Despite threats of removal, asylum-seekers in Kent remain at camp next to empty hotel

For now, asylum-seekers camping in front of a vacant county-owned hotel in the city of Kent are not going to be relocated, despite a threat by police to clear the camp Tuesday.

“I think it's very upsetting for us to be sitting, camping outside an empty hotel,” said Rosario Lopez, an organizer with a mutual aid group which has helped provide hotels, couches, and now tents to the asylum-seekers.

“It's painful to see how the wind is blowing off our tents and our canopies while you can see the empty building, sitting there.”

Around 200 people are camping outside the hotel. A large portion of the campers are asylum-seekers who were left out of the recent move from a Seattle park, in which families and children were prioritized by the City of Seattle and the Low Income Housing Institute.

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But some families were still left behind, and found half-measures, with the help of mutual aid groups, but ended up on the lawn of the hotel. They were also joined by others staying in cars, on couches, in tents, and at other hotels around the county. Nonprofits receiving county funds have warned that they don’t have enough resources to help everyone.

The asylum-seekers were expecting for the worst, to be evicted. In an email to press, officials from the Kent Police Department said they were going to provide notice to the asylum-seekers (in languages other than English) to leave Tuesday.

But the King County Sheriff’s Office declined to participate in the eviction, which means Kent police wouldn't either.

All this started because over the weekend, the county authorized the city to notify the campers that they were trespassing on county property.

Local governments are saying they’re strapped for funding and a statewide and national response is needed.

“Neither south King cities nor King County has the resources to address these concerns. It is appropriate for the federal government to step in, and in its absence, the response to this issue must be spread across the entire state and not concentrated in South King County,” said Jarod Kasner, Kent's assistant police chief.

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Advocates and asylum-seekers have been asking local government officials to open up the Econo Lodge across from the spot where they’ve been camping. KUOW reached out to city of Kent about how that could happen, but did not receive a response.

“The reality of doing so is much more complicated than simply unlocking the doors and turning on the lights,” said Kristin Elia, the interim director of communications for the office of King County Executive Dow Constantine.

“We know that full operations and capital for an emergency shelter, even in the short term, are beyond the county’s available resources.”

Another barrier is the legal limits the county has with the city of Kent to use this hotel for the asylum-seekers.

“The City of Kent has made it clear to the county that it does not want to amend our legal agreement to use the property for anything other than isolation and quarantine or other city-authorized uses. Therefore, we are not actively pursuing this property as a possible shelter," Elia said.

The county bought the Econo Lodge during the pandemic and initially opened it to house people. It became the subject of a lawsuit between the city and the county until they entered into an agreement in August 2020.

Part of that agreement said that, once the governor ended the state of emergency, the county would stop it’s temporary use of the hotel as a Covid-19 facility. It also meant the city would drop its lawsuit.

The city was worried that the use of the hotel by the county would negatively impact the businesses in the area.

The encampment is nestled into a grassy peninsula surrounded by a highway offramp, and a busy six-lane road. To the south of the encampment and hotel are small new and used car lots. Across the six-lane road from the asylum-seekers camp is a gas station, and a chain diner. Asylum-seekers who have the resources will grab a bite to eat at the diner on occasion. As they eat, the wide-open windows of the diner face the camp, and the abandoned hotel, patrolled by security staff.

In total, mutual aid organizers say over the cycles of the months-long housing crises, they’ve accumulated $15,000 in camping and cooking equipment, part of which could be lost if police decide to clean out the encampment. The county estimates around $25,000 has been redirected from case management to use for emergency housing.