A Seattle woman was assaulted right outside her own home in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood. She says a new RV resident in the area shoved her in the face – after she simply said hello.
“I was stunned and bewildered,” said Anne Goodchild, who has lived in the neighborhood for nearly two decades. The incident happened on NE Blakley Street, right off the Burke Gilman Trail.
Goodchild said she walked out of her home with her daughter last week and simply greeted one the RV residents outside.
“I said something like kind of causal, like how’s it going?” Goodchild said. Then she says the woman started yelling at them and following them.
“She was like, what are you looking at?” Goodchild recalled. “She got closer and closer to me and she put her hand in my face and pushed me,” she said. “I feel a little anxious just talking about it.”
She shared cell phone video her daughter took after the incident. You can hear the woman shouting, “You stalker! Go away then if you don’t like it!”
“It was really, really shocking,” Goodchild said. She said she filed a police report, and saw an officer come by in the following days. But the woman is still in the neighborhood.
“It’s this concern about just my physical safety, in my own street,” Goodchild said. She is currently driving out of her home, instead of walking places. Other neighbors told KIRO7 they’ve also stopped walking outside their own homes.
“I feel totally unsafe. I’ve started parking my car in the back,” said Julia, who was too worried to appear on camera.
Residents say the situation started escalating over the past few weeks.
“I’ve filed maybe 26 reports,” Julia said, scrolling through all the reports she submitted to Seattle’s Find It Fix It app.
“They’ve been dumping trash, brought a BBQ grill out… drug paraphernalia, burnt foil,” Julia said.
But KIRO7 also spoke with an RV resident who says she moved to the neighborhood after recently getting cleared out of Magnuson Park.
“It’s not fair it’s not right, this is what I can afford right now,” said Kelly Colangelo, who is currently living in her car and RV that a friend helped fix up for her.
She says she’s been waiting on housing for 4 years.
“The frustration, the exhaustion of being out here. And not having a place to go or a place to be,” Colangelo said, in tears.
She says she didn’t hear about the assault – but wants neighbors to know.
“We’re not all the same. But we all get the same rap,” Colangelo said. “I assure you, I’m not having a party or a good time at all,” she said.
Residents in the Ravenna neighborhood say they feel deep empathy for people unhoused – but want to feel safe too.
“I’m walking down my neighborhood street. I should be able to do that,” Goodchild said.
KIRO7 reached out to both the mayor’s office and city council about the situation.
A spokesperson for Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office said because of the recent escalation of incidents there, a team inspected the Ravenna site Friday morning to figure out what’s next. Strategic Communications Advisor Lori Baxter said one option could be referrals to the new RV parking site in Interbay, which will be run by LiHi.
LiHi said the RV parking site will hopefully be open in a couple of months. The site will have 26 spots and be specifically for people who are ready leave their RV’s and move into transitional housing in 90 days.
Full statement from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Office:
Mayor Harrell believes every person in every neighborhood across Seattle deserves to be safe and feel safe. If a crime is believed to be committed, residents should contact SPD.
In response to reports about recent escalation at this location, the Unified Care Team (UCT) completed an inspection of the site earlier this morning to gather more information and help us deploy the right teams. This includes coordination of outreach teams, trash mitigation, and parking enforcement to mitigate the impact on public spaces.
Standard parking enforcement guidelines are for vehicles parked in one location longer than 72-hours to be tagged with a warning. Parking enforcement officers respond to violations as swiftly as possible.
The City is coordinating with KCRHA on a referral process for sites such as LIHI’s Interbay site. That process will be managed by KCRHA in partnership with the UCT Neighborhood Teams.
Statement from City Councilmember Alex Pedersen (District 4, Northeast Seattle)
“Everyone deserves to feel safe in their community and, unfortunately, we have seen illegal activities increase when multiple RVs cluster together and break our parking laws and camping laws. I agree with my constituents that the city government should not allow derelict RVs to ignore our laws in Seattle. We want safety for not only for neighborhood residents but also for occupants of RVs who are often victims of crime and in need of services to address substance use disorder. I appreciate the Harrell Administration’s balanced response to these health and safety issues and look forward to them using their authority and resources to address these derelict RVs more quickly in Northeast Seattle and throughout our city.”
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