Jennifer lost her house in the recession. If it weren’t for Tent City 5, Jennifer would be out on the streets homeless.
Tent City 5 Interbay is the first city-sanctioned encampment to open in Seattle. Roughly around 50 homeless people call TC5 home. At the moment, Tent City 5 has large tents set up as dorms for men and women coming in to see if they are a fit for the community and 27 cabins or tiny home cottages for homeless people to have privacy and security.
There are six or so porta potty bathrooms just outside the camp and a large tent used as a pantry to store food. Tent City 5 was just able to get electricity to the food tent but they did not have refrigeration to keep the donated food from going bad. Thanks to all the wonderful people who support our work we were able to buy two refrigerators from Best Buy that were delivered to the tent camp yesterday.
As an old hippie, I love the tent city model but they should not even exist. I am grateful that Seattle allows tent communities and support the residents with case management and other services but they are nothing more than a band-aid.
When I asked Jennifer what she would like people to know about homelessness that they don’t know Jennifer responded: “don’t judge the people.” Jennifer has never touched drugs or alcohol in her life. She is disabled and cannot work. She lost her house when the economy crashed. She is not homeless by choice.
