Crews are hoping to wrap up a sweep early next week on the nine-year-old homeless encampment in Centralia named for Blakeslee Junction, a three-way railroad crossing near Interstate 5.
The few acres between the freeway and the junction owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) will be sold to Rainier Rail once the clean-up is complete. Just north of that property, a .4-acre lot is privately owned by Chuck Wiegard, who has described himself as the de-facto leader and caretaker of the encampment since its beginning. The sweep started on Tuesday, Sept. 5.
One week later, at a Centralia City Council meeting, Centralia Police Chief Stacy Denham said “approximately” six to 10 people have moved from the WSDOT land onto Wiegard’s, causing a cramped collection of residencies including vehicles and makeshift structures.
After people had moved onto that land, Denham said Wiegard left and moved in with a friend. Wiegard said he’d be willing to sell the property, but said Rainier Rail offered just $5,000 for it, despite its value at $17,400, per the Lewis County Assessor’s Office. Denham said negotiations are ongoing.
Some of the people remaining are making arrangements to move, the police chief said. Each has been “offered services” and a place to go every day, Denham said.
“The reality is there was a choice, and they made the choice not to go,” he said.
At one point, Denham said, a Christian motorcycle group came to the site and offered to pay for encampment occupants’ shelter that night. There were no takers, he said.
During public comment Tuesday, Salvation Army Captain Gin Pack also provided an update on the sweep, saying, “Whether you’re on one side of the argument, or either, people had to move that day. (People) that had established space and I won’t get into the weeds about however people feel about that, but they were displaced from what was familiar.”
For other people who were moved off the encampment’s former footprint, two have chosen to stay at The Salvation Army in Centralia’s night-by-night shelter, Denham said.
Three are going through the Recovery Navigator Program for substance use disorder treatment. Another three have been signed up for “Coordinated Entry,” a Salvation Army-run program meant to get people into housing.
Denham provided other figures on the sweep to the council, including that between 70 and 100 tons of garbage and more than 70 tires had so far been removed from the site. WSDOT crews had been using excavators to unearth buried debris.
A Weyerhaeuser-style gate was set to be installed at the entrance to the property, which is at the end of Centralia’s Eckerson Road and crews planned to set up a grate over a culvert under Interstate 5 which would prevent trash and debris from flowing out when the area floods.
Pack said she was most impressed by the kindness and respect agencies, service providers and others offered to encampment occupants throughout the process.
“This is a complex issue. My overarching message was that nobody won that day,” Pack said.
Through all of that, she said, people addressed those living at the site by name and offered support, even when it was “outside of their wheelhouse.”
When eviction notices were posted at Blakeslee Junction on Aug. 29, Pack told The Chronicle that the greatest support people could offer in the process was compassion.
“The individuals that I have mentioned, on this occasion, rose to that. And I believe that’s what Centralia and Lewis County can always be,” Pack said.
