As Seattle considers sanctioned homeless camps again, we stand at a familiar crossroads. I’ve spent five years with We Heart Seattle doing boots-on-the-ground outreach and cleanup, alongside lived experience advisors who have worked in and managed prior sanctioned camps, including Share/Wheel, Nickelsville, Camp United We Stand, and run low-barrier shelters. We’ve seen what fails. More importantly, we know what could work.
The skepticism about sanctioned camps is warranted. Past attempts became semi-permanent encampments with no path forward. But dismissing the concept entirely ignores a critical gap in our system: where do people go when they’re too unstable for housing but desperate to get off the streets?
Seattle’s homeless crisis isn’t one problem—it’s many. The “crisis population” living on our streets often needs psychiatric care or medical detox long before housing navigation. Yet we keep trying to move people directly from tents to apartments, and we’re watching them die. Overdose deaths among the recently housed are rising because we’re skipping essential steps. Think of it like emergency medicine. You don’t discharge a trauma patient from the ER directly home. There’s triage, stabilization, and appropriate care placement. That’s what’s missing for our most vulnerable neighbors.
We need what I call stabilization camps—FEMA for homelessness. Not places to live indefinitely, but 30-day crisis intervention sites where people can be triaged, assessed, and connected to appropriate care. This is fundamentally different from failed models of the past. Thirty days maximum means this creates urgency and prevents camps from becoming permanent neighborhoods. You come to stabilize, not to settle. Addicts in recovery helping other addicts take the next steps with some flexibility in a space less triggering, instead offering hope through action.
Past camps failed partly because they relied on in-house volunteer coordination and an anachronistic philosophy. Real stabilization requires 24/7 paid staff, security, and medical professionals on-site, and volunteers, of course, are welcome. Assertive case managers, nurse practitioners, and mental health professionals need to be in one place, ready to help people create and execute exit plans. Not passive services you can ignore, but daily engagement focused on getting you to the next step.
We need clear pathways out. At We Heart Seattle, we partner with treatment facilities like ITUHA, Lakeside Milam, Valley Cities for detox and sober living communities statewide, such as Battlefield Addiction, Hope and Chance, Oxford, Weld, and dozens more. People leaving stabilization camps need warm handoffs to programs that can continue their progress. The difference between empowerment and enablement isn’t semantic—it’s life or death.
A well-run stabilization camp measures success by asking: How many people entered treatment? How many moved to transitional housing or sober living? How many got the psychiatric hospitalization they desperately needed? Past sanctioned camps measured success by how many people they housed on-site. That’s the wrong metric. Success is exits to appropriate care.
For city funding to be justified, we must answer uncomfortable questions. What happens at day 31 if someone refuses services? Where exactly are people being referred? Are treatment beds and sober living slots actually available? Will we enforce behavioral standards that protect everyone’s safety? Without honest answers and measured outcomes, any sanctioned camp will replicate past failures. Recent skepticism about this approach is justified in questioning us based on history.
I propose starting with a 50-tent pilot. Implement strict 30-day limits with full wraparound services. Measure outcomes rigorously for 12 months with independent evaluation. Track treatment entries, housing placements, and psychiatric referrals. If it works, expand. If it doesn’t, we’ll have learned what we need to fix.
The question isn’t whether sanctioned camps can work—it’s whether Seattle will fund the intensive, time-limited, clinically driven model that addresses real needs, or repeat the lower-accountability experiments that have failed before. Our streets are filled with people in crisis who need more than a tent and less than an apartment. They need triage. They need stabilization. They need a system that meets them where they are while refusing to leave them there.
We can build that system. But only if we’re willing to demand accountability alongside compassion.
Andrea Suarez is the founder of We Heart Seattle, a cleanup and outreach organization serving Seattle’s homeless population.
