A Conversation With Danielle, A Homeless Resident of Olympia, On the City’s Response to Homelessness and the Incident At the Red Lion Hotel
By Miguel Louis
The following is an interview. Here is Danielle:
My name is Danielle. I’m 31 years old and I’ve been homeless for going on four years now. Most of my time has been here in the downtown Olympia area, but there was a short period of time that we were up in King County.
What was your experience with the protest at the Red Lion Hotel led by Oly Housing Now? How did you get involved? What do you think of what happened?
D: My street brother told me that they were doing this thing with a hotel that they had tried out in Fife, WA. Basically they just came to me and asked if I was in. I wanted to do it and I was truly down for it because I believe with the eviction moratorium and because of COVID it would work. I mean, it only makes sense and would work if the government really wanted it to. I believe that we were informed on what the plan was to stay, you know, the first night pay out, and that the group the Oly Housing Now was going to be peacefully protesting and ask and request that FEMA funds given to the state and the city to house us be used for immediate housing.
As far as with SWAT OPD, state patrol, the way it was handled was not expected because I believe that was all planned. I’m not gonna state where I was but once twelve o’clock came , check out time, I turned on my police scanner and started listening right away. Between law enforcement and the manager of the Red Lion, they agreed they were not going to do anything, they weren’t going to make entry until, I believe, they figured out a way to call it a hostage situation so they can call in all this law enforcement, and throw everybody out. I mean the law enforcement told employees to go hunker down, they weren’t held hostage they weren’t held there against their will they were told to go down into the basement by the Manager. So how are they going to treat it like a hostage situation?
I won’t say where I was, but let’s just say I was on a different floor. I was fortunate to escape the brutality, because we had pets we needed a larger room. The way law enforcement came in for people, they knew what was going on. I just still don’t understand what made them treat and arrest people the way they did. When they knew that they were homeless people in a hotel. And they know all of us at the camp. They do walk-throughs two to four times a week and know us by name. I don’t understand why they would do this to people they know.
I mean it was wrong, people got hurt, they lost their belongings. I wish I could find out how much each f—ing officer gets paid an hour, and whatever it costs to have that done with SWAT, state patrol, OPD. They could have funded each and every one of us for two weeks to quarantine there. The bottom line is what they could have done instead … they didn’t evaluate the whole situation.
I thought it was gonna be okay, that something good would come out of the protest. A comfortable quarantine for two weeks. Because this life is not always fun and it’s never easy. What it would be like just to be in a hotel for two weeks with continental breakfast. What I would have given for a hot shower when I needed it. The activists who helped run the action even had a medical room for injuries, so we were taken care of.
So, the City of Olympia used the FEMA funds for COVID for two new affordable housing projects. What do you think about their use of funds? How has COVID affected the response?
D: In regards to testing… I mean, I don’t want to get a test myself. What do you know, are they gonna take you to where you’re going to be quarantined? It’s just a big mystery and people fear that, so there are people who aren’t getting tested and so that’s just leaving a wide range of people forgotten. What the activists were doing to try to provide people with housing especially during the pandemic is something that needs to be done. I think what they did at Quixote Village is great. We need more Quixote Villages, but closer to services.
[Quixote Village is a project of Thurston County. It is a community of tiny homes that provides services and works to create stable and safe housing for those experiencing homelessness. The waitlist is full.]
But the COVID shelters, they’re not operating storage for your stuff for any security spots. I have my partner and we have two pets… I can’t see both of us going in quarantine. It’s just a big mystery; will they let us quarantine together?
I know that there’s plenty of housing available, whether that just be foreclosed places or empty apartments. I mean, I see them everywhere and we need to figure out how to group people together to place them and certain apartments. I mean, the City says it’s complicated because it’s FEMA money and instead they’re buying affordable housing in Yelm where people can’t get back into town.
I haven’t been contacted… I’m still waiting for my Section 8 to come through which I’ve been put on the waiting list for, and there’s not really anything you can do, just update them with your phone number.
What are your thoughts on the statements put out by the Mayor and some city council afterwards, in which they claimed they lead the way on houseless response, that they’ve stopped sweeps altogether, and that this action was counter-productive. Mayor Selby also called those involved “domestic terrorists”.
