Homeless Woman's Car Burns In Seattle As 'Safe Lot' Anger Flares

SEATTLE, WA — As news about potential safe parking lots for the homeless was spreading across south Seattle this week, a homeless mother living in a car in a south Seattle park lost almost everything she had.

On Monday morning, Tarita Patton was driving her daughter to school near the Rainier Beach light rail station when smoke started pouring out of her gold sedan. In seconds, flames were shooting out of the dashboard.

"I pushed [my daughter] out the car, the whole damn car ignited on the inside" Patton said on Thursday.

They escaped uninjured, but all their possession burned, including a housing voucher Patton had just received to move into a home, she said.

Patton began living in her car at the end of January, she said, after she left her Kent apartment due to a mold problem her landlord wouldn't fix. She picked the parking lot at Beer Sheva Park in Rainier Beach to sleep in at night, close to her daughter's elementary school in the Hillman City neighborhood.

"It was kind of OK. It was scary and cold," she said of sleeping in the park. Since the fire, she and her daughter have been staying with a friend while they wait to get another housing voucher.

Seattle has been trying for years to find a way to provide safe spaces for the growing population of homeless people who live in RVs or cars. But proposals to build safe parking lots have been met with opposition, including now in the same area where Patton slept with her daughter in a car.

During the city budget process last fall, the City Council approved spending $250,000 on a pilot safe lot program. In late February, KOMO reported several possible locations for new lots: Genesee Park, Pritchard Beach, Mt. Baker Beach, and the Amy Yee Tennis Center on Beacon Hill.

On Wednesday night, locals packed a South Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting to rail against city officials' lack of communication over the new lots — and in some cases against the lots, period.

That outrage, it appears, has at least temporarily stalled progress on safe lots. The Low Income Housing Institute has withdrawn a permit for a safe lot, according to KIRO. KING 5 reported that Mayor Jenny Durkan is still evaluating options for the lots and plans to hold meetings about them soon.

The city's Human Services Department (HSD) says it remains committed to the lots, however. Patch sent specific questions about the program to HSD. A spokesman responded with a blanket statement:

"There has been no final decision regarding the location and design of the Safe Parking Program. HSD is continuing to evaluate potential locations for the pilot program. The Department of Neighborhoods will lead community engagement as the city develops next steps for launching the program. The program is intended to help people who are living in their cars overnight by providing a safe place to sleep and receive supportive services that can help them out of homelessness. We remain committed to that goal — that has not changed."

King County's 2018 Count Us In census found over 3,300 people living in their vehicles on one night, an increase of nearly 1,000 compared to the 2017 count. Seattle had a safe parking lot in Ballard for a few months in 2016, but it closed due to lack of use. A city-sanctioned lot in Sodo was still operating at the end of 2018, but was not allowing new residents.

Meanwhile, Patton is scrambling to put her life back together. She's looking for housing, but is having trouble getting around without her car. She has set up a fundraiser through Facebook to replace clothes and to try to get back on her feet.

"We don't have anything," she said.