Tent City 4 pitches tents east of Issaquah, awaits Bellevue permit approval

Published 3:37 pm Thursday, June 9, 2016

Tent City 4 residents have once again set up camp at the Interstate-90 High Point exit east of Issaquah in unincorporated King County.

The move came after a 120-day stay at Sammamish’s Mary, Queen of Peace Catholic Church, which campers vacated Saturday.

About 23 homeless men and women are waiting for a permit with the city of Bellevue to clear, allowing them to move onto the Temple B’nai Torah’s property.

Encampment organizers and the temple president submitted the permit in mid-May; that permit is still in the review process.

Currently, the encampment sits off of I-90 at exit 20 on a King County Roads right-of-way. Traveling eastward, they’re on the right side of the highway behind a King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks gate.

County spokesperson Doug Williams confirmed earlier this week that the county is aware of their presence there.

“It is the same location they were at last year,” Williams said.

That 14-month stay saw hard times for campers though, caught between permitting controversy and enduring winter weather. This time, however, they don’t expect to stay more than 20 days, Tent City 4 resident and bookkeeper Trey Nuzum said.

He has been with the traveling encampment for nearly a year now and remembers what it was like before moving into Sammamish.

“We’ve done this before,” he said. “Twenty days here is cake.”

There are about 20 tents set up along the road, as well as two porta-potties.

Campers are in need of hot food, ice, bottled water, trash bags, hand sanitizer and gas cards for the generators.

At this point, since they plan to be moving into Bellevue soon, they do not have a large donation tent set up and do not have room for clothing.

Anyone wishing to donate supplies to the encampment can drop them off at their camp site near I-90 exit 20.

Once in Bellevue, Nuzum expects the encampment will grow to 80 residents.

Temple B’nai Torah is located at 15727 NE Fourth St.

The city of Sammamish will hold a community feedback meeting regarding the encampment’s stay at Mary, Queen of Peace from 5:30-7 p.m. on at Sammamish City Hall on Monday.