The Moral Dilemmas of Unity Commons

What it is really like to live across from a homeless shelter with over 100 photographs and video clips

I live in the single family dwelling closest to Olympia’s newest homeless shelter and permanent supportive housing project, Unity Commons. It has been open for a little over a year now. Despite assurances the project would be a good neighbor and have open communication with the Applehill community, it has not.

This article should serve as a warning to other neighborhoods. Your input does not matter, they will do what they want without care to opposition. They will pretend to work with you to check the box of neighborhood engagement but they see you as a problem to solve not as people with reasonable concerns. A good example is the sex offender housing currently proposed in Tenino.

Sign outside of Unity Commons.

I used to deride NIMBYism. No more. I wish I could report that the project has worked with us, heard us and done everything they could to prevent impact, but I cannot. The project, managed by Low Income Housing Institute and Interfaith Works has provided shelter and housing for approximately 125 people and that is wonderful.

We want this.

But we also want safety and peace in our neighborhood.

People doing drugs next door to Unity Commons, right out of sight of the cameras. They are still seen.

Our once extremely copacetic neighborhood has become unpleasant and violent. Residents are faced with constant unpredictable behavior, leading to moral and ethical dilemmas that are difficult emotionally.

We have also borne hard costs to fortify our homes and cars with various security devices. One neighbor bought a large dog for protection.

Within a mile radius of my house there has been more than one shooting and more than one dead body including at least one murder. There are many overdoses, most are not reported. There was a rape in the woods behind my house, a woman running down the street naked and bleeding at 2 am last summer.

There are constant fights. Most are verbal and while loud and with a lot of “fuck yous,” seem to resolve on their own. Some escalate and are serious. A month ago, there was a woman screaming in a way that chilled me. I called that one in and there was an assault arrest. There have been multiple armed robberies and at least one carjacking as reported by the Thurston County Scanner Facebook page within a couple mile radius.

We have to be ever vigilant to prevent the situation from exploding into an Ensign Road/Jungle FUBAR dystopia. On any given night there are at least a couple vehicles camping in front of my house and usually at least one RV up the street.

There seems to be camping or other activity in the woods behind the VFW. I see people using the private View Hill Road to access the space and there is an ever increasing cascade of trash on the Martin Way side, you can see it to the left of the VFW when you pass.

The last time there was a camp there it was over fifty people and was a real problem. Campers would trespass on my neighbors property 24/7 to steal water. Another neighbor was threatened by a man demanding she drive him somewhere. Someone I know was chased home, and another time a man followed a child into a home.

There have been fires in the homeless encampment at 8th and Pattison, the toxic fumes leading to health issues for vulnerable residents.

First five images relate to camp at Pattison and 8th. Lower right picture is from the Jungle which is 1/4 mile away.

There have been stolen vehicles recovered and porch pirates, you have to be on high alert for any package delivery. From my window, I watch men on bikes circling the parking lot of the apartment complex across the street from me, openly casing homes and vehicles. I have heard a report of a man following the Amazon truck.

There are frequently shopping carts abandoned on our narrow street, a traffic hazard. No retailer will claim them.

I watch people appear to be sorting booty, evidence in the discarded price tags and packaging of retail goods or empty Amazon boxes left strewn. I have found discarded mail more than once. I have anxiety when I am getting a package because I am too poor to lose whatever it is I have ordered. I have stopped having FREE boxes because the items are not going to the kids across the street but will just be debris in a camp.

Porch pirate on Pattison Street.

Then there is the lower level quality of life issues which add stress to our daily life. Due to a prohibition on outside guests and no smoking within 25 feet of the project’s entrances, the railroad ties bordering the adjacent apartment complex have become a de facto public park for smoking, partying, dealing, nodding and tweaking.

This man below is seen here often, it is an incredibly sad situation, an obviously seriously mental ill person left to fend for himself on the streets, alone. It breaks my heart to see him discarded like trash.

