A first hand account, names edited out:
I saw our friend [A] and some friends at the 65th and Aurora bus stop.
I said: I’d heard Andrea Suarez had been around the park a lot this week
[A] said: “She’s terrible. She tried to steal prince and did still princess and would have gotten away if they hadn’t seen her…”
[A] said: “Do you know she pays people 25 bucks for their tent and all their belongings, while they’re dopesick? In that state people will agree to anything just to get well. So easy for her to throw away all their stuff. And now there’s blues. People in withdrawal would sell their house for a blue.”
I said: “When you say get well, do you mean take drugs?”
[A]: “yes.”
I said: “Holy shit. She’s accusing us of being enablers by giving people tents and she’s straight up handing out cash at the instant they’re most vulnerable to buying and relapsing, just so she can ‘clean’ the parks.”
The most pertinent tidbit here is about enablement. Supplying food, warm clothes and other necessities to endure their situation is enablement, but giving people in withdrawal cash so that you can throw their stuff away isn’t? We hope that We Heart Seattle donors understand that this is how their funds are being used.
Yikes on bikes.
