Program on the Environment

Unhoused people are intensive users of parks in King County, but their needs are rarely considered by parks departments as they are not seen as “legitimate” users. There are also few studies on unhoused people and parks that focus on the perspectives of unhoused people themselves. This study tries to reposition unhoused people as park users in order to understand how and why unhoused people use parks, as well as what parks can do to improve their experience. Through my internship at King County Parks, I learned that unhoused park visitors sometimes come into conflict with park employees and that some park managers feel ill-equipped to serve unhoused people who frequent their park. To include perspectives of unhoused people, I surveyed ten unhoused people in south King County and analyzed their responses for themes. I found that they use parks to aid in socialization and safety, and because of hostility elsewhere. However, they still feared judgement by housed park users and harassment from police. The surveyed unhoused people also desired open, well-maintained public restrooms, showers, lockers, and other public amenities in parks. Though parks cannot solve King County’s housing crisis, these findings show that unhoused people are already using parks for a variety of reasons, and thus parks are in a unique position to provide important amenities that can improve people’s lives, if park departments are willing to reach out to them.