This is not compassion and it is the opposite of progressive. Both my neighbor and I called this one in. It would be nice if there was someone at the shelter, visible in the background, who we could call to do an immediate welfare check.

Oftentimes the people gathered are partying, including loud music as larger groups of people gather. This can happen after midnight. If it is after 10 pm and/or there is more than four or five people I call it in. People in the apartments are working class and should not have their sleep disrupted by people being assholes.

The space across from my house has become a public park where open drug use and dealing is frequent.

It is not uncommon to find people either passed out or tweaking. It is easy to tell when people are using drugs, particularly at night, by the pattern and length of the flames used to chase the dragon. Curiously, weed is not really an issue, I rarely smell it, I can smell the acrid smoke of “fetty.”

These people appeared to be using drugs.

People also gather in the woods across from the project despite a fence and no trespassing signs. The fence has been cut and requires frequent repairs, trash is left for the property owner to clean.

There has always been litter on our streets but I often find piles of abandoned items and remains of “picnics” in the “park.” RVs are known to leave large piles of trash and other times trash is scattered by people going through garbage can and dumpsters in search of treasure.

Neighbors report people sleeping in the grass next to Unity Commons as well as people yelling and/or throwing rocks at windows to get resident’s attention, particularly annoying at night.

There is public urination but luckily not much defecation. I have seen people pee on the tires of my neighbor’s truck, sit on it, lean their bikes on it and once, unbelievably, dance in its bed. There have been men wandering in my yard, I don’t keep anything of value outside. My backyard deer perimeter was breeched recently in a suspicious way.

All of this is in the open, done with audacity and entitlement. They don't think anybody sees or cares. My desk faces out, the only way I can ignore what is happening is to close my blinds. Even then, there is noise—music, fighting, screaming—and in the summer, cigarette smoke and drug fumes drift into my bedroom as I sleep. This can be any time of the day or night.

People colonize the bus shelter near the Unity Commons, making it impossible for other riders to use. This is nothing unusual, when I took the bus I often had to stand when homeless people would not cede the space. I have a disability, severe chronic pain, and sitting for the bus is an accessibility issue for people like me.

It has gotten so bad that Intercity Transit has removed some stops, including one I used to use by Lacey Fred Meyer. This was a highly problematic stop. I often encountered people passed out on the ground, empty retail packaging and at times did not feel safe. Now riders have to wait in the rain or walk to the Lacey Transit Center, a hardship for the mobility impaired.

Intercity Transit removed the bus stop by the Fred Meyer on Sleater Kinney due to antisocial behavior.

Paratransit drivers have reported that safety issues at the 2828 Martin Way bus stop near Unity Commons has caused Intercity Transit to start a shuttle program so drivers do not have to take the stop, as well as posting security during shift changes.

I am constantly having to decide whether to call for welfare checks for people who are passed out on the ground, not moving. I have two doses of Narcan in my house, just in case, because I do not want to watch someone die.

You can get free Narcan here. It will be mailed to you. We are told we should all carry Narcan. Because we live in a dystopia where we have to function as EMTs.

I called for a welfare check for this individual who I watched pass out and fall off the railroad ties.

Other people are in severe mental health crisis. The decision to call OPD is harder, I have to triage. Is the person in danger of hurting themselves or others? I don’t want to overwhelm OPD, while at the same time it is painful to watch as a human. You feel completely powerless to do anything.

It does not feel safe to intervene as the behavior can become quite erratic. Some people appear to be in meth induced psychosis as was the person who beat up my friend’s relative near Percival Creek. Here is the story of Udo, a 72 year old who was randomly attacked in 2019. This article talks about the perpetrator.

I did not call for the person in the first video below, while he was clearly troubled, it seemed benign in terms of immediate harm. I did call for the the person in the next two videos when I watched him hitting his head on the sidewalk and bumper of the vehicle.

