Burien City Council Accepts King County's $1M Offer to Establish a Tiny Home Village on Seattle City Light Property

by Lauryn Bray

With three hours to go before a $1 million offer expired, the Burien City Council voted 4-3 Monday, Nov. 27, to accept King County's offer and build a hotly contested tiny home village (THV) for the homeless in the Boulevard Park neighborhood.

The proposal was presented in May, without any decision for six months. Burien City Councilmembers Hugo Garcia, Cydney Moore, Jimmy Matta, and Sarah Moore voted in favor of accepting King County's offer, and Mayor Sofia Aragon, Deputy Mayor Kevin Schilling, and Councilmember Stephanie Mora were opposed. The vote means the City of Burien will establish a THV on Seattle City Light (SCL) property to provide temporary emergency housing for up to one year for individuals experiencing homelessness. The $1 million will be provided from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.

King County offered to support the City of Burien in establishing a THV after a large encampment was evicted from Burien's downtown library and City Hall area in March 2023. King County drafted the offer in May, but according to an email forwarded to Boulevard Park community members by organizer Vicky Hartley from Burien City Council candidate Krystal Marx, the offer "was floated verbally in April."

Burien Struggles With Homeless Encampments

Meanwhile, an encampment relocated to City-owned land that local residents had been using as a dog park. The City tried to enforce trespass laws against people living in the encampment, but police declined because of a 2018 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Martin v. Boise, that states local governments cannot enforce anti-camping ordinances if there is not enough space in shelters for their homeless population.

The City then leased the property to Burien C.A.R.E.S., the city's animal shelter/animal control organization, to make the lot an official dog park. Since C.A.R.E.S is a private lessee, it is legal for police to enforce trespass laws on people camping on park grounds.

Some of those who were forced to leave relocated to a small lot next to Dottie Harper Park before police posted signs warning campers to vacate by 12 p.m. on June 6.

Now that all three sites have been cleared of encampments and Burien's new ban on camping, Ordinance 818 (first championed by Mora) passed 4-3 and will go into effect on Dec. 1, Burien's unhoused population will have nowhere to go until the THV is ready, or until construction on the new Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) building wraps up. The building is currently scheduled to be open for use in May 2024.

Ordinance 818 bans sleeping in or on public property from the hours of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. People caught sleeping in tents on public property can be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor. With this new ban in effect, the responsibility of housing the homeless falls on private property owners like churches and nonprofit organizations.

In the end, after community members provided public comment and councilmembers added amendments to the motion, Burien City Council voted to accept King County's offer less than three hours before the 11:59 p.m. deadline. A subsequent motion to direct city manager Adolfo Bailon to begin community outreach immediately in the neighborhood surrounding the SCL lot, proposed by Schilling, passed unanimously.

Moore proposed a final motion to direct Bailon to work with staff to "bring back language to create exemptions from use restrictions in zoning code for emergency housing or shelters including tiny homes or Pallet shelters." The council voted 6-1 with Mora in opposition.

Community Pushback

The SCL property is located on the corner of South 136th Street and 4th Avenue South, near Kennedy Catholic High School. Business owner and Kennedy Catholic parent Lindsay White stated in her public comment to Burien City Council that putting a THV next to a high school is "very irresponsible."

"My current high school student dealt with several years of a sexual predator that targeted her in our business on 152nd [Street]. So the thought of that going on at her high school where she feels safe and comfortable is terrifying to me as a parent," said White.

White also said it's not just her teenage daughter she is worried about, but how the lack of resources and services around the SCL property may contribute to the project's failure as well. "$1 million is not going to solve this problem … I really applaud the Boulevard Park community for coming out tonight and letting you know how they feel about having this in their community where there are very few services. The SCL lot also does not have those services."

"It's a King County lot, which in the end we could say 'Burien City Council is condoning its placement there,' but King County will have oversight of that lot. King County will be running it as they've run their other encampment," explained White. "It's a failed system, and placing it next to a high school is unacceptable."

Code of Conduct

White was not the only community member expressing skepticism about the success of the project. Grace Stiller fears that if the shelters have too strict a code of conduct, few houseless folks from Burien will accept a tiny home and the rest will be filled with people from Seattle, "If local campers decline, who will fill the village then? Regardless of tonight's decision, it is important that the City implement and enforce its no-camping ban [Ordinance 818]. Otherwise, what would incentivize a homeless individual to choose a shelter with rules and code of conduct when they could simply live on the street without rules?"

"I believe the best solution is to connect Burien's homeless [population] with the medical, mental health, and detox services they need in Seattle, which has far more resources," said Stiller.

Stiller, and several others, brought forth concerns regarding code of conduct in the THV, specifically in regard to substance abuse and the benefit of high-barrier versus low-barrier housing.

"KCHA will choose the provider and every provider has tried and proven codes of conduct," explained Vicky Hartley, a community organizer from Burien's Boulevard Park neighborhood. "Leave it to the professionals."

The provider for Burien's future THV will most likely be the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), the agency that oversees the operations of 18 THVs in the region. LIHI has a policy forbidding the use of controlled or illicit substances including marijuana and alcohol in any public spaces within the property. For some people like Stiller, this is still a cause for concern.

"LIHI sent an email proposal to the Burien City Council on Nov. 19 including their code of conduct, which states in part, no alcohol or drugs including marijuana are allowed in any public spaces within the shelter property, or the surrounding neighborhood," explained Stiller. "Well, this leaves me with a few questions: Does this mean they can use drugs and alcohol in their private tiny home instead? Just not in the public areas?"

Support for Tiny Homes

Hartley provided public comment in favor of establishing the THV on the SCL property. "Let's quickly end this tonight and utilize the City Light property," said Hartley. "The Boulevard Park site is unsuitable for numerous reasons: noise and air pollution, aquifer reclamation site, poor lighting, food desert, not room for a fire lane, and many more. But I shouldn't have to go through this list again; it has been presented to you multiple ways and times. You are being inhumane by categorizing people who don't have a home as being all alike. The causes of homelessness have also been presented to you in multiple ways and times. All we have gotten out of this is that four out of seven of you lack credibility and value dollars over human beings."

Burien community member Linda Stryker also provided public comment in favor of a THV on the SCL lot. "I support a sanctioned THV on the SCL property that is staffed, fenced, and secure, and a step toward permanent housing. I have visited three such villages and know their success. And my kids went to Kennedy," explained Stryker. "If a citizen were in the water drowning, I would not spend six months searching for the perfect life raft but would toss any kind of flotation device for him to grab and survive. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good."

August Hahn, another Burien community member, had not planned on speaking at the meeting but took to the podium to, in his words, "divest some of the lies that had been spoken by members of the audience."

"Housing first does work. Houston, Texas, committed all in on housing first and they have managed to reduce homelessness by 60% [61% over the last 12 years] by committing government money," explained Hahn before directly addressing Mora.

"Sorry, Councilmember Mora, but it does take money to do this and money does not grow on trees," said Hahn. "The stench you smell is not the aroma of Tacoma — it's the stench of hypocrisy in this town regarding the homeless. You and the City Council have an opportunity to put some fresh air into this and stop punishing people for simply being poor."

📸 Featured Image: Tiny Home Village in South Seattle near Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and South Henderson Street. (Photo: Phil Manzano)