A fence was set up Thursday around a homeless encampment in Burien, Washington, after tents spilled over into a nearby parking lot.
The tents are now surrounded by fencing near the Burien Courthouse parking lot at 6th Avenue SW and SW 149th Street, Fox 13 reported.
A King County Facilities Management Division spokesperson said the fence was set up to make sure the court’s parking lot was available for its own purposes.
However, the spokesperson added that, “We are not using the fencing to establish or define a tent camping area, or control the tent camping that is present on the site.”
Video footage shows numerous tents squeezed together behind the fencing:
DOW PUTS SQUEEZE ON BURIEN HOMELESS, corralling them behind fences next to Burien Police precinct and courthouse. https://t.co/VUvONd8OB6@BurienPD @Burien @choeshow @DowC #burien #homeless #crime #fentanyl #overdose pic.twitter.com/gtWum3MLNr
— Burien-News (@thegem_news) May 17, 2024
When speaking of the fencing, Michael Collins, who has lived at the encampment for several months, told Fox 13, “It’s like they’re caging us in — like we’re a danger maybe. It’s kind of like a jail. Caged in like animals.”
Director of Facilities Management Division Tony Wright explained that some of the tents were making it hard for people to use the parking lot when they came to the courthouse. Wright also said people had complained about safety issues, KOMO News reported Thursday.
Officials erected the fence to create a boundary for the tents, however, the encampment is technically “unsanctioned and illegal,” the outlet said.
Meanwhile, Wright noted, “We’re not saying this is OK or this is your new future home but we also know that it takes time for folks to get located into different opportunities. The process is continuing to try to get these folks a more stable and permanent place to be.”
King County officials say a homeless camp on their property in Burien is not sanctioned and technically illegal, but people in the area say putting up fencing to contain the camp's spread and allowing the people to stay seems like an endorsement to them. Live on KOMO-TV at 6pm pic.twitter.com/IPwqqe0K5l
— Joel Moreno (@JoelMorenoKOMO) May 16, 2024
Per the Fox article, information on whether the fence will be taken down or if it will remain was not currently available.
On Wednesday, King County said its recent Unsheltered Point-in-Time (PIT) Count showed homelessness in the area had risen since 2022, King 5 reported:
In December, a government study showed the number of homeless veterans jumped more than seven percent from 2022 to 2023, Breitbart News reported.