People will inevitably complain about calling OPD for welfare checks due to the “danger” to the mentally ill. Timothy Green, a man with severe persistent mental illness, was killed near my house this summer after he threatened to kill people at the Sleater Kinney Starbucks. He allegedly charged cops with a knife.

But when you see someone actively hurting themselves, acting violently, obviously fighting unseen demons, it is very hard to not want to do something.

Meg Martin, director of the program that runs the shelter and paragon of virtue, frequently tells me to call 911, see her correspondence at the end of the article. City Manager Jay Burney also endorses calling the police on illegal activity.

The pictures collected here were mostly taken from my desk, some taken from vehicles. A few were given to me from neighbors.

I apologize for the poor quality, aesthetics was not my primary concern in documenting and I was not thinking about publication. Generally I try to avoid being seen, because that can provoke aggressive reactions and I want to limit blowback. This means shooting through my somewhat dirty front window, made worse due to a screen.

I hate to resort to public shaming, one benefit of the poor photography is that it makes it harder to see faces. The only way to show the extent of the problem is to share these pictures. Over 125 images and videos are used in this piece, about a third of my overwhelming collection, chosen and grouped somewhat randomly.

They do not speak to what happens at night, when I am unable to photograph activity that I witness.

While I fear it is going to anger people, there is, however, hope that posting this wall of photographs is a flex that will get word out to those who need to hear it—avoid Pattison Street—you will be seen. Publishing these pictures is one small form of accountability.

Almost all of these photographs have been sent to Meg Martin, director of Interfaith Works, the organization running the shelter. Low Income Housing Institute is in charge of the housing portion of the building.

These photos, along with activity reports have also been provided to Jay Burney, Olympia City Manager and more recently to Kim Kondrat, the city’s homeless response coordinator. I have talked with OPD numerous times, they are fairly helpful in issuing guidance but can be spotty of responding to low level calls. My guess is there are more important calls at the time.

Multiple requests for comment for this article were made to Martin, Burney and Kondrat in the past month. All requests were ignored, as in not even declined.

I have been intentional about filing reports so they know exactly what it happening and cannot claim ignorance. I don’t send them everything, it would be a deluge, just the worst. I tried keeping a log to quantify and qualify incidents for a couple months, but it became too tiresome as there were so much to document.

I am hoping this compilation of photographs gives you an idea of just how relentless the asocial behavior is. It is uncommon for there to be a day without any drama.

Last May, Jay Burney, in a rare response, wrote to me: “What I see in your pictures are people in public places. That is not illegal activity.  The shelter and housing occupants are not criminals, they are people in our community just like you, just living and hoping to thrive here.  They should not be held to a different standard than anyone else.  As Meg stated, if you see them committing a crime, you should call 911.  Reporting everyone you see and assuming they are there to commit a crime is not a fair standard for them or anyone who calls Olmypia [sic] home.”

Could Burney be more condescending in his attempt to shame?

Could he care less about Applehill?

Could he take less responsibility for the results of his lack of leadership?

Does he not see reality?

So many questions.

I asked Mr. Burney if he would be comfortable with this in front of his house? At his children’s bus stop? Groups of men watching his wife home alone in her garden?

I hold these folx to the same standard as I do my other neighbors, who do not steal and deal, do drugs at the bus stop, loiter, start fires or camp in front of my house. The photographs are static, they do not show the entirety of the subjects actions.

As noted, Martin frequently advises calling the police, though she did not support increased policed engagement when she was on the panel developing the City of Olympia’s One Community homeless plan, of which very little has been accomplished in over three years. It is not even featured on the Engage Olympia home page. It can be found here.

Martin says the project is going to increase security and residents are going to do trash pickup. She claims to personally patrol the area in addition to shelter workers, but I have never seen her in a year of watching. I saw two people in yellow vests picking up trash once about a month ago.

In the interest of transparency, I am including most of her correspondence to me at the end of the article.

There is a clear correlation between the project and the loitering and other activities. This was not happening at this level before the project opened, only rarely would the “park” be used. It is unclear exactly as to how much has to do with actual residents of the project or why so many people are congregating in proximity.

