Tent City No. 5 — Eirik Johnson Studio Website

Tent City No. 5

Throughout 2017 and 2018, I spent time with residents of Seattle's Tent City #5 homeless encampment. With the approval and support of the camp’s self-governing leadership, I interviewed and photographed residents within their individual living spaces. The work was initially commissioned as part of Pacific Standard Magazine's January/February 2017 issue dedicated to the homeless crisis facing many of the urban centers of the American West and was continued with support from 4Culture.

Belinda

“I was in a situation and it went on for awhile, for a long time, and I got tired of it. So I made a choice. I could either stay there and keep on going through what I was going through, or stay outside. I had nowhere else to go. So, I chose not to go back one day and just to see what it was like outside.
When I was growing up, my brother was homeless. I’d see him in line in downtown Portland waiting to eat and stuff and I had always said, please don’t let that happen to me. But it did. I’m kinda glad it did because I got to see and experience what he went through.”

Michael

“I was born in Kingston, Jamaica, raised in Chicago. I moved out here for a fresh start, you know. Home for me is just something I can go back to constantly, something that’s my own space, something that I can fix around, rearrange the way I want to. Just something I can feel comfortable at you know.”

Catie and Marc

“We were gonna be homeless in Oklahoma and with the lack of resources there we researched and researched. Marc had a stroke eighteen months ago and he’s transgender so that makes it even more exciting trying to find good healthcare that’s going to treat him like him as opposed to treating him like a her.
Even this as a homeless option was better because if we were in most of the other states we were gonna be split up into a male dorm and a female dorm and Marc and I both help each other a lot because of our lack of physical abilities. It helps us get by.”

Panda

“My name is Joseph, but I go by the name Panda. I was born in Baltimore, raised in Texas. Transferred up this way cause I’m looking for what I feel is home and that’s some independence of having a place to live, save some money to do some good with, help others.
When I wake up every morning, I decide that today is the best day ever and that there’s nothing anybody else can do to bring me down, to make me feel any lower than I already am because being at the bottom there’s only one direction to go.
I lived in a little metal box in an RV home for five years and I finally just got tired of it and said, you know, there’s something better out there in the world. Whether I’m homeless or not, let me seek and find it. I figure, if you go on in life searching for home every single day, you’re gonna learn something new. Home can always be a changing, developing, creative, community effort.”

Deanne and Clint

“I met Deanne in Alabama in 2009. My mom had passed away in January and I met her in July. I got very, very, very depressed when my mom passed. I kind of spiraled out of control with drug use and alcoholism. I watched her die right in front of me. It took me down. We hit it off rather well, and spent the honeymoon days with a little too much partying—I guess especially on my part. I was hiding the pain I felt from my mother’s loss. We did party a lot, but ultimately she saved my ass.
When we were in Alabama, we were never on the streets like this. My dad lived there and we always had a place. Once we moved up here, my drug addiction kind of got out of control. I kind of took her down with me. I’m just being honest. Eventually, she was the only person on the planet who could get me to quit drinking. God sent me to her for a reason.”

Sonny

“You’re not really unclean but you’re not clean. People look down on you like you’re lower than what they are. Everybody thinks the tent cities are just a waste of time. Yes, they don’t make us get into housing, but they do provide us a safe comfortable place that we can stay where we don’t have to move all of our shit with us every time we go somewhere. If I wanted to, I could leave my stuff here and go out and find a job, and not have to worry about it.
People get pissed off because there are tents all over the place. Well, if you look at the amount of available housing in Seattle, there is not enough for everybody that’s homeless. We’ve had 265 people from the day we opened, and of those 265 people, we’ve had 10 move into permanent housing.”

Three Generations.jpg — Brandie, FlutterBy, and Bonnie

Brandie: “I came here from Texas cause my mama was sick and I wanted to be close to her. It had been years since I had been with her cause I was in prison before that. So that’s the reason I came here.”
Bonnie: “I went to visit my daughter in jail just before she went off to prison and I asked her if she wanted me to stay in Texas to wait or did she want me to go ahead and come to Seattle and get us started. And she said go to Seattle, cause it’s your dream. My dream is actually Alaska and we’ll make it eventually. We’re very resourceful people and we figure things out.”

Pete

“I grew up here, born and bred. After we lost our house, me and my now ex-fiance and my kids got an apartment on this hill right here, and I was there for about a year and half before it was noticeable that my addiction was affecting the family in a negative way, and I needed to go. So I moved out January 2nd and had a place for a while. February 23rd I decided that I needed to just become homeless and deal with my situation. Bad choice. It scared the crap out of me. I lived in a bush on top of a hill for a long time.

I was actually employed until July 3rd, and then I got laid off. July 7th I attempted to kill myself, but I got saved by the weirdest thing in the world. I had a cat a couple years ago, before she ran away. And I’m walking down to the train bridge to end everything, and out comes this cat. And I look at her, and I’m like, What the? So I start singing this song I used to sing to her (I rescued her and it took me four or five days to get her out of the corner and up onto the bed). She just huddled, until I kept signin’ and singin’ and then she came. And she sat in my lap and purred. Instead of just going to the train bridge I turned around and came back.
I would love to have a spot where I can call my kids, and say, Hey come over for the night,
or Let’s watch TV or I’ll make you dinner or something like that. That would be home to me.”

BORDERLANDS

Snow Star