets.
Sincerely,
Anton Preisinger
Founding, Executive Director and Board Chairperson of Northwest Hospitality
anton@nwhospitality.org