Still Stealing and Lying

Ongoing Harm by Andrea Suarez and We Heart Seattle

We Heart Seattle is a litter-pickup group that has been causing damage to unhoused people all over Seattle. We Heart Seattle consistently mis-identifies tents or campsites as abandoned, and then confiscates and destroys the belongings of people who don’t happen to be home. We Heart Seattle members often insist that they have permission from the people living in the tents or campsites, but we have witnessed and documented cases where no permission was granted or even requested from the owners. In many cases, consent was falsely obtained from someone unrelated to the tent or the possessions being confiscated or destroyed.

A park that we regularly visit has been threatened with a sweep by local authorities. This threat is causing uncertainty, rumors, panic and anger among residents of the park. We Heart Seattle makes the situation worse by taking the threat of a sweep as license to escalate their incursions. They have been intruding more often and violating the privacy and space of people living in this park. As we have shown in other testimonies, the volunteers of We Heart Seattle have little or no relationship with people living in the park, so they often cause harm by their mistakes which they refuse to admit or correct.

“WE ASKED THOSE GUYS OVER THERE”

On November 27, we got a late report that We Heart Seattle was going to do what they called a “clean-up” at the park we regularly visit with supplies and services. One of our volunteers went quickly to the park and reported this:

By the time I got there, We Heart Seattle had maybe twenty volunteers and had already been around several areas and were picking up right next to K____ and A____’s tent. They had not checked with K____, who was surprised when I told her that We Heart Seattle was right behind her tent. K____ went out to try to manage the situation and told Andrea Suarez of past instances of stuff being taken and folks being angry. However, We Heart Seattle had enlisted another resident of the park to give permission to take stuff in the shared area near his own tent; so we didn’t feel we could intervene too heavily, even though it was a shared space and they had not asked permission of K____ or others who shared that area. K____ had to save some of her own stuff. At one point, K___ also asked We Heart Seattle to stop but they refused.

I went around to warn others, but lots of folks were not home. Another location had been cleared out; I later found the owner who was sleeping elsewhere and confirmed that We Heart Seattle had not asked for her permission. At another place, they took some stuff that looked burned; however, when I asked if they had permission to take the stuff away, they lied anyway and said that they had asked permission. When I asked “From whom?”, Andrea Suarez pointed some distance away and said “From those guys over there.” I happened to know that the owners were not onsite that day, and I went to ask “those guys over there” whom I also know, and “those guys” told me that they gave no such permission.

I warned some other people and then saw the We Heart Seattle group clustered around the storage tent of someone I know. I had tried to check in with him earlier and I knew he was not onsite that day. From some distance away, I loudly asked the We Heart Seattle people whose permission they had to take the stuff. They answered by pointing across the park to a different set of “those guys” — this time to some imagined people maybe 100 yards away, nowhere near where they were interfering. When I told them at high volume that it was my friend’s stuff and that I had already checked and he wasn’t home, they stopped and, when demanded, dropped the bags and moved away.

We heard from a couple of their volunteers, who are apparently new, that they were sorry for the mistake and they would learn and correct it. They got defensive when we pointed out that it’s part of a repeated pattern of harm.

So on that one day, there were at least four different sites in the park where We Heart Seattle picked up personal belongings without asking permission of residents living there.

NO ONE’S PERMISSION WAS ASKED

On January 1, a resident of the park called one of our volunteers and said “They’re kicking us out of the park.” Our volunteer hurried over to the park but found no posting or other sign of a sudden municipal sweep or other action. However, at the far end of the park, it turned out that We Heart Seattle had come and cleared out two campsites that had been in park shelters. Some We Heart Seattle people had apparently told a park resident that a sweep was coming, and that started the rumor that the sweep was happening that day.

In one of the two cleared-out shelters, the owner of the tents and tarps was rumored to have moved out of the park; but that shelter had also been a communal space with stored belongings of other residents of the park. All of those belongings were stolen and destroyed by We Heart Seattle. Those belongings included a pair of speakers, a flat screen TV with cable hookup, all of one person’s clothing, an expensive fully-operational drone, a generator and some DeWalt power tools. No one’s permission was asked. There were some Halloween images up in the shelter which We Heart Seattle later wildly advertised as “devil worship”.

