Last week officials with Nickelsville filed a permit in order to open the homeless encampment in Ballard at 2826 NW Market Street. 


Nickelsville is expecting the permit to be granted quickly and the first authorized campers are planned to start to moving in this week. Nickelsville social worker, David Delagado, said that they are already planning to move five tiny houses to the lot and set up a security station. About 45 people will live in the camp, some of which, around 25, are current Nickelsville residents. New residents apply for residency through a screening process and then adhere to strict camp rules.

However, there are already at least seven campers at the site. The campers are not enrolled with Nickelsville and are not authorized to be there.

Craig, 53, has been has been camping with his roommate Harvey at the site since Wednesday of last week and has been on the street since February 8 of this year. Craig said he has been living in Ballard since 1994 and that he worked at the Ballard Denny’s for nine years until it closed.

“Everybody has their own story as far as what got them here,” said Craig.

Before moving to the encampment, Craig had been living by the tracks near the Salmon Bay Bridge but moved after all his belongings were stolen while he was at a doctor’s appointment at Harborview Medical Center. Craig is a diabetic. Craig said it was raining and the winds were high that day. Not having any shelter, the two went to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The Church gave them a tent. Craig said that they moved to the encampment immediately after and had to set the tent up in the dark while it was raining.

“We really didn’t have anywhere else to go, and the weather was getting worse. I’m like ‘what the heck are we going to do?’ … That wind and that rain was hectic to say the least, but we survived it.”

Craig said that he has survived this long because he trained and served in the 82nd Airborne.

“I’m a type one diabetic. I’m not a real big guy. My body doesn’t hold heat real well. I can survive out here, but its possible each year I get older I might not survive out here anymore. … You do what you have to and the training I got just comes back without thinking about it.”

While the Ballard News-Tribune was speaking with Craig at the encampment, Delagado passed out enrollment invitations to the campers. Delagado said that Nickelsville would potentially accept the campers at the Nickelsville site at 1010 South Dearborn until the new Ballard encampment is set up. Campers would need a valid ID and must follow all the same rules as current residents, such as no drug or alcohol use. Delagoda told campers that if they “intake” with the Nickelsville they would have priority placement when they move to the Ballard site. The invitation also asked that the squatters vacate the premises before Monday.

Craig said that he is considering the Nickelsville invitation and hopes to live in the encampment. He has future housing arranged with Housing and Essential Needs, but still has a few months until he can move.

“I do not want to stay here forever. Some people can and do and want to. But if we can stay here until I get other housing arranged this is a hell of a lot safer than anywhere else. …We are trying to figure out how we can manage to stay here as more people come.”

Meanwhile, a welcome sign hangs on a fence at the site; however, the new camp has already had a less than accommodating reactions from some neighbors. Last week KOMO News reported that there have been noise complaints and neighbors are worried about an increase in crime, property values and trash building up in the area. Nickelsville reports that the camps they have operated in the past do not encounter these issues and they anticipate the same in Ballard.

“We get some dirty looks here and there, and there’s people that don’t like what’s going on, but times have changed. Ballard has changed a lot since I moved here.”