Ritual Cleansing on Site of Murders of homeless people sponsored by SHARE/WHEEL

“I have made mistakes but I am so lucky with all the help, love and support I have been given since I moved here.” Young resident of the homeless encampment under I 5 and continuing up the side of Beacon Hill East of I 5 known with the derogatory term “The Jungle”

Climbing up the steep, muddy hill to arrive under the freeway at “The Jungle” where the murders had taken place of James Quoc Tran and Jeannie L. Zapata, as well as injuring of nine others, I was surprised to hear the regular sound of drumming. Perhaps they had already started the ceremony. At the top, I found no jungle, only a bare expanse of dirt under the 1-5 freeway. And the sound of drumming turned out to be the sound of cars on I-5 passing over an expansion joint directly overhead. The camp was small, many people had left since the murders, only six people remained.

One of them, a twelve year veteran named Michelle explained to me how she had started with a ministry to the homeless with her husband, but when he died twelve years ago, she became homeless herself.

Another quite young woman ( far left in photo above) claimed that she had made mistakes and her problems were her own fault, but that she felt incredibly lucky that people were giving her so much help and caring.

Of course, her problems are not simply her fault,  they are the fault of a society that provides so little support and treatment options for drug addicted people. Apparently Tran was urgently seeking an out of state treatment program when he was killed. Three teenagers accused of the crime also lived in a homeless encampment, children of a drug dealing father and a mother who had lost custody.  This is the bottom of our society, the result of our hopeless waste of money on war, and military, and free access to guns, in the hands of people struggling with addictions.

In spite of efforts to create a living room area with some cast off furniture and a community fire pit, the desolation of the encampment under the freeway overwhelmed me with sadness. The constant sound of cars overhead never stopped. See the expansion joint in this photograph.

The cleansing ceremony started at 12:30. Two native Americans offered blessings and real drumming in each direction, we read some passages about love and caring from Leviticus, and we spoke a two part chant of love and caring. Each of us was sprinkled with water from a cedar bough.

Two medical officials from King County attended. King County keeps denying funding to SHARE/WHEEL saying their outcomes are not good enough. In other words in our data driven world, you have to have statistically quantifiable results. SHARE/WHEEL encourages dignity, self respect and personal responsibility, not quantifiable results.

SHARE/WHEEL is a caring, creative organization that provides services to homeless people in well organized tent encampments that are run by the occupants, drug free and alcohol free. I joined the grant writing committee there for a while and was impressed with the intelligence and organization of the other committee members, all of them living in the tent camps or in the bunkhouse, another type of shelter also sponsored by SHARE/WHEEL. “The Jungle” is not one of their encampments but they offer support to all homeless people, honoring each time someone dies outside with a one hour silent vigil outside city hall.

Every winter solstice they honor all the homeless people who have died outside. The numbers keep escalating.

They also create rituals like the one I attended today, and

sponsored the Tree of Live in Victor Steinbruck Park, near Pike Place market. That sculpture has negative shapes referring to the fallen leaves of the homeless. All over Seattle you can see bronze leaves embedded in the sidewalk honoring homeless people who have died outside.

SHARE/WHEEL,  an organization that for twenty five years has been providing a creative, caring, support to homeless people on their difficult path through life.  We cannot allow them to go under with debt because of lack of financial support from our government or ourselves.

A Plea from their Website:

“We must demand that King County follow their own emergency plan, and fund SHARE.   King County says they follow the “All Home” Plan (to end Homelessness) but they don’t.  That Plan is clear – existing shelters like SHARE’s should be preserved, not bankrupted.   Please immediately reach out to King County Executive Dow Constantine (kcexec@kingcounty.gov, 206-263-9600) and King County Community/Human Services Division Director Adrienne Quinn (Adrienne.quinn@kingcounty.gov, 206-263-1491) and ask them to fund SHARE!   Please also call your County Councilperson today and insist on action.

At the same time please consider making an emergency donation to help keep us going while together we persuade the City, County, and Federal Government that SHARE is needed, and cannot be allowed to fail. The shelter system here is already full and simply would not be able to handle over 450 extra folks a night.”