Image of the Week: Welcome to Nickelsville

by Shannon Moriarty · 2009-06-18 09:05:00 UTC
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Forget all of your assumptions about tent cities.

While you're at it, forget all of your past judgements about homeless people. If you learn anything in the next two minutes, I hope it's this: people without a home are just that, people without a home.

Our very own Mark Horvath took a tour through Nickelsville yesterday (a tent city near Seattle) and documented the trip on Whrrl. If you take five minutes to click through the photos and commentary, you'll see that tent cities can be just as orderly, clean, and sanitary as any other community.

I was surprised to learn that Nickelsville operates much like any other gated community. The tents have addresses. A "head of security" screens for sex offenders. There are visitor logs, cooking stations, trash cans, and even vacant real estate plots (to prepare for inevitable expansion).

Residents of Nickelsville take pride in their homes and community, though non-traditional they may be.

Take a few minutes and take a tour of Nickelsville on Whrrl. And a huge thanks to Mark for opening our eyes to this American city.

Shannon Moriarty has worked in various homeless shelters and service organizations around the country. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.
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