“IT LOOKED LIKE GARBAGE TO US SO IT’S GARBAGE”

On January 14, Andrea Suarez and We Heart Seattle came to the park and picked up various things which they considered disposable. One resident of the park told us this story:

On that day, I was trying to stay out of it, but they [We Heart Seattle] kept insisting. I have an extra tent set up which I let people stay in sometimes if they need a place, and that tent had some stuff around it. I didn’t want a confrontation, so I finally told [We Heart Seattle] that I didn’t mind them picking up trash, but I told them to preserve the tent if they took it down. It was a $500 tent that my aunt gave me. I told them to take it down carefully, fold it up, and leave it next to the tent where I stay. They said they would do that. Then I tried to stay away from them.

Later when I picked up the tent where it was set down, it was cut up. They had broken it and slashed it, they cut the tent off the poles instead of dismantling it. They even broke the poles.

I was gonna let it go because I didn’t want to deal with it anymore, but my friend J who had been staying in the tent managed to reach them and one of their people set up a meeting. J wanted to get some money out of them, which I didn’t support because it wasn’t J’s tent. I didn’t want to go to the meeting but they kept asking, so I went. I corrected some things that J was saying, and I corrected Andrea Suarez on some false things.

Andrea Suarez was so goddamn defensive about her team. I told them that they destroyed the tent, and at first she said No, they had taken it down nicely and folded it. The tent was still there, so I showed her how it had been cut up and broken. Then she changed her story and said “I’m sorry. It looked like garbage so it was garbage. It had a hole in it. I looked like someone had squatted in it.”

I said “Yes I let people stay there sometimes.” Sometimes I see people sitting in the doorframe behind the restroom or someplace, like they don’t have a place, and I’ll invite them over to stay in my extra tent. I told Andrea Suarez, “From your perception it was trash, but from my perception it was something that needs to be patched. We have to work with what we have. When you guys offered to fold it up, that was great. But you cut it up, you broke the poles. It’s a pop-up and pop-down tent, the instructions are right on the poles. Don’t say you didn’t do that when you did.”

She was huffing and puffing and lying. I said “You present yourself as a city leader? When you do stuff like this?” I was very shocked at the lying they were doing. When the meeting started, she shook my hand and said “I’m the CEO of We Heart Seattle. I’m a leader in the city. We get people off the street.” Then five minutes later she was spouting off lies.

She wouldn’t budge from her false story. Finally she comes over to me, looks me up and down, then puts her hand on my shoulder and says “Well thank you, sweetheart. If you come down to our 3rd Avenue office, I’ll give you a fresh change of clothes.” That was the condescending attitude she had about the whole thing. I would have preferred that she just tell me I look dirty.

“IF I GET YOU A NEW PHONE, WILL YOU CALL ME YOUR SOCIAL WORKER?”

The same resident told us another story about this same meeting. Note that Andrea Suarez has no training nor any licensing as a social worker or case manager. She has lied about being a case manager in an attempt to get information about individuals. She then lied repeatedly about that incident of lying, and later doubled-down on it and said that she doesn’t need training or licensing.

J was saying that he needed a new phone. Andrea Suarez said she could get him a phone but she asked him, in front of everybody “Do you really need a phone or are you just going to sell it for drugs?”

I couldn’t believe she would say that to someone. J said that he just needed a phone. So she said to him “Okay. If I get you a phone, can I be your new social worker?”

It’s like she’s a predator. Preying on vulnerable people. That’s how it felt.

“WE DON’T NEED PERMISSION!”

On Saturday January 22, We Heart Seattle came back to the park and several of our volunteers came to the park to monitor their actions. One of our volunteers wrote down this testimony, which shows that “We Heart Seattle people are unprepared to grant normal respect and rights to people living unhoused.”

