Inside The Vital Community of Seattle's Tent City 3
Words and Photos by Asha Hendrickson
It’s the hottest day of the year so far. At least, it feels like it. The May sun glares down as cigarette smoke and the smell of sweat waft through the community area of the camp; there’s an assortment of tents and chairs, with one table shoved in the corner.
On the table is the only charging port in the entire place, with phones and cables scattered on top. A man sits, gaming on a monitor while others sit around the table waiting for their phones—vital connections to the outside world—to charge.Somewhere in the circle, Hans talks to me about his myriad religious beliefs. He’s working on shoving chunks of ice from a brown paper bag into a bottle of Simply Lemonade. A man and a woman sit near us, smoking cigarettes and trying to get their dog to drink water. Another man behind us is sweeping a carpet laid on top of the gravel.
Another man, who Hans explains to me is schizophrenic, stands behind us sweeping a carpet laid on top of the gravel. He’s mostly just sweeping dust into the air. “Dude... dude, stop sweeping!” yells the woman. “That is toxic dust. Fucking fools.” The man keeps sweeping, and starts pulling the carpet up, revealing a pile of hair stuck to the bottom. Hans interrupts his interview. “Bro. There’s fucking nasty hair and dust…” Hans starts to tell the guy. The guy cuts him off. “I understand that, that’s why I’m trying to clean the fucking thing off!” Hans starts again “I understand that…” The woman interrupts Hans to yell at the man again. “Go clean it outside then! Where people aren’t fucking breathing it in.” she mutters to the man “[name of man], I’m gonna lose my shit.” The man stays silent, and fiddles with his knife. Hans continues explaining his religious beliefs to me “Um… so, the Cathars were the first groups of Christians, and they’re actually descendants of ancient….”
A few minutes into our conversation, Hans asks the sweeping man if he can borrow his buzzer to give himself a haircut. The guy agrees, and disappears into his tent and comes out with a bag. He pulls a shiny metal hair clipper with an intricately engraved dragon on it. The two of them get up to go stand in front of a mirror that’s zip-tied into the fence. The guy puts a white towel over Han’s shoulders and plugs in the clippers. Hans stands there, buzzing his head and squinting into the mirror for about half an hour. Trains and ambluances wail by, and the sweeper guy stands thoughtfully next to Hans, giving him imput. Trimming layer after layer, he admires his new look taking shape. Occasionally, an older lady I'm talking to named Nyta interjects to laugh at Hans. She tells him it looks like a bowl cut. Everyone laughs. People sit around smoking, passing around the lighter, laughing, and talking. Once he's done, he comes over to us proudly. "She? What'd I tell you? I know how to cut my hair". Nyta says "looks good." Hans says, "I look like I'm 28 again." Nyta sarcastically responds "Oh ok, good luck with that." Everyone laughs. "If you look like that, I'm 14." She jokes. I ask Hans if he wants an After photo of his haircut. He says yes.
“Homeless, and not homeless.” He grins.
For many of its residents, Tent City 3 is the best housing option available. This tent city accepts homeless people who can’t get into shelters and other housing resources. Shelters are often full, and many other resources are underfunded, due to recent state and federal budget cuts. Also, some low-income housing options are so full of drug use and gun violence that the Tent City system feels like a better option.
SHARE/WHEEL Tent Cities are located at various host churches in the Seattle area and periodically move to a new location after about 90 days. They are a self-contained group of tents where people can live with less harassment from police or other citizens and can be supported by a community of other homeless people.
Even though TC3 is the best option for many, life in the encampment is both difficult and dangerous. Nyta, tells me many residents feel stuck at TC3. Tent Cities should ideally function as a temporary living situation, not the end-all.
“Tent Cities give you the ability to collect yourself,” she says. “Just sleep [and] collect your ideas.” However, after you’re able to collect yourself, it’s time to figure out how to get somewhere better. You need a next step, says Nyta. However, finding another place to live is extremely challenging.