D: I would have to say that no, I don’t believe that they have done much like actually getting people, you know, moving people forward, into houses, whatever their situation is. I would have to say that’s inaccurate. However, as for providing services, they’re making it more comfortable for people to be homeless, yes, they’re providing dinners to people. With the Purple House, and Interfaith because they got a grant to fund outreach services, which was helpful because that helped me and my other half get our ID to get our birth certificates, so I could go file for unemployment. But as for housing I don’t believe that there’s much solution for housing or moving forward with a physical house. That’s why I was supportive of the activists, cause why not make sure we all have housing in the pandemic?
What is the problem with the model of shelters, from your experience?
D: It’s hard to get into these shelters and they’re turning people away in Thurston County. There are also many barriers. I don’t stay in shelters.. we’ve had our one bad experience with the shelter and I’m not gonna mention their names, but because we are a same same-sex couple they kicked us out. I know I can build my own shelter and I want to be self sufficient.
At the shelter, we have to leave early in the morning and I know I don’t get up early in the morning well. You have to get up and you have to leave. Nobody wants to be sleeping and then have to wake up early and go out into the cold whether it be summertime or not.
Especially in the pandemic, you know, nobody wants to be inside shelters with other people, especially the elders and the ones who have health conditions, you know, there are quite a bit of them. I think a lot of them are just steering away from the shelters. I would say I know a couple of friends of mine who don’t want to go to the shelter. They’d just rather stay out and try to push it through the night just staying busy doing something. Unless it gets really cold when it snows, that’s the only time I really ever see anybody try to go to the shelters.
What’s your view on the micro shelters the city is building?
D: Those are only gonna be at the mitigation site. I’ve spent quite some time there and now I’m at the Deschutes Parkway because of the mitigation site, what I’ll say is that right now the person who is the supervisor there doesn’t need to be there. They’re kicking people out during the pandemic, giving them a 24-hour notice, so they can throw their stuff away and then move others back in. They’re throwing their stuff away left and right.
They kicked us out in the midst of the pandemic actually due to a violent incident. We were the only ones in a tiny home, we were blessed with that because we were showing efforts and trying to move forward. I had a job at the Olympia Inn. They understood I was homeless and worked with me until I was late because I didn’t have an alarm.
We were wanting to get out of this situation. This was before Catholic Community Services took over. The moment they took over, I sensed they didn’t want me there because I advocate for people. I help people stand up for themselves. People tell me about what happens at mitigation even though I no longer live there. And there is are a lot of people back at the camps the lived in the mitigation site.
The staff kicked me out, lost my things. Then after I filed an appeal they told me that they realized they had messed up and that they had moved someone else into our tiny home. Other people have been kicked out for other bulls— reasons like being in the shower too long or like they tried to claim with me, for not being home for five days, but I was there, because of course I wanted to keep our tiny home.
They just kick people out and move people back in. They’re just cycling, not doing anything to get people to permanent housing. They’re supposed to be connecting people with services, but they’re connecting people to stress.
How do you think the Red Lion Hotel incident has affected people at the camp?
Three of the homeless folks I know went to jail. They had to sit in jail so long. One of them was arrested for having a machete, but we all have machetes out here, we all have survival tools, cause we have to chop wood and stuff out here. It was his tool. Another person they said was arrested for acting self-defense. The same person that they tased until he had a seizure. I don’t know what happened or what they said he did, but it was because he didn’t expect the response.
They sat in jail for the longest time. Even some of the city council argued that the homeless involved shouldn’t be affected. But if they were sincere they could have reached out to those involved with support, or talked to the judges, to let people go and be let off. People we knew had to wait for a private attorney, and court date after court date pushed out. I mean, [the City] doesn’t care, they just disregard the homeless people that were there.
He had priors for 20 to 30 years around New York City. But he had no priors in Thurston County and minor charges in NYC; in jail, he was in maximum security the whole time and in isolation for a lot of the time. Well, he was fully ambulatory before the action and now uses a wheelchair.
You know what the public defenders were arguing at these bail reduction hearings is that these people are in jail but they’re still innocent. They’re innocent until proven and they’re being kept in jail for literally being poor. For failures to appear… those are crimes of poverty, like people don’t have access to cell phones all the time, or access to rides. Those are crimes of poverty and that’s on the system.
