What is Tent City?
Tent City is a group of homeless adults who share cooking and bathing facilities and sleep in tents. The managing agency is a non-profit organization called SHARE/WHEEL, (206) 448-7889. SHARE/WHEEL is the combined advocacy efforts of the Seattle-Housing and Resource Effort (SHARE) and the Women’s Housing Equality and Enhancement League (WHEEL). According to SHARE/WHEEL, most of the residents have jobs and are temporarily in need of housing. Their length of stay varies, but many residents stay only a few months or less. The typical stay is about six weeks, but there is no limit, and persons can reside in Tent City for as long as they have need. Tent City moves from location to location. The following cities have hosted Tent City: Shoreline (Shoreline Free Methodist, Prince of Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church), Seattle, Burien, Bothell, Woodinville, Tukwila, Finn Hill, Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond and Issaquah. Q: Has there been an increase in crime associated with Tent City? Cities that
“Tent City” refers to a temporary dwelling used by approximately twenty African-American tenant farmers in Lowndes County, who tried to use their new right to vote and were evicted from their land by White landowners. Some of the families lived on this land, which was owned by African-Americans, in tents for as long as two years.