While I was watching the We Heart Seattle people, I saw some park residents near a tent and decided to go over to talk to them. One person who was sitting outside. I said “Are you all ok? Are these [We Heart Seattle] people bothering you?” The person responded, “We’re all good. But can you go over and see that they don’t take the tents and stuff behind S___ and C___’s tent?” And I said “S___ and C___’s stuff?” And the person responded, “No, the ones they are really close to, over there near S___ and C___’s tent.”

I walked towards the area in question and I saw a person whose name, I later learned, is Tim. Behind him, he was dragging what looked like a tent or part of a tent.

I asked him, “Do you have permission to take that?” He raised his voice right away and yelled, “This is trash!” I said, “Did the person who owns it give you permission to throw it away?” And he said, “It’s garbage. I don’t need permission to throw away garbage!”

I walked away toward another area. There were about four people in We Heart Seattle vests near two tents that didn’t seem to have anyone home. I walked up to them and asked, “Do you have permission to take this stuff?” Tim came up, very angry, and started shouting at me: “This is TRASH, we are cleaning!” and even shoved a few things in my face: a can and a mask. I then took out my phone and tried to make a video in case someone was asking about missing belongings later, but my phone didn’t work. I asked the We Heart Seattle person in front of me if they had asked for permission. That person said, “Yes, I have permission.” I asked, “From who? What are their names?” And the person responded, “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

This repeated itself a few times and I eventually walked away.

Tim followed me and took a bunch of pictures of me. I walked up to him and said “Would you like to have a conversation?” He responded with “We are cleaning up trash and helping out here! We aren’t doing anything wrong!” And I said “I just wanted to make sure that you had permission, since no one seemed to be home there.” He shouted, “IT IS GARBAGE!” He also proceeded to tell me how much volunteer work he does and how much he helps out all over the city. When he was finished I asked him if I could speak and try to get my point across. I reiterated that park residents had asked me to go check that they weren’t taking someone’s belongings, and that it didn’t look like anyone was home in the tent they were cleaning right outside of. (They were literally right next to the front of the tent, near a fire area; it was clearly part of someone’s area and not out in the middle of the park.) I mentioned that they could maybe come back another time when the residents were home to clean up that area with permission. Tim said, “It was trash.” I asked “How do you know it was trash if nobody was home?” He said, “You just keep talking in circles” and stomped off.

Shortly thereafter, I learned that some of the We Heart Seattle people I had spoken to were unhoused people that WHS was paying, including the person who told me he didn’t have to answer my questions, and that Tim was their boss. I did apologize to that person about holding my phone near their face, mentioning that I had not gotten a video of their face because my phone didn’t work. They replied “It’s fine, I still don’t think I was doing anything wrong.” Another one of them talked to me at length and told me that he thought Tim was really unprofessional and told me that he wanted me to text Andrea about what happened so that there would be a complaint about Tim coming from outside.

Another of the unhoused We Heart Seattle employees also told me that he really wanted to change WHS from the inside and make it less property focused (picking up litter) and more about supporting people. He seemed to really think he could affect change there.

ALL WITHOUT CONSENT OF THE OWNERS

At another large camp near downtown Seattle, residents told volunteers that We Heart Seattle has removed as many as half the tents, all without consent of the owners of the tents. One resident of the camp has lost three tents on visits by We Heart Seattle, all because he didn’t happen to be home when they came to do what they call “clean up and outreach”. That resident lost ID, watches, valuable jade pieces and other belongings.

One resident was present during a visit by We Heart Seattle. The resident told us “They were going in if nobody’s home, and if it doesn’t look pristine, they take it. Someone told them ‘Hey that’s someone’s belongings’ but they [We Heart Seattle] just laughed about it, they didn’t care.”

Another volunteer witnessed Andrea Suarez “with a resident that I don’t often see during our mutual aid on Fridays, but am familiar with at the camp. [This resident] seems to be the one that We Heart Seattle gets ‘consent’ from and he seems to tell We Heart Seattle to throw away other resident’s belongings. He stated that people are ‘lazy’ and ‘just hoarding’ trash and junk.

It seems that just one resident’s okay is enough for We Heart Seattle to do what they want to the rest of the camp.”