Some is clearly drug related, dealing and using. I observe both almost daily, as well as the results of public intoxication. There are trap house cars, I watch people enter them, get high and leave. I see dealing out of windows, dude on a bike rolls up and an exchange is made. Luckily we have not seen many discarded needles, people seem to be smoking more often.

Unity Commons has a duty to practice harm reduction for the community as well as their clients. This is why NIMBYism exists, because the city and Interfaith Works/LIHI have not acted in a trustworthy manner in addressing impact.

If I could afford to move I would. Being extremely low income, I don’t have that luxury.

There is the cost burden of added security measures: cameras, alarms, devices for cars, protection for catalytic converters, better locks, lighting, fencing.

OPD provides free security audits, a service I took advantage of. They survey your property and give recommendations, including a demonstration of security devices and handouts. I found it productive and helpful, taking many of their suggestions.

Photographs of handouts from the OPD security audit.

Property owners pay tens of thousands of dollars in remediation after the camps are removed. This includes dealing with biohazards such as discarded needles, sewage and rat infestation. When the camp was in the woods behind our houses we saw unusual patterns of behavior in the wildlife.

I cannot underestimate the emotional toll of constant and unpredictable moral dilemmas. The left constantly talks of unpaid emotional labor but this situation actually embodies that principle.

We are asked to care for people more than they care for themselves. We are asked to save people intent on their own destruction.

We should care for our fellow man as a default, but we are not mental health, EMTs or law enforcement professionals. We are being asked to function as such. If we do not, and let other suffer, we carry the moral stain.

After six years of living like this, with no end in sight, with incidents intensifying, there is deep compassion fatigue. While I can endeavor to reduce an individual’s suffering in the moment, I can not save people. It is not on me to solve their problems.

Unlike the compassionistas, I don’t brag about the acts of kindness I still do, but at the same time my heart is heart is hardening as people continue to violate my boundaries and take advantage of the situation.

I resent having to be the bad guy in the neighborhood calling out these aberrant behaviors and the police. I resent doing security for the project for free. I don’t want this job.

I wrestle with calling the police too much, being seen as a crank who cried wolf. At the same time, I have been told the more calls there are to a location, the more patrols we will get. Also boundaries need to be set.

It does not feel good, but if we do not have zero tolerance we will end up with an Ensign Road situation. It had already happened on Pattison between Martin Way and Pacific Avenue.

There have been RVs with kids and a senior citizen couple who were actually good neighbors but due to the greater situation no exception can be made. As soon as there is one or two vehicles the camp will quickly grow.

A stretch of Ensign Road before the camp of sixty plus vehicles were removed.

We have to have zero tolerance because boundaries are constantly pushed. We are shamed for even having boundaries, for wanting to protect family and property, for refusing to accept pathology as normal and OK.

BEKIND ideology prioritizes the needs of the antisocial by angel winging perpetrators and using emotional manipulation, particularly guilt, to keep criticism from victims to a minimum.

To speak out is to be accused of being anti-homeless. It has been said that I want to jail all homeless, or worse, exterminate them. Nothing could be further from the truth. I ran for council because I want something better for them AND for the community.

Some of the psychological effects of living next to Unity Commons include anxiety about being broken into, especially when people see me leaving my house. I am becoming hypervigilent, especially to fighting. I feel violated when there are men in my yard. It is creepy being watched while I am in my garden. While I generally feel safe in my house, I still have had nightmares about being attacked.

Trauma informed care touted by Meg Martin does not include trauma like mine.

I have some fear of retaliation for publishing this article.

I do not think it is too much to ask for Unity Commons to be a partner in the neighborhood. It was refreshing when Century Communities, who owns the parcel on Pattison and 8th, were immediately responsive to complaints about the camp. They trespassed campers and will be checking the property frequently.

