Kerner for Council Seattle

We will temporarily use 23 vacant empty plots of City-Owned land. Each site will have 22-25 Cargo Containers 40 x 8  ft. These containers will be renovated to include windows,  dividers, insulation and electricity. Cargo containers are moveable, earthquake proof, already have an emergency ladder so are up to fire code. The are very abundant in our area and often end up in the waste stream.

The containers will be modeled into dorm-like units that unlock with a magnetic card. There will be 8-16 campers per container depending on each individual' situation and size. Each unit inside the container will be 75-80 square feet. Two to five of the containers at each site will be used for showering, portable toilets, and cooking. Campers that are swept by the Navigation Team will take a drug test and complete a digital questionnaire that will be streamlined into a database and paired with an algorithm to determine which site best matches the issues they are dealing with. For example, we will not put the severely drug-addicted near the non-drug addicted and severely mentally ill. 

There will be 8 employees at each site during the day to administer medical and job-training services earning an average annual salary of $60,000. Individuals will have 3-8 months (circumstantial) to live in the renovated container for free while also having a multitude of options to earn money. They can help build the containers for other sites, help clean the City’s mess that camping has caused and work other odd jobs. 

Funds earned will be deposited into their own account. However, individuals cannot access these funds until they exit the program with a job and enough money saved to afford the upfront cost needed to attain long-term housing.

We will use the Washington State Apprenticeship program to train and pair campers with jobs they are capable of or are interested in. This will help meet the increased need for skilled workers that many industries are struggling with. In lieu of a future head tax or another business tax, we will ask for their help and cooperation to set up the technological infrastructure, databases and analytics to support training and job placement for these individuals. IWe could also invite businesses to sponsor the program in return for free advertising by either naming a site after the business or advertising their name on the outside of a container like a billboard. We could also give them a tax credit to show our gratitude for their cooperation. The projected cost is less than $40 million and would immediately house up to 10,000

campers. 

The sites will not be in parks. The sites will be contained within a fence. Sites will be freely accessible to those in that specific site during open hours. Roommates would be either randomly selected or chosen upon individual preference. The units will have windows and doors that are magnetically accessible with a key card. This way we do not need to worry about keys getting lost or stolen and we will not have to change locks. Former campers will swipe in and swipe out, leaving a record of the exact time that they entered and exited to deter crime or abuse of the program. 

This is not the four seasons. It is more of a college, trade school, or rehab for campers that will fill the gap of current supplies and demands. This is an URGENT solution to a very long-standing EMERGENCY. I have spoken to hundreds of campers and they are ready when we are. It is very easy to be ‘for or against’ a policy. However, it is not easy to be against an idea unless there is a better one. I do not believe there is a better solution to this City’s homelessness crisis.

Cargo Container Solution for Seattle

I was born and raised in Seattle, WA where I earned an Associates Degree by participating in Seattle’s 'Running Start' program while attending Garfield High School. 

I graduated from American University in Washington, DC with a Bachelors Degree in Political Science and a minor in Studio Art. While in DC, I spent time interning for WA State Senator Maria Cantwell and then went on to work at a top patent law firm before moving back to Seattle in 2016. 

I live on Queen Anne, worksat Chihuly Garden and Glass where I served as the Chair of the Safety Committee. 

I plan on launchsed  my first art collection this winter while also pursuing a case against the Seattle Police Department pro se in the United States District Court of Western Washington in regards to an 2017 incident when I was  assaulted by a group of men, then subsequently blamed by SPD for instigating the assault. A copy of the full Complaint with all PDF compatible exhibits can be found here. The lawsuit has since been dropped voluntarily in the spirit of cooperation. 

While attending Garfield High School, I volunteered for Team Read, a nonprofit organization that pairs high school students with 2nd & 3rd graders with reading & writing deficiencies. Though the elementary school I volunteered at was predominately white, nearly every student in the program was a minority.

Most students in the program came from low-income, single parent households or households where parents worked multiple jobs. The children explained to me how no one in their household was available to read with them, some students coming from families where English is a second language. 

I also volunteered at the Seattle Art Museum as a member of its Teen Advisory Group, I noticed that the demographics of the museum’s local visitors didn’t accurately reflect the cultural and ethnical variation of Seattle & suggested that SAM expand its radius of advertising to include Seattle’s more diverse neighborhoods. The expanded advertising increased diversity and established a program to provide teens from all socioeconomic backgrounds with free art instruction to retain newly accumulated variation.