For an update to this story, with information from Union Gospel Mission on the transitional work they are doing with Nickelsville campers, please click here.
Residents at Nickelsville, the homeless encampment on West Seattle’s eastern fringe, are busy preparing for one of two outcomes in the next week as the city council-mandated deadline for vacating their current home on W. Marginal Way S.W. arrives on Sept. 1: If they have three new campsites ready by that time (two are secured as of Aug. 23), they plan to pack up and move. If not, a showdown may be in the works.
“We have our deadline, and we have two sites secured but until we do get that third site, until we have room for everyone to go, we will stand our ground,” Nickelsville resident Mike Singer said during a Herald tour of the camp on Aug. 22. Singer said they want to move everyone at once to avoid leaving anyone behind, creating animosity.
Nickelsville is not a legal tent encampment and the residents are technically squatting on public land – prompting the shutdown.