I have reached out to the apartment complex across the street more than once. Despite their property being a target, damage being done, and residents being annoyed, they are not responsive. They could improve things greatly by adding spike strips to the railroad ties to prevent loitering.

This man just urinated in the bushes of the apartment complex adjacent to Unity Commons.

The best solution is to have someone on site at Unity Commons 24/7 with the goal of keeping the property and the neighborhood problem free, including the bus stops, withing a one block radius.

Neighbors and businesses should have a way to contact this person directly to do welfare checks, address antisocial behavior and do outreach to campers. This person needs to coordinate with the city for backup on code violations involving RVs and camping on private property.

Unity Commons should do outreach to neighbors. They did not even invite us to the grand opening. At the minimum they should hand deliver fliers with contact information to residents of Pattison Street and Applehill.

Some residents of the apartment complex are still not aware of the nature of the project. People do not know who to contact about problems, they do not have the time and/or they are afraid of speaking up.

We were promised input through a Citizen Advisory Board. This has not materialized, Meg Martin has take no action to stand up this group which could go a long way to integrate the project. She is opening a second project in the 3400 block of Martin Way and the board could be useful for both projects.

It should include residents from the neighborhood and the projects, representatives from the nearby businesses that are affected, liasons from the city, ideally someone from homeless response and from OPD. IT should meet monthly and be proactive in addressing issues and concerns.

Interfaith Works and LIHI are responsible and accountable for setting the tone for behavior around their projects. They should be the ones providing security, not Applehill.

They have no incentive to do so as there are no penalties for their failure. Nobody is responsible for what is happening in front of my house, the blame is passed. At the least they could be honest, but they are not even that.

For example, the FAQ previously on the Unity Commons website claimed their project will increase property values. I could not find it anymore for this article. This is laughable. Nobody is going to pay a premium to deal with this.

During a very tight real estate market, the house I rent was sold. It took five months and finally went for $45K under asking price, which was a hit to the owner who was selling to start a small business.

A solution for the bigger picture involves privatized urban camping. I have watched our local government fail for FOUR YEARS to stand up a basic camp site for RVs. Time to turn to the private sector which could provide a quality product at a reasonable cost. Another benefit is that they would be allowed to have sober camps, which is necessary for those in recovery as well as those who prefer to not live around addiction for other reasons.

This situation is not sustainable. The longer people are on the streets, the more harm is done to the individual as well as the community. The post below is recent, from Nextdoor and speaks to the human toll.

The second phase of Unity Commons is about to be built. It means more disruption. Another season of noise, dust and street closures. That is a small price to pay to get people housed, a price our neighborhood is willing to cover.

What we really care about is both being AND having good neighbors. Most certainly, most residents of the project are not the problem and we welcome them.

We do not welcome the people trashing our street, doing drugs in front of our kids and looking to prey on us.

We are watching.

MEG MARTIN CORRESPONDENCE

I did not save all of it, there are gaps, this is what I had. I have never seen Martin herself or any of her employees doing patrols or managing any situations. I have seen trash pickup once, in December. I am not saying it does not happen, but I have not witnessed it. Martin claims go go down Pattison “multiple times a day,” surely I should have seen her at least once?

Despite her continued claims to be addressing the issues, they have only gotten worse over time. There was a brief lull in November/December where it was not quite as bad as summer but January was back to almost daily drama.

All statements are unedited.

April 15, 2022

I have let our team know about this concern and we will continue to talk with residents and staff about being good neighbors. We are proactive about monitoring the surrounding area to the best of our ability (perimeter safety checks/rounds of the building and the surrounding areas regularly throughout the day and night), and as residents of the neighborhood, people can move freely just like you and I so there are limits to our control. Please know that if you are unsafe and fearing for your physical safety you should call 911. I do not recognize either of these individuals as Unity Commons residents, but even when people are not residents we definitely still talk to them and encourage people to be respectful of the neighborhood. We will continue to set the expectation about being good neighbors and would really appreciate you keeping lines of communication open about concerns you are seeing.

