A man was beaten in Cal Anderson park only days after the Mayor declares a new focus on safety, another man bit a member of a flight crew while trying to exit the plane way too early, a teenager crashed a stolen car into a police vehicle, and Washington state officials won't chase penalties over delays in the tolling systems on 520 and the Narrows. more ›

The local homeless advocacy organization SHARE is forcing its residents to participate in camp out protests in front of elected officials’ homes, reports PubliCola. more ›

One of our more grotesque civic comedies is reaching its Act 2 climax this afternoon--denied a restraining order, the homeless encampment dubbed Nickelsville is expecting state police to arrive at 7 p.m. today, to evict them from their latest refuge. more ›

Sightline has a scary post up about the end of unemployment benefits, and how a big dip may be in the works in the economy--and rehiring--doesn't kick in soon. more ›

The survey will be conducted throughout certain pockets of the city; volunteers are asked to avoid drunk people (there goes Belltown), don't wake anyone up, and knock only once on campers and cars before they begin gathering additional information about the needs and issues that the homeless face to find permanent housing. more ›

Third choice may be the charm for Gary Locke, the latest pick for Commerce Secretary. If Locke leaves, someone will have to pick up the slack on China, energy, and governmental relations. Ponder this as you walk around Greenlake, which is safe after a bomb scare this morning, PhinneyWood reports. Should you decide to be part of the solution, West Seattle blog has info on upcoming Vidaduct meetings, and MyBallard reports on plans for a car camp for homeless folks. more ›

CAN'T CATCH A BREAK: Nami Mun's novel Miles From Nowhere is about a Korean-American woman in the 1980s who lives out our worst nightmare (underage sex worker, junkie, homeless, it goes on). Seattlest MvB says that the main character is "an affectless screen on which bruises from beatings and ulcerated needle tracks appear without histrionic wailings and gnashings of teeth," and praises Mun's "contemplative eye." Mun will be reading from her book at Elliott Bay Book Company tonight. more ›

The slope of Queen Anne between Westlake and Dexter is a jungle. Again. In June, parks employees denuded the hillside, exposing and clearing out the makeshift homes hidden in the overgrowth. Workers tore down the illegal encampments and in some cases threw away the belongings--or was it trash?-- they found. We run by nearly every day, and stopped to read the signs, which were also in Spanish, that warned people what was to come. Aviso, they said. The ivy is back now and so are the campers. Last night we stepped over a telltale tarp that had slid down the hill and onto the sidewalk. The rustle of leaves is like someone closing a curtain. There are people who no longer ask anything of this world but to be left alone in it. more ›

Local filmaker Linas Phillips got close to the homeless people he portrayed in this documentary of life on and off the streets of Seattle. His film, Great Speeches From a Dying World, ending its run tonight at the Northwest Film Forum on Capitol Hill, is intimate but never feels invasive. It's also 90 minutes of pure heartbreak, so if you're feeling vulnerable, be warned. The story of a kind-hearted homeless man named Tomy stands out among vignettes from a dozen local homeless people. You keep waiting for Tomy to come back on screen. Phillips has his subjects recite famous speeches from history, a curious device that is never explained. Sometimes, like when when a wheelchair-bound, crack-addicted homeless woman delivers Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I A Woman?" no explanation is needed. more ›

63 percent of the University Congregational United Church of Christ voted to open their hearts and their parking lot--at 15th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 45th Street--to the roaming homeless encampment known as Nickelsville. more ›

The duckies symbolize Urban Rest Stop, Seattle's eight-year-old "hygiene center" for the homeless. How important is this? Well, in a year, 25,000 people will use the place, a couple of blocks from the Greyhound station. Almost half a million showers, four times that many just to use the rest room. Laundry, too: close to 200,000 loads. And it's the only place in town that serves entire families. more ›

• We may have lost the Sonics, but we have gained a lingerie football team!
• The Green Lake branch of the Seattle Public Library is temporarily closed due to mold according to PhinneyWood. It used to be the algae and mold at the lake you had to worry about, but apparently the mold has spread across the street.
• The city has pushed back another deadline for residents of Nickelsville to vacate the encampment's latest location in Discovery Park. Nickel-odeons now have until Wednesday at noon to leave and find alternate housing--a task which, if it simply took a day of work, we are certain all the residents would have done long ago.

The Seattle Police Department gave residents of Nickelsville a 20-minute warning at 12:15 p.m. to vacate their encampment or face arrest. As of 12:35 p.m., the homeless residents of Nickelsville were officially considered criminal trespassers and subject to arrest. According to reports, some campers have chosen to follow orders while others have decided to stay and face charges. Sadly, at least those who stay at Nickelsville against orders are more likely to have a roof over their head tonight in jail than those who chose to comply.
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• A couple of Seattle's finest neighborhood blogs are also covering Nickelsville. Blogging Georgetown and West Seattle Blog are both giving thorough coverage to the story.
• Did someone say gumbo? Honest to god, Louisiana-made gumbo in Seattle? Hallelujah! The Central District News has a glowing (tummy-grumble-inducing) review.
• Ballard High graduate Jean Smart won an Emmy last night and MyBallard celebrates the news. In other once-local celebrity news, according to the Big Blog, UW Alumni Anna Faris will host SNL this weekend.

Under the cover of darkness and secrecy, a Seattle homeless encampment named "Nickelsville" in mockery of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels moved to a new location early this morning. The residents of the new Nickelsville pitched 155 neon pink tents in a field off West Marginal Way. The residents of Nickelsville hope the encampment can become a permanent location for their tent town, while Mayor Nickels says that like any illegal encampment in the city, Nickelsville faces ousting by police in 72 hours. It would seem Mayor Nickels is trying especially hard to live up to the honor of the shantytown being named after him. While he's eager to get rid of homeless encampments with the explanation that it's not proper housing, he doesn't seem to have any bright ideas or funding for finding an answer that helps Seattle's homeless population now rather than the far-off future. It's raining now, Greg. more ›

On the front page of the local news section of the P-I this morning is a feature on David Entrikin's 1,500 portraits of local homeless people. (You can read more about Entrikin's photo exhibit on "unsheltered" people here.) On the inside page is this story: Seattle-area foreclosures soar. This August, King and Snohomish counties had 1,185 foreclosure filings, or one out of every 906 households. According to the Greek chorus that is the SoundOff comments section, the lesson here is, "Live within your means." No one responded to the commenter who interjected that the three foreclosures he knew of were related to two divorces and a death. more ›