WA mayor claims King County officials are enabling homeless camp in violation of city code: 'Our hands are tied'

Officials in Burien, Washington are accusing King County of creating a homeless encampment in the city without warning or proper management to retaliate against the city in response to an ongoing legal battle.

According to Burien officials, King County installed a permanent fence around the tents in the parking lot of the King County District Court and is providing portable restrooms and handwashing stations at a cost of thousands of dollars per week.

Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling told The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI, “We're trying to save lives and the King County government is not also doing that. You end up with the King County government and the sheriff's department, creating a large encampment on government property. We have directed our service provider to work on getting people off the street and in the shelter and services, and we are directly running into the sheriff's office and the county government not working on that with us.”

Earlier this year, Burien filed a lawsuit against King County and the King County Sheriff's Office for refusing to enforce any portion of Burien Municipal Code 9.85.150 that prohibits encampments within 500 feet of libraries, schools, daycare centers, and other specified locations.

Schilling said that as a result of the encampment, “We're continuing to have issues associated with not just public camping, but tons of public trash, violence, folks not being arrested who might have warrants, drug dealing, drug overdoses, and we're seeing all of that and that's happening right in front of the Burien police department’s building.”

According to a spokesperson for the city, Burien can’t legally authorize outreach efforts on county property and the county hasn’t responded to the request from Burien. Schilling said, “We continue to say to the sheriff's office and we continue to say to Dow Constantine at the county executive's office, ‘These are these negative externalities. These unintended consequences are happening, and you're not helping us fix this problem. In fact, you're being a detriment to this problem, and we're seeing constant continuation of these unintended consequences.’”

Schilling continued, “It might be that the county is saying we don't want to help get these people off the streets in the sheltered services. So, we're at a point where the frustration in the community, our hands are tied and the community knows it.”

He noted that residents “want to see public safety and they want to see people get off the street and into shelter and services, and until the sheriff's office and Dow Constantine agree to do that, we're going to be stuck in the situation.”

According to the lawsuit, the sheriff’s office is breaking its contract to provide police protection for the city of Burien by telling deputies to not enforce the new ordinance.

Schilling added that the Washington’s State Supreme Court already ruled that cities have general policing powers to regulate public space but because the King County Sheriff won’t enforce the law, the homeless are not “moving from there into the permanent supportive housing. They are choosing to stay in the encampment and not going into the permanent supportive housing. So, there are units in the permanent supportive housing building right now that are empty because there's no mechanism to get people off the street from tents into this really expensive permanent supportive housing that we spent.”

Schilling pledged, “I'm not going to stay silent about it. I want to get people off the streets and into shelter and services. The majority of my council wants to get people off the streets and into shelter and services." He added that "the majority of people in King County want to see these issues be fixed.”

“They have now had for years record overdose deaths, record increased homelessness, and I'm pretty sure the communities of King County are ready to see some change.”