ISSAQUAH PRESS INC. THE ISSAQUAH PRESS • SAMMAMISH REVIEW • NEWCASTLE NEWS • SNOVALLEY STAR P.O. Box 1328, Issaquah, WA 98027
425-392-6434
Homeless people. Just saying the phrase in a crowd can draw strange stares and outright hostility. But not in Issaquah. No, in Issaquah, residents have twice welcomed the roving Seattle-area homeless encampment to a church lot downtown. The first time the camp came, in August 2007, some city residents helped serve meals to camp residents and a few groups and families turned out to donate things the homeless needed. But before the camp came to town the first time, people were fearful. Concerns about sex offenders living in the camp and homeless people being close to a preschool near the church lot gave residents reasons to complain — to themselves, to others, to the church and to The Issaquah Press. Both times the camp came to Issaquah, we at the paper knew that we had to calm people’s unfounded fears and answer their questions, to educate them about what was going to happen, where and why. And to tell them what would not occur, such as sex offenders not being allowed to be in the camp. The second time the camp came to our city, we knew we had to do more. Editor Kathleen R. Merrill had wanted to stay or have a reporter stay at the encampment for a night to tell readers firsthand what the camp residents experienced. But it couldn’t be worked out. When the camp returned in January 2010, reporters Warren Kagarise and Chantelle Lusebrink were allowed in. The stories they produced from that night were full of reality on the streets in the dead of winter. It got down in the 40s the night they stayed there. They not only reported their own experiences in stories for the newspaper, but they sent updates via Twitter throughout the night. The realtime updates allowed readers to experience life at the encampment firsthand, from the generosity of volunteers to the biting cold to the patter of rain against the plastic surface of the tents that allowed the pair little sleep. The reporters also chose various residents from the camp to interview and told their stories to readers. The feedback the newspaper got from the night in Tent City 4 was incredible. There were phone calls, voicemails and letters to the editor. People said they had never understood homelessness before then. They simply hadn’t fathomed what homeless people went through, how they became homeless in the first place and that it could happen to any one of us