Welcome to the Coffee Shop on Rainier

Hey there coffee drinkers,

I have created this blog to share three stories about interactions we have homeless customers that come to the store I work at. My store is located in South Seattle and gets a lot of foot traffic from all types of customers, high schoolers, parents, people who take the Link Light Rail and more recently homeless customers.

In May of 2016 the Mayor at the time, which was Jay Inslee, decided to close multiple homeless camps in the Seattle area. Many homeless camps were located going north on Rainier Ave South and under the I-5 bridge which was called "The Jungle". Inslee stated that he was closing these areas due how unsafe and unsanitary the areas were, although his reasoning is just, he did not take into consideration how closing those camps meant those people would come into the neighboring areas and find/build homes there. One of the areas where the homeless people come is my store.

Over the past three years, we have had an increase in homeless customers. Some are looking for a place to feel safe and secure, some come in just to get water and some cause situations that are not so pleasant. There are a wide range of homeless customers we tend to get, but at least once a week we have a situation involving a homeless customer where we have to ask them to leave the store and/or call the police.

Here are some situations in which we had to ask them to leave, tell them they were no longer welcomed in our store and had to call the police.

*DISCLAIMER*
I am in no way trying to talk down on the homeless community. Homelessness is an on-going issue that needs to be fixed. I am just sharing situations that have happened at my store.