Hans says people not living in TC3 would be surprised by “how hard it is to get yourself ahead and pull yourself out…” of TC3. Finding resources like food and water, or housing opportunities is like “a full time job …. When there’s only a finite number of resources available.” Hans says he spends his days searching for jobs, waking up early to return calls from possible resources. He has a part time job serving food and then returns to camp to individually apply to non-profit organizations on his phone.
Nyta, who is 58, is retired due to disability, but is too young for senior housing and social security benefits. Even if she tried to get a job again, “Nobody wants to hire…” older people because they’re, “not the next gen.” Nyta says many people don’t realize there are a lot of older people who are homeless. “My face is the actual face of the largest percent of the homeless,” she says, adding that TC3 has helped cushion that transition, for now.
Hans explains that the mood in the camp is usually “very stressful and everyone’s very on edge.” Nyta admits that it’s a camp where “sometimes you have to walk on eggshells.”
People are on edge for good reason. “Rampant drug use, stealing, [and] vandalism.” are all common, Hans tells me. He says that “You gotta be on alert all the time, because if you slip up, like even leaving stuff in your tent, people go through and rummage through your tent.”
There are supposed to be guardrails to keep this kind of activity in check, but in the democratically organized camp, even low-level corruption finds an entry point. Executive committee members are residents that volunteer to help enforce rules and run TC3. Some serve as security guards and others help impose order. Known around camp as ECs, they have authority over other residents to enforce rules about these problems in the camp, although sometimes ECs “take that little power a little too far,” says Hans. Even though there are mandatory weekly meetings and votes on rules for camp management, dynamics in TC3 often turn into a power struggle between residents and ECs.
The tensions are intensified by conditions in the camp itself. The TC3 tents are all old, have holes, and offer little shelter against the elements. The winter is no better than the current heat. This year, eight tents collapsed from the snowfall, according to Nyta, and they all helped shovel residents out to make sure they were still alive. She notes that no outside aid was sent to the camp.
“The tents you get put in, you don’t know who was in there before you, quite often there’s mold, human lice, fleas, mites, scabies,” says Hans. He tells me he spends a lot of his time cleaning and disinfecting his tent, since he had to be medicated for scabies previously. The smell of human sweat, waste, and dust hit me as soon as I walked into TC3. The stench is stronger near the row of Honey Bucket porta potties that line the outside of the camp, and it’s not hard for me to believe that sanitation is a daily struggle.
Hans informs me that there is no safe running water at TC3, so they only have porta potties. He tries to find public bathrooms with running water where he can wash his hands. TC3 has no showers, either. Residents must wait in line for around two hours for a public shower, and drinking water is hard to come by. “You learn to conserve everything in this life. You have to realize that every drop of water needs to be conserved, because you don’t know when you’re gonna be thirsty.”
Despite the scarcity, while I was visiting this spring, a quiet resident who lived there kept offering me a bottle of water. I refused multiple times, but he kept insisting I take it since it was so hot out. I was so moved by this simple gesture of generosity, but it wasn’t an isolated event. Sharing resources is an important piece of life at TC3. While there are many fights over those resources, it’s also a given that when someone is in need, others will give if they can. Sometimes scarcity can lead to a selfish mindset. But in this case as in many others, at TC3, it’s the human empathy that stands out.
“We really love each other,” says Nyta. “Even though our backgrounds are different— whatever causes us to be here is different—it’s a family.” She thinks what would surprise people the most about TC3 is the “fact that you find out within 30 seconds of being here, you’re not alone.” That’s a big deal for folks who usually don’t have a lot of options for community and people to rely on. Within TC3, Nyta’s known as the Blanketmaster. “If you’re short a blanket, we’ll check how many we have, and offer you a blanket,” she explains. “We really look out for each other.” She lights up when talking about all she does and would do for TC3. She takes her role as camp caretaker seriously. She vividly conveys the urgent and authentic closeness of this place, even if she hopes it’s not her forever home. People need community to rely on, always. At TC3, community is woven into every aspect of life. Here, she knows, generosity isn’t just sharing, its survival. “It’s always pay it forward,” she says. “Everything here is pay it forward.”
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