April 20, 2022

I wanted to follow up. I checked in personally today on the car in question and they have a repair that is needed in order to move the car. It is a single woman and her dog who has a friend that is helping her who lives at Unity commons. They are very aware that she is not to be parked there, however until she can get her tire changed she won't be able to move. I am proactively working on helping her with that so that she can move. In the meantime I have asked her to ensure that the sidewalk is clear and we will have additional staff checking in on her. We are working to get it resolved as quickly as possible. Is the other neighbor you saw on social media who's having a hard time Aztec Lanes, the VFW, or someone else?

September 14, 2022

Candy, thank you for the continued communication. I was out of town but I saw all of your emails and have been discussing them with our team all week. The people who are residents have all been talked with and will continue to be talked with about impact to the neighborhood. We are more limited in our ability to leverage non residents to move from the city parking spaces but we are trying to work with them as well as that is the majority of the people on Pattison as far as we know. If you believe that illegal activity is happening please contact OPD about this. Also Kim Kondrat is the City homeless response coordinator who would be a good person to contact in terms of action that’s possible from the city.

There has been a drastic increase in encampment closures and sweeps lately in our area from private property as well as Lacey and camps in the state right of way. Ensign road is supposed to be cleared by the end of September and with only a limited number of spaces at the new quince street village for parking I am concerned that people will have no where to go. Sweeps are going to continue and will continue to displace people to other more visible areas around the city out into private wooded property which will have an impact on our neighborhood for sure. We’ve seen an increase in camping and garbage on Devoe twice recently, directly following sweeps that occurred nearby. 

I say that all to say that we will continue to do everything we can to be good and responsive neighbors, and to keep our neighborhood safe which is what the residents of unity commons want as well. Also we know that our work is in the context of pressures much larger than our building alone.

October 3, 2022

Thank you for continuing to share information with us about what you are seeing. In addition to our staff making rounds regularly throughout each day, we have been talking everyday with apartment residents and shelter guests about the concerns you have raised, and I have been going by multiple times each day personally and have stopped on the two occasions that people have been there when I've gone by to ask them to leave the area and they have. We are in communication with the apartments and are in very close communication with Intercity Transit as well. I'm not sure who you spoke with at the apartments who wasn't aware that there was a shelter in our neighborhood, but please feel free to give anyone my direct contact information.

If you are witnessing things that you think are illegal, please contact the Olympia Police Department. As I've said before, your emails are taken very seriously and we will continue to manage the block to the best of our ability. Thank you.

October 12, 2022

I want you to always know that I’m getting your messages and taking them very seriously. I’m working with our team to figure out if there are other strategies we can work on to improve this situation beyond what we are doing each day. We will keep working on it and keep working to improve it. If there are other neighbors you are talking to who are having problems please tell them to contact me directly so we can work with them as well. 

I’m wondering if you’ve gotten a response from the city at all about your messages?

October 28, 2022

Each day and throughout the night our staff make rounds and talk with folks about being good neighbors and taking care of the area. If illegal or dangerous activity is happening our staff are trained and expected to respond to it. When our shelter guests or residents living in the apartments are causing issues we are able to have more accountability with them, and it is well understood that continued issues may result in them losing their space with us if they are unable to uphold our expectation to be respectful of the neighborhood. This is something that we will continue to do and we are looking at other creative ideas to bring more visibility to our staff and guests who are regularly cleaning up trash, addressing car campers, and responding to crises that may otherwise go unmanaged in the neighborhood. When people are in the neighborhood or around Unity Commons who are not utilizing our services we have far less leverage for convincing them to respect the neighborhood and they often are not doing anything that the police will be able to respond to, but they are causing concern to neighbors. We work with OPD regularly to address illegal activity and I highly encourage you all to call the police if you suspect that illegal activity is going on. We will always continue to work with people to respect the neighborhood whether they are our residents or not, and I hope that you will see things quiet down again as we move into winter like we saw last winter. I have also reached out to the city homeless response coordinator to see if there is any additional coordination and support that the city can lend to help us. I go down Pattison multiple times everyday and stop to talk to people/keep an eye on what's happening as well. 

