Standing Room Only, Part IV: Woodland Park

Dear Diary,

Well, that turned out to be more than a few hours, didn't it?  Sigh.  Anyway.  This page is about the seven rentable picnic shelters of Woodland Park, which are in the western half of the eastern block of that park, the block called by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation Lower Woodland Park.

These shelters are in woodlands, rolling in the north, flatter in the south, and those hills, plains and valleys were, when I visited in early October, crowded with tents.  You may remember, dear Diary, that in the two pages titled "South of North Once More", a geological age or so ago, I expressed surprise that pretty well all the homeless people I'd seen in Green Lake Park, both tent campers and shocked-looking men I interpreted as newly homeless, in early June, were gone in early October.  What I didn't say then was that the homeless population in Woodland Park, specifically the west and especially the northwest of Lower Woodland, had grown exponentially.  I have good reason to believe that the main attraction is electricity, piped by a vast network of extension cords from the shelters that have it.  Shelter sink water may matter, too, not so much as a bonus, but making up for Woodland Park's desperate shortage of working water fountains.

This changed my approach to photography.  Surely you remember, dear Diary, that I prefer to show you only pictures that include no other people, and also no homeless people's tents.  I couldn't photograph most of these shelters without breaking both of these rules.  What I eventually settled on was that I could break them only from a distance.  You'll see what that means.

I'll cover these shelters from north to south.  I found basically three models for these shelters.  Some appear to be inhabited.  Some appear to be kept clear of residents, instead shared as a sort of kitchen among those living in nearby tents.  And I found one, with neither sink nor electrical outlet, empty.

Shelter 6

This is a very large shelter way up at the park's north end, and the department's price to rent it reflects that, $310 per day.  It's closest to the northernmost restrooms, and the lawn bowling greens those restrooms serve.  My understanding is that those restrooms are seasonal, and may by now have closed; however, the restrooms of the Small Craft Center in Green Lake Park aren't far.  The only working water fountain in the upper, western half of Lower Woodland Park is right outside this shelter's door, but of course I don't know whether it's still running.

It was, on October 7, much the most homelike of the shelters.  It was crowded with furniture and fabric, most of its unwalled sides blocked, but all in a reasonably consistent and uncluttered way.  I was totally unsurprised that the person who greeted me was a woman.  I certainly didn't ask her whether she hogged the shelter's amenities, whatever they were, or supervised their sharing among the nearby residents, but those struck me as the possibilities.

In this photo, the shelter is not the white structure at mid-right, but the brown one, obscured by trees, just above the picture's centre.  (The white structure, roofless, is useless as shelter.)

I observed signs of trash piling up along the way to this shelter, and I was surprised.  This is also the area where I specifically remember seeing messy tents such as I imagine refugees from Licton Springs would have.  They were, in early October, a small minority.

Shelter 5

I'm pretty sure this was, at that time, a shared kitchen; on the evening of October 7 I chatted a bit with people using it until an exceptionally territorial dog came after me, but don't remember getting to any of my questions.  It's the most obvious shelter from the main entrance to the area where shelters 4-7 are, what I've called the "hilltop".  Which means, of course, that the closest restrooms are those I've called by that name, and they're year-round.  (In last year's list of such restrooms, they were called "Pink Palace".)  They were also, like Carkeek Park's restrooms, open 24 hours while the driveway gates were shut.  The department rents this shelter for $160 per day in normal years.

Shelter 4

I didn't find this shelter, or any further south, in the gathering dark October 7, and didn't encounter any residents October 8, also true the rest of the way.  This one appeared to be another shared kitchen.  Again, the closest restrooms are the "Pink Palace" hilltop ones; as for water, we're far enough south now that I'm not sure which of the Small Craft Center, shelter 6, or the cloverleaf baseball fields downhill, would be the best choice.  The rent here is just $135 per day.

This is where I photographed something I'd observed also at shelter 6:  piled up trash.  I had then recently posted lots of photos of trash neglected at Cal Anderson Park.  In the coming days I'd see more examples at Licton Springs Park and at Bitter Lake Playfield, the latter corroborated by a resident.  It's a relief to know that our wise and forethoughtful mayor has asked that the relevant program's budget increase next year.

Shelter 7

This is the empty and amenity-free shelter.  It's the furthest from the road of these four, and has much more seating than shelters 4 or 5; that seems to be a criterion for price, which here is $185 per day.  So in the extremely improbable case that a homeless person looking for a place to sit by day were somewhere near this shelter, it might be a reasonable place to try.  Of course, in the intervening month and a half, it could have passed into some sort of use.

These four shelters are those of northwest Lower Woodland Park, and are easiest reached from West Green Lake Way.  A gravel path connects the area with that where shelters 1-3 are, but the usual entrance for those southwestern shelters is off 50th St onto a loop called Woodland Ave.  Shelters 2 and 3 are on the more obvious branch of that loop, from which I didn't see shelter 1 at all; shelter 1's branch of the loop is east of there.

The parks department rents each of the three out, in normal years, for $135 per day.  All three are nearest the southwestern restrooms, year-round ("50th St" in last year's list) and 24-hour this past summer while the gates were closed.

Shelter 2

My first reaction to this shelter's layout was that it was clearly one person's place, but now I'm not so sure; judge for yourself.

(Note the absence of bed and bedding, in particular; also the desk is too bare to bother setting up unless it were to be shared, maybe.)

Shelter 1

This time I wasn't any more sure then than I am now.

My guess was, shared; but I didn't rule out a single occupant, and am not now sure it wasn't vacant.  This is the most isolated of the southwestern shelters, as 7 is of the northwestern.

Shelter 3

I found this, um, shared, but not the way shelters 4 and 5 are.

In case you can't see the photo clearly, two tents occupy most of the shelter's area.

Which is a selfishly dispiriting end to this tour, isn't it, dear Diary?  I'm sorry.  For what it's worth, near as I can tell, none of the remaining shelters of North Seattle, covered in the next and final page of this set, were inhabited, when I visited, by people either communal-minded or selfish.