Pushing back on the push-back on tiny home villages / Letter to Bellingham and Whatcom County officials

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Click the still frame of a YouTube video of the Bellingham City Council Community and Economic Development Committee to access the recording of the May 24, 2021 meeting

March 26, 2021 Dena Jensen

Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 09:54:49 PM PDT

Subject: Pushing back on the push-back on tiny home villages

Dear Bellingham City Council, Mayor Fleetwood, Whatcom County Council, and County Executive Sidhu:

I recently listened to Bellingham City Council’s Monday, May 24, 2021 Community and Economic Development Committee meeting. I wanted to address comments made by a couple of the City Council Members after Whatcom County Health Department Human Services Manager Anne Deacon gave her presentation. The presentation was on the Health Department’s Recommendations for Consideration by the Homeless Strategies Workgroup that the now-disbanded workgroup had voted to recommend to Whatcom County Council for approval. 

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Part One / Anatomy of a shutdown: How Whatcom officials pursued silencing one member of the Homeless Strategies Workgroup

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May 15, 2021 by Dena Jensen, with significant contributions from Sandy Robson

[Author’s note: In regard to the headline, officials might have hoped to silence a few more voices, as well, but I will stick to the public records that Sandy Robson recently received from Whatcom County to let readers decide. For context, I want folks to know that I have been following Whatcom County’s Homeless Strategies Workgroup meetings since the summer of 2019 and that I am familiar with the person who was the target of County officials’ silencing efforts.

I have interacted through Facebook with Markis Stidham – Markis Dee is his profile name – over the past few years regarding civil rights and social justice issues. Additionally, Stidham met with Riveters Collective Justice System Committee, of which I am a member, on a couple of occasions. I remember seeing him twice in public, in years past, at Dignity Vigils in front of Bellingham City Hall, and shook his hand once, although I don’t think he knew who I was at the time. Stidham read a public comment of mine at a Homeless Strategies Workgroup meeting on August 23, 2019.]

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Base Camp, or sweeps: City used Lighthouse Mission sheltering capacity to limit their emergency options last season

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May 14, 2021 Dena Jensen

In public records obtained from the City of Bellingham, emails revealed that leading up to the 2020/2021 winter season, City Planning and Development staff told emergency winter shelter providers, with whom they had partnered the previous cold weather season, that the City would not be operating or funding such operations in the coming season.

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Sweep the Sweeps; House, Serve, and Shelter / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Click the screen shot of text from the Bellingham City Club webpage describing the April 28, 2021 event, Chronic Homelessness: A Nationwide Challenge to view a web-based version of this information

April 29, 2021 Dena Jensen

Yesterday I attended Bellingham City Club’s online event, “Chronic Homelessness: A Nationwide Challenge.” This was Wednesday, April 28, the same day that Bellingham Police Department’s homeless encampment cleanup coordinator and fellow officers were out to clean up the “remainder,” as the coordinator described it, of homeless encampments at Maritime Heritage Park. (The ACLU equates camp clean–ups and camp sweeps.) Some other encampment locations had been tagged to be vacated or were given instruction to bring all possessions off the streets and into parked RVs. 

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Bellingham’s Youth Call for Gov. Inslee and Pres. Biden to Declare States of Emergency Due to the Climate Crisis / Press Release, Sunrise Bellingham

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April 19, 2021 Press Release, Sunrise Bellingham

Bellingham, Washington — The youth of Bellingham and its surrounding area, led by Sunrise Movement Bellingham’s middle and high school team, are demanding that President Biden and Governor Inslee declare Climate Emergencies on both the state and federal levels. This declaration would acknowledge the need for action surrounding the Climate Crisis, and also hold these powerful people accountable for taking definitive steps to reverse the effects of climate change.

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Take a hard look at Whatcom County’s Severe Weather Shelter history / Letter to the Homeless Strategies Workgroup

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Click the graphic image presenting Recommendations for Consideration by the Homeless Strategies Workgroup discussed at their April 16, 2021 meeting to access a text version on the Whatcom County website

April 21, 2021 Dena Jensen

Below is my email, sent today, to Whatcom County’s Homeless Strategies Workgroup:

Subject: Regarding the presentation related to severe weather shelters at the April 16, 2021 Homeless Strategies Workgroup meeting

Dear Homeless Strategies Workgroup:

Near the end of the the April 16, 2021 Homeless Strategies Workgroup meeting discussion, a motion was approved by the workgroup to recommend to Whatcom County Council a recommendation from Health Department/County staff. This guidance was a short term action step to establish a data collection process to assist in ongoing analysis and planning. 

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On pretext traffic stops and the Bellingham Police Department / Facebook post, Sj Robson

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Still frame from Bellingham Police Perspective Project YouTube video / 20E1: Race Policing & Defunding the Police, showing BPD officer Jon Knutsen talking with BPD’s then-Deputy Chief Flo Simon about race

April 18, 2021 Sandy Robson

Last Friday, the Whatcom Democrats Facebook page posted an April 15, 2021, article published by Vox, titled “Daunte Wright and the grim financial incentive behind traffic stops.”

The subtitle underneath the article’s headline reads: “How pretext traffic stops fund police departments — and put Black drivers in danger.”

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