Monday, June 21st at 5:00 PM
The Olympia City Council Land Use and Environment Committee
City Hall, 900 Plum Street

Olympia City Council member Rhenda Strub has invited Camp Quixote (our local tent city) to make a presentation about our vision for a permanent site, with permanent green buildings, for homeless adults.  We want to create an intentional community that is affordable and environmentally sustainable--and a national model for housing homeless and very low-income people. 

WE NEED TO PACK THE ROOM WITH OUR SUPPORTERS TO LET THE CITY COUNCIL KNOW WE CARE!

Your presence at this meeting will make a difference for the homeless and low-income people of our community.  Rhenda has suggested that if we want to sway the opinions of the council, we need to show up by the masses.  Please come!  Bring your friends!  Camp Quixote had to fight to exist in the first place, and by the support of the community, they got to where they are today.  They move themselves and all their belongings from church to church every 90 days, and at this point, they are ready to create a solid home-base where they can have the resources to continue growing in dignity and grace alongside this community of ours. 

Questions?  Call Jill Severn at 753-2095 or email jillsevern@comcast.net, or call Carmen Rafdal at 866-5511 or email auroraborialyce@gmail.com.
For information about Camp Quixote, check out their website at http://sites.google.com/site/campquixoteoly/

Pictures in slideshow of December freeze 2008 at Camp Quixote.

 http://campquixote.org/?page_id=21

http://campquixote.org is up and running. I could only afford to get a hosting package for 25.00 a year. Next year I will put it on my server, and give the Website more space and bandwidth. Thank you for visiting! More development on the way!

Your gently used furniture is needed to aid disaster victims who experienced loss in the recent floods in our area. In some cases, families are still in need of help from the December 2007 flood disaster.

Please bring furniture to the parking lot of:
Olympia Christian Reformed Church
2121 Log Cabin Rd SE
Olympia

The mission of the Furniture Bank of Thurston County is to provide furniture at no charge to families, individuals and non-profit organizations in need. Furniture will be collected at the Harbor Wholesale Grocery trailer. Residents of Camp Quixote, a tent city for the homeless/houseless, will be on hand to help unload your donations.

Donated furniture must be GENTLY USED, clean, no stains, no rips, no peeling pain and no odors. We are accepting beds, dressers, sofas, chairs, dining tables and dining chairs. We will NOT accept incomplete bed parts, such as headboards or box springs without mattresses, sleeper sofas, sheets or blankets, appliances or electronic devices.

Questions: Donna Kelly at the Furniture Bank of Thurston County 360-705-1756

via email:

SATURDAY, NOV. 1 - 5pm
Hosted by Camp Quixote at
St. John’s Episcopal Church - 114 20th Ave SE in Olympia
With speak out and potluck to follow.
There is no charge to get in. Free childcare available.

Willie Baptist is a formerly homeless father who serves as the Scholar-in-Residence for the Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary where he is responsible for the new Poverty Scholars Program training dozens of low-income leaders to become Scholars-in-Residence for other seminaries, universities, and religious institutions. Coming out of the Watts uprising and the Black Student Movement, Willie has worked as an organizer and leader of the United Steelworkers Union and the National Union of the Homeless. He is former Education Director of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and currently serves as Coordinator of the University of the Poor.

These events hope to encourage dialogue on issues facing poor and low-income people in Olympia and around the US and on building a movement to unite the poor and their allies to fight for an end to poverty.

There is no charge to get in. Free childcare available.

The Close the Gap Coalition is seeking volunteers to help eliminate unsheltered or “street” homelessness. The Coalition aims to boost the volunteer base for existing programs to an extent that opportunities for capacity growth open up.

Advocates for the houseless-homeless-mobil homeless (rv-car campers) continue their grassroots efforts in Lacey and Olympia, as evidenced by recent Olympian and olyblog reports.

• Olympia council to discuss RV parking rules tonight Eugene, Ore., tells how it successfully controlled problem
• Lacey ban on tent city challenged
• "We all have a part..."
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[Posted on The Olympian's Web site]

Published June 02, 2008
Lawsuit challenges Lacey's new law on homeless tent city
THE OLYMPIAN

LACEY -- Advocates for the homeless have sued Lacey to overturn a law that bans a tent city and instead requires churches to shelter the homeless indoors.

The lawsuit claims the City Council did not follow a proper procedure before it approved the law April 24 with a 4-3 vote.

Panza, a nonprofit group that supports Camp Quixote, Olympia’s tent city; Selena Kilmoyer, Panza’s secretary; and three residents who attend churches in Lacey -- Elizabeth Penney, Ronna Smith and Donald Stern -- filed the lawsuit in Thurston County Superior Court.

The lawsuit contends that while the city posted meeting notices and held public hearings and other meetings both before the Lacey Planning Commission and City Council on a draft law regulating temporary homeless encampments, no such steps were taken for a later draft that required faith-based groups to shelter the homeless inside their churches.

As a result, supporters of the law were uninformed that Lacey churches don’t have adequate room to both shelter the homeless and minister to their congregations, Kilmoyer said.

For more on the story, see The Olympian Tuesday.

It seems ironic to me that the City of Olympia can pat itself on the back for all of its good deeds (and it has done some) when it is neglecting what could be the best deed of all -- taking a lead in the efforts to find housing solutions for everyone.

Last year, the Council took an important and compassionate step in adopting an ordinance that allows faith communities to host tent cities. This progressive action allowed Camp Quixote to form, legally, and to benefit both its residents and the Olympia community. The City of Tumwater followed that lead; it is my great hope that Lacey and Thurston County someday will come to the same decision.

So, my suggestion to the Council is this:

Step 1: Before you pass this RV ordinance, do your homework. Take a day off from your job, or a City Council field trip and go downtown and meet the RV residents where they are. Talk to them. Learn of their circumstances. Have them explain to you the discrimination they face from landlords because they have bad credit, because they are felons, because they have fallen on hard times and simply don't have enough money for what is required to move into an apartment here, if they can even find one they can afford (Olympia's apartment vacancy rate is 3.2 percent/actual rent for a 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment is $916, according to last Sunday's Olympian). Figure out, with them, what a solution might be before they chase them out to Tumwater, Lacey or Thurston County, where they will just be chased out again and into the woods, where adults, let alone children, will not be safe.

A little while back I referred to a lawsuit that is making its way through the state court system that might impact Lacey's new homeless ordinance.

Tomorrow (sometime after 9a) the state Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case between Woodinville and Northshore United Church of Christ. A few years ago, Woodinville passed an ordinance restricting how churches can host homeless camps. Basically, the church is arguing that the city doesn't have any business telling them how they can practice religion as it relates to their helping the homeless.

How the Supreme Court decides (at least I think this) will have a lot to do with whether Lacey is sued over their ordinance.

The arguments will be live on TVW and I'll post them here after they're on the internet.

Anyone know the typical turn-around on a state Supreme Court case?