SHARE has announced that after three nights of protesting in front of Councilmember Tim Burgess’ Queen Anne home, tonight they will be moving to sleep in front of City Council President Richard Conlin’s Madrona home. In a press release, SHARE gave credit to Councilmember Burgess for speaking openly with the group over the last three nights, and writing about his experience on his blog, and called Council President Conlin “pedantic and patronizing.” They wrote:

This evening, the homeless men and women of SHARE will be sleeping on the sidewalk outside of City Council President Conlin’s house.

Last night’s sleep out protest in front of Councilman Burgess’ home went well despite the torrential rain. Mr. Burgess is keeping the line of communication open with the people.

Councilman Burgess seems to have some trouble understanding why we refused the strings on a proposed advance from the City: They expected us to promise that we would not be closing down the shelters when we run out of money.

Our expenses in November and December (not including bus tickets) will be over $80,000.   We have $14,000 in bills outstanding today. If we spent the last $50,000 from the City in October there won’t be enough to pay the bills in November and December.

Councilman Burgess called the City’s Offer a ‘Sound Financial Practice.’ How does telling people to spend their last dollars on new expenses when old expenses aren’t paid equate to ‘sound financial practices’?

Do the math….Our budget already relies on SHARE raising $30,000 in October on our own with no City help. We cannot guarantee that we would raise more than this.

At least, Mr. Burgess has been blogging about his experience with us and is willing to talk to us rationally about our bus tickets crisis.

So far all we have heard from Councilman President Conlin is a pedantic and patronizing reaction to our request for an extra $50,000 in funding. On September 28th in the Seattle Post Globe he called it “a bizarre proposal” and said that we should ask King County.

With all due respect, Mr. Conlin is bizarrely ignorant of the fact that King County Metro has been giving reduced rates on bus tickets to organizations such as SHARE and that the City has been supporting this program!!!

What’s more, METRO gave SHARE 20,000 free tickets in January and the King County Council people located in Seattle wrote to Council President Conlin in March asking for his help – bizarrely, Council President Conlin blew them off too!

Until we can afford a steady supply of bus tickets, we will “bizarrely” keep sleeping outside of these “bizarre” politicians’ houses.

There have been a lot of community reactions to SHARE since their first protest in front of Mayor Nickels’ home on Monday night. In the comments section following our story on Tuesday night’s protest and those thereafter, discussion arose over whether or not SHARE members are forced into participating in these protests. tstcman wrote,

i am a member of this so called SHARE group. its not fell will thats puts these people in this mix. it is mandated by the SHARE office THAT ALL shelter dwellers HAVE to BE INVOLVED i.e. sleep out until funds are found.

tstcman also responded to speculation over the uses of the bus tickets SHARE is fighting over, saying that at times in the past people have stolen and resold them. Name wrote,

SHARE is requiring the homeless they proclaim to serve to attend the protest. One member even reported in the comments section of a related article on the Seattle Times online that SHARE was closing their indoor shelters and shifting people over from both Tent City 3 and Tent City 4 in order to have people at Nickelsville and Burgess house.

Other readers brought up the Proposition 1 Housing Levy, as a possible way to assist with homelessness.

What do you think about SHARE’s three-night protest on Queen Anne? Or their week-long camp outs that will move them to Council President Conlin’s house tonight? Comment or email us at tips@queenanneview.com.