Burien moves toward both homeless shelter site and camping ban
After months of debate on what to do about a small unsheltered homeless population, Burien is entertaining both building a sanctioned encampment an...
After months of debate on what to do about a small unsheltered homeless population, Burien is entertaining both building a sanctioned encampment and banning camping altogether. Currently, the city only limits camping in public parks. As Burien has wrestled with how to handle about 40 to 50 people living outdoors, officials removed encampments multiple times this year. And city officials have cited 'sidewalks' as alternative places for unhoused people to 'rest and sleep on.' The proposed ordinance is modeled after Bellevue's homeless camping ban, and it follows a trend of Seattle suburbs adding more punitive measures to their books to try and prevent homeless people from living outdoors in their communities.