Homeless community alongside campus
RVs behind Emerson Hall raise questions about student safety
October 5, 2022
Small and nestled in a neighborhood, it is easy to forget how close Seattle Pacific University’s campus is to the greater area of Seattle, but the settlement of about six recreational vehicles behind Emerson Hall and along Bertona Street has awakened both students, parents and SPU staff to the urban realities of being a Seattle college.
The concerns rose to the front on Sept. 21 at 4:30 a.m. when roommates Landrey McCann and Delaine Polly woke up to screaming outside their first floor room.
McCann, a second year majoring in psychology, witnessed how a homeless man was aggressively yelling and running across the sidewalk and parking lot behind Emerson.
“We live on the first floor, so we face west out that way. We had our windows open and heard a bunch of commotion. He was just violently and aggressively yelling and throwing things at one of the RVs, like chairs and things,” McCann said.
After seeing Seattle Police Department cars and SPU’s Office of Safety and Security vehicles enter the scene and talk to the man, Polly and McCann went back to sleep but were woken up again soon after.
“A few hours later we heard more yelling and commotion outside our window on the first floor,” McCann said. “A group of them had returned back and made some more commotion, and OSS came back.”
Polly, a psychology major in her second year, relates how the group began searching and destroying one of the RVs on the road. A woman, presumably the owner of the trailer, showed up and attempted to stop the group.
“He would lunge at her and she would lunge back at him and he was kind of taunting her. She ended up walking off and he followed her and we didn’t hear him the rest of the night,” Polly said. “We saw the police the next day around that area and OSS told us to report anything so that they can make a case about it.”
For second year Mati Schumacher, a developmental psychology major living in Emerson, the RVs behind her residence hall do not pose a threat and have become part of the landscape.
“I feel safe. I’ve never had a problem with anyone living in the RVs down there. I’ve actually walked past with my family once or twice,” Schumacher said.
Similar sentiments are shared by Michelle Best, parent of a freshman at SPU.
“SPU is in the middle of the city, and they have an opportunity to engage in the community. Homeless people are part of the community,” Best said. “We’re not all from privilege and even if you are, we don’t all have support. It doesn’t mean that they’re dangerous.”
As a school counselor specializing in mental health, Best’s career and religious beliefs combine to affect her feelings towards the RVs near campus and homeless communities in general.
“I’m just hoping that [other parents] stop and go, ‘What can we learn from this and learn from Jesus about this?’ SPU is about living the life of Christ, and they miss it by saying [the homeless community] are not like us,” Best said.
An SPU alumni, Best participated in Urban Plunge as a student, in which she and others were given five dollars, a church to sleep in, and an opportunity to learn about Seattle’s homeless population.
“We didn’t go there to see them, we went to experience and have empathy with what others were suffering with. We were there to get to know the homeless population and who they are as people,” Best said.
Best fears no danger at the hands of the nearby homeless people to her child and other students on campus.
“Just because there are some homeless people on the streets? No, I’m not worried about her safety at all. She has not expressed to me at all feeling unsafe,” Best said. “They’re there because they need to be there, not to hurt our children. If she can share a sidewalk with them, good.”
Concerns for student safety remain prevalent. Because the RVs are parked on public property outside the official SPU campus, SPD is unable to take any serious action.
Yet McCann and Polly feel safe in the buildings due to the system of locks but are unsure about walking outside.
“I don’t know that I would be comfortable walking into the parking garage or that back parking lot by myself, especially after daytime, especially being a female student. It’s a little unsettling,” McCann said.
However, measures are being taken to ensure students remain in a safe, coexisting community. OSS is a resource that is available for students at any time if they feel unsafe.
“Even when there’s nothing going on outside the RVs and outside Emerson, I’ve seen more OSS cars patrolling,” McCann said. “OSS does offer to escort you into the parking garage or into Emerson, and I think that’s a resource that can be used and talked about more.”
The OSS emergency and non-emergency numbers can be found on SPU’s website.
Shanna Petersen • Oct 6, 2022 at 12:02 pm
I feel like there is such a lack of compassion in this idea that it’s acceptable to leave people living in the streets in non-humane conditions. A few of the RVs are kept up and the occupants probably have a somewhat reasonable existence living there. But specifically two of the RVs are not healthy environments for anyone, and I question if one of them is even occupied by an unhoused person or is being used for drug purposes.
Additionally, American college students are facing an unprecedented mental health crisis. A recent poll showed 67% of female college students were reporting one or more mental health challenge. (https://fortune.com/well/2022/07/12/mental-health-crisis-college-schools-unprepared/) How compassionate are we being toward our students by ignoring their concerns for their safety? It’s a very privilege-centered position to assume that all students and faculty on SPU’s campus are physically and emotionally healthy, with adequate support systems, and therefore we should not be concerned for their well-being. Where is the compassion for students with physical disabilities that might make them less able to protect themselves or students with trauma in their backgrounds who are triggered into PTSD by threats of violence?
Move-in weekend, the view out Emerson windows was of an RV with a spray painted message of homophobic bigotry on the side. Where is the compassion for the LGBTQ+ students who were already feeling targeted by their school and then had to move into a dorm they were paying a lot of money for only to see that hate-filled message outside their window?
Lastly, to be compassionate to the unhoused in our city, we need to make sure those populations are safe as well — and that means calling law enforcement and other community services’ attention to the RVs near campus that potentially pose risk. SPU students are in a position to make those calls to campus security and the police and make the community safer for everyone by following the advice they have grown up on “if you see something, say something”. Just because the occupants of the RVs are all unhoused, that doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye — and it shouldn’t mean they are undeserving of protection and city services.
please do better • Oct 5, 2022 at 2:02 pm
It makes me sad to see another Falcon article about how “unsafe” the unhoused community is. The reason that all the RVs are parked down by Emerson is because almost all of them were broken into last year. They used to be parked up about a half mile west, further up on Nickerson, but the people who own the trailers moved closer to SPU because THEY felt unsafe after being robbed. Newsflash: everything is not a threat. You live in a highly-secure dorm. Please stop villainizing the houseless people of Seattle just because they might look and live a little differently than you do.