The city of Burien in Washington State, a suburban community south of Seattle, has erected a fence to contain a growing homeless encampment that is encroaching on a local courthouse.
The homeless community is unhappy about the fencing, but the encampment is not legally permitted.
While homelessness is a widespread issue, cities in the Northwest are grappling with it more severely than other parts of the country.
Breitbart News reported:
A fence was set up Thursday around a homeless encampment in Burien, Washington, after tents spilled over into a nearby parking lot.
The tents are now surrounded by fencing near the Burien Courthouse parking lot at 6th Avenue SW and SW 149th Street, Fox 13 reported.
A King County Facilities Management Division spokesperson said the fence was set up to make sure the court’s parking lot was available for its own purposes.
However, the spokesperson added that, “We are not using the fencing to establish or define a tent camping area, or control the tent camping that is present on the site.”…
When speaking of the fencing, Michael Collins, who has lived at the encampment for several months, told Fox 13, “It’s like they’re caging us in — like we’re a danger maybe. It’s kind of like a jail. Caged in like animals.”
Here’s a video report from KOMO News:
