thousand and three i'm an associate member i'm a member of chapter ninety two greater seattle veterans for peace is a national organization and one of the things they do is try to show teach the public about the cost of war and they consider homelessness one of the costs of war twenty five percent of all homeless people nationwide are veterans so when nichols bill was being formed we were looking for five a one c three umbrella organization to sponsor a so that donations would be tax deductible and i asked my friends at veterans for peace and the board said that would be great we'll do it if you'll be the liaison person so i'm the liaison between nichols hill and veterans for peace chapter ninety two so chapter ninety two is done a lot more than just be the fiscal sponsor they show up here from time to time four of them were arrested in the last sweep of nichols fail and do whatever they can considering their own resources and the size of their organization they come to fundraisers i'm sure they'll be here on our move day to help us pack up to help drive people to the new location and in addition to all that they're known in the local progressive community so it's nice to have their you know their name associated with us is a good thing and and you know if there are veterans here who need some advice or help then they're forthcoming with that too so it's been invaluable we want to get our five our own five a one c three designation but in the meantime you know before we get settled it's been really nice to have veterans for peace on our side nichols will set up on a piece of city on land on september twenty second of two thousand and eight the city posted us right away and we were swept on friday twenty five people were arrested some of them homeless people i'd say about half and about half  supporters of nichols phil before we were swept we mowed as many of our things as we could into the adjacent parking lot because it was state owned and the governor let us stay there a few days to look for another site and since then we've moved boy i think we've moved about twelve times and we're getting ready to move this week on wednesday to a permanent site the goal of nichols will is always been to have a permanent site and get out of the tents we want to have an eco friendly a little village a community of would like to have room for up to a thousand people which will scarcely put a dent into the homeless population around here of the people who don't have anywhere to go at night it cost around two thousand dollars a month to operate nickels fill and all that money comes from donations the biggest expenses that we have then are the honey buckets we have three honey buckets we have a sink handwashing station we have two cellphones one for here at the camp and one for our unpaid organizer and then we have a dumpster so people have a place to throw their things away and those expensive run expenses run about two thousand dollars a month so we don't get any money from the government also have been hosted by churches and so some some of our nations have come from churches they've been big supporters university congregational united church of christ we've been at bryn mawr united methodist here down in  skyway bridge mar area we were hosted for a while it st andrew's episcopal after sweep at keystone church i'm forgetting some university christian church hosted us and then in the central district t churches greater mt baker missionary baptist church and before that new hope missionary baptist church so all of those had been wonderful supporters nichols villain state are friends and we go and visit them from time to time in the way they check in with us to we don't have services on site that's a goal that would like to have public health nurse visits us from times to times times to time and we've had organizations of say student nurses come and visit and they will do you know check blood pressure temperature and give people you know whatever support they can direct them to other places so we have had a doctor visit here and you know checkups like that you know not thorough ones they couldn't but the helps been appreciated by people i'm pleased to have one of the last pink tent when we set up we had a one hundred fifty tents in the picture was in the seattle times it was beautiful and since that time those tents have worn out and some were destroyed in sweeps and so i have one of the last pink tents so after we get a permanent site i'll stay for a part of the planners for the futures and the future the next move august fourth is going to be our final move to a permanent site where we are going to have start building an eco friendly shanty town make pretty permanent structures and hopefully the camp will house up to a thousand people and you know i'm go coordinating a lot of the move from here to the permanent site i'm here at this camp is called nichols fields named after the last mayor of seattle who basically didn't really what he did was he went into people's encampments they were pop that were camp like under bridges it came in there and took all their stuff told they had to go even when they weren't even in the in the camp at the time that he would escape it would come in there and just take everybody's stuff so how mikell still got started was the place where everybody got together and formed a tent community so people could have a place to go and not get the stuff taken luckily there's places people out here in the park and the public like churches and different communities like like the indian center where they have the powwow this weekend they hosted us and we're the ones we're going to start start it up once we get the spot if if if the  mike mcginn gives us some land and that's what we're trying to do right now and basically we're the most cost effective way to house people residents of the of the new place and it's just to me the reason why i'm here is because i was living in public housing and it was so many bed bugs that i just couldn't stand i was living with a friend i wasn't it wasn't in my name with a will to the friend and the bed bugs were just crazy there thank god i got this place right here because without this place i don't know i've been a shelter that i don't want her around all day but here you can actually come in when you want when you want leave when you want and if you have a job you can keep your stuff so you don't get stolen people watch your stuff security i mean what more does a person want and that's about basic that's all i got to say i'm going to choke up because this place really helped me out a lot you know really old really a lot about this place although where i go is this is basically kind of a transitional place if somebody wants to come off the streets and live in tents and stuff and you know feel safe there is actually security that's twenty four hours a day it's three hour shifts you know they can leave whenever they want and come in whenever they want there is absolutely no tolerance for drugs or alcohol and we basically check tents every once in a while and  take people out that are causing a lot of trouble basically our only bills that we have are the porter johns which are the honey buckets of gas for our generator so we can power like cell phones and little d and our wood that we burn we also use it for cooking and basically it says i'm a regular camp except we don't turn away nobody eles you're a sex offender or you how are you have if you  have any kind of warrants on the kitchen coordinator i kind of keep track of the food kind of distribute when i can what's out there you know i guess and we do need a lot of variety of huts and after we get our permanent property and house up to a thousand people but where but for now we're just moving around but we would really like to be in and kampm and stay in one