It is important to note that over the past two months there have been a significant number of encampment closures throughout the greater eastside of Olympia/Lacey that have had a large impact on our neighborhood. One morning I woke up to an entire camp of 8 people and three cars next to my house on Devoe that had appeared overnight because they were removed from a private property on Pacific Avenue. We were being threatened to be fined by the county and myself and my neighbors had to work to get it cleaned up. So I truly understand the impacts that these issues have on our neighborhood, and it has always been our intention to be as good as neighbors as possible at Unity Commons. While the Ensign Road relocation (it is fully cleared as of today) has been hugely successful in connecting people to housing in the Quince street tiny home village, there are certain vehicles that won’t be able to utilize that option and we’ve seen increases in car camping along Pattison in the last couple of weeks. Those are just two examples, but there have been a handful more of sweeps of large encampments (one on Fones Road) that are having an adverse impact - including on the state right of way camp clearings which is a targeted effort by the Governor's office and Department of Transportation. I say that to add context to why we might be seeing an increase lately. 

December 13, 2022

I have included Kim Kondrat, the city homeless response coordinator to this email as well because I know that her team has been coming by and talking with people in vehicles and camps this week and maybe she can give more information about those interactions. I have also continued to go by each day multiple times and will keep that up. We do not have jurisdiction over the parking spots on the street, but we do talk with people regularly and tell them how they can access the waitlist to get into our shelter (through Coordinated Entry), we try to problem solve with them to find other places they can go, and express to them that there are community concerns. We have these conversations whenever possible with anyone who is camping in wooded areas in our neighborhood as well. The challenge is that there are very few options for additional shelter and places for car camping, with hundreds of unsheltered people in our community each night. What happens when there are so few options is that unsheltered people move around the city while they are displaced from one spot and then another and so on. The city law is that people are permitted to park, can store belongings and can be in their car, but they are supposed to move spots every 24 hours. Patrol of those vehicles is driven primarily by community concerns to the city. Thank you for reaching out and please let me know if you have any other thoughts or observations. 

January 3, 2023

Thank you for your continued communication. All of these messages were communicated to our on site management team. Additionally I’m in the process of checking incident reports and getting information from our staff about what they saw regarding these incidents. We had already planned to implement security rounds for both of our locations which will be starting over the next few weeks. Additionally, this spring you will begin to see folks from unity commons in high visibility vests helping with neighborhood clean up efforts. The incidents that have been described in these emails occurred outside of and beyond Unity Commons, but we will always make an effort to support the neighborhood as a whole however we can. Cars are allowed to be parked for 24 hours at a time per parking spot and we do not have any jurisdiction over the street parking. We do and will continue to talk with people about being good neighbors and not sleeping in their cars even when they are not residents of ours. When people are residents of ours and are causing disturbances in the building or in the neighborhood we have accountability processes that we enforce. I'm hoping that you received a response from the city as well because these challenges are happening city wide. I'm grateful for the communication, we will continue to prevent as many incidents as possible. Your ongoing communication is helpful for that. While we know that rescheduled of our very best prevention efforts, issues will arise as they inevitably do when working with people in crisis. We will be as responsive as possible to those issues and do everything we can to mitigate them.

Comment on Facebook about Olympia City Councilmember Lisa Parshley defending theft.

FURTHER READING

Here is my previous article on Unity Commons, written a few months after opening.

Homelessness in America: the history and tragedy of an intractable social problem by Stephen Eide

Insane consequences: how the mental health industry fails the mentally ill by DJ Jaffe

San Fransicko: why progressives ruin cities by Michael Shellenberger

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Candace Mercer is an artist/writer/activist based in Olympia, WA. She has written on homeless response and political violence in the PNW. In 2021, she ran for Olympia City Council. Her art can be found at candio.com.