According to a report published in 2024, nearly 10,000 people sleep outdoors in King County, Washington each night. Among them are families who have lost their homes, individuals unable to pay for the outcome of accidents or medical emergencies, elders whose retirement funds ran dry too soon, veterans who have been unable to receive proper mental healthcare, and migrants fleeing violence and economic hardship in their home countries. All of them deserve the opportunity to contribute positively to their communities, yet all have been failed, lost or forgotten by the public institutions which are often too overwhelmed to cope with the crisis.

So far, this has been the case for the community of over 200 asylum seekers from Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, who have organized themselves as a community to fight for dignified housing in King County since late 2023. Despite perpetual instability, these migrants have developed a unified and cohesive community, cooking shared daily meals, organizing events together, and figuring out how to establish a caring and intentional society despite social, cultural, and linguistic differences. Many of the migrants in this community have family in their home countries; some worried that the journey they had to endure to get here would put their children in danger, and made the difficult decision to leave their children to seek stability here in the US. Others arrived here with children, even infants, and have had to figure out how to care for their young families under such dire circumstances.

For most of the last several months, the migrants' housing and basic necessities have been provided entirely by community organizations and volunteers. Without the resources of the government, however, community members have not always been able to organize sufficient resources to house such a large population of migrants, and the community has been forced to camp several times during the winter. The most recent camp, set up outside the Kent Econolodge on Friday, May 31, 2024, was established the day before an atmospheric river passed through King County, and migrants had to spend their first weekend in the camp soaked, freezing, and under threat of a sweep from the County expected on Tuesday, June 4. However, due to enormous pressure from community, who sent over 300 letters to the King County Council, King County and the City of Kent both annulled the sweep order, and the camp has been allowed to stay.

On Tuesday, June 11th, dozens of migrants from the camp, along with members of the community organizations working alongside them, attended a King County Council meeting in downtown Seattle, and met with four members of the Council: Claudia Balducci, Rod Dembowski, Teresa Mosqueda and Girmay Zahilay. The Councilmembers promised to deliver sanitation services to the encampment—a trash bin, bathrooms, portable handwashing stations, and showers—which had been previously funded by volunteers. They also stated they would work with the Council to issue a permit allowing the City of Kent to open the Econolodge for emergency housing. This would be an enormous victory for our migrant community, as it would provide them with a safe place to live while they await the progress of their asylum claims and issuance of their work permits. The community organizations who have worked alongside the migrant community have pledged their support for the opening of the Econolodge, and see it as an opportunity to turn their efforts towards projects migrants have said they most want: educational opportunities, language and job training, and community-building programs. But the fight is not over yet, and we need community support to continue to urge King County and the City of Kent to open the Econolodge.

Thank you for giving your assistance and support by signing this petition, and please share it with your family and friends.