spot it would be a lot easier for people to find work there and maybe go on with their lives because right now with moving back and forth a lot of people are not able to get jobs  it's really hard being a single woman here and now a lot of people when they get to camp they're really down on their luck and we need supplies for women like pads and tampons come food because we don't really get hot meals that much and we're not like the tent cities where they get hot meals every night we also need propane for cooking and it's really hard during the winners so we really need like sleeping bags and hands that don't worry because i've been in one that sleep before and it's not fun having your blanket sweat and stuff and it gets really cold in the winter so some really good sleeping bags would help because there's a risk of getting hypothermia and and i don't think anybody wants to get that i don't think this is the end it's a rope for me i think this is a stepping stone but we also you know it would be nice if talk to us and staff and a lot of people don't know the resources that are out there that could help them but it would be great if someone could just come in here and show us some of the resources that are available to us it would be great if someone out there could find some resources for families and and just help them get on their feet again because it's been so hard to quite work out there and  we're not homeless because we choose to be it's because of that how the economy is it's been so bad that even fast food places are hiring right now and that's my line of work and i've been looking at all they're doing is like you just accepting applications and they don't really look at your skills anymore so hopefully soon the economy i'll turn around and we can get back on our feet again a lot of people are hungry here you know because the only way we have to cook right now is the fire grill over there and sometimes if we get pro pay and then two hours a day that generator runs two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening so that we can charge our things but we really don't have no main source of electricity in camp so it's really hard and every one of the sites thirteen of them and now get made to make a move for the fourteen fourteen moves in a lot for a lot of people and a lot of stress on people's hearts i dislike to say here nichols ville as a nickelodeon i like to say this place has been a blessing for me it's been a growing experience truly and it helps myself and others i see rehabilitate to get their steam back i give people a sense of being accepted as a beautiful thing is when people are displaced and homeless situations it's reassuring to know there is help and even though it's very little out there there still is helping to places go  works with enforcing policies and rules with security arbitrators you have ten masters and so forth is great the way the system works and it seems to be working out as a day pretty well and it's great how  could operate in kind of maintain itself with donations and so forth with this good people who are homeless that have moved on to apartments and houses and furthered their dreams and his ambitions in life and it's been good all the way around for some people and  very this is a necessity for homeless people because i have seen homeless people on the streets that lived under bridges in parks having to be harassed by police and by other street people that have been several deaths attributed to being homeless in the past or very unfortunate  see a reason for nickel silver its better than having the homeless people sleep under bridges in car x in alley way i know a lot of people think that homeless people are nothing but drug addicts and alcoholics or people that want to do anything but we hear a nickel we have people that are carpenter we have people that past it was very hard for us to get any support at all because people look down upon homelessness and as a person that has been homeless it's been very hard at times to understand why people will not help people who are in foreclosure people are having problems paying their bills people need to know about these kind of places because it does open people's eyes it does bring the government their senses as you could say to say well we need to help these people a lot of people look at people that are on welfare and they're just lazy they don't want to work well we here at nichols and at twenty three when i was there we had people that would go out and look for work we have people here that work with labor ready temporary job we have women here in our very very creative we have gentlemen that are very creative and yes we do have our share of people that come through that are drug addicts alcoholics and it's a starting point for me to realize that hey you know i hit my bottom and i got to get back up and walk again and with people support i can do that  we need the government to understand that more people are becoming homeless every day and it is becoming a problem they need to address homelessness can be wiped out if everybody would just reach out i mean even just talking to a homeless person we had a gentleman here who was a diabetic and nobody would talk to him and i took the time out of my  time nichols hill to tell him what he needed to do he didn't know how to take care of himself eat right i gave him the incentive to go see his caseworker so that he could get help i people you can't key dismissing us unfortunately we're here it's not how most people nowadays are not work because as the years come on with this economy it's going to get worse and worse and worse and the next person sitting in his chair is going to be a ten year old gross and she was share a room we didn't grow up in want to become homeless you know i had a stroke which caused me to lose my house my job everything you know i've been on was since because with the stroke you know things you might get all of your physical used back of whatever was wrong i was paralyzed for a year on my left side but your brain just doesn't quite work with your body the way it did before so you're not right and i don't know how to explain to people you know the feeling of not being right after your brain has damage so i've lived here nichols bill for eleven months before that i mean my has been we lived under bridges or on riverbanks and last year we spent the first six fire because i'm right and nichols will is for those of us on the street safe haven because we have security on duty twenty four seven at all hours of the day so i can go to sleep and not worry my i don't have to carry everything out on my back you know to go places because i can leave it in my  we're not going to go away you know you're going to have to do something you know and first thing it does you have to look at the people you know don't be afraid to look for direction they're not going yeah i was married to the same man most of my life over his six children you know just normal everyday school mom soccer mom and thank goodness my children are grown but you know i've led a pretty ordinary life up until i became homeless shelters not a good place anyway that they have  you know there's always too many people outside is a bunch better you know it's not near as bad as most people think you know you can survive it i've  been through a couple of winners and there were times i didn't think i was going to survive but our flossy is just like with nichols really here we're all just one big family you know when when  something happens to one of us it happens it affects you know we love and care about each other you know we're community among in among serves us for the most part like hot water a shower a toll if that flushes the most simple as things will sort of question of wanting to live you know we really don't have much of a