Thursday, October 1, 2026
Olympia Mayor Dontae Payne attempted to quell chatter tied to a remark he made earlier this month about plans for the potential closure of a large homeless encampment known as “The Jungle.”
Payne addressed the comment in prepared remarks at the beginning of an Olympia City Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 27.
“I want to clarify that the city is just getting started in this work. We are committed to working collaboratively with our regional nonprofit and service provider partners,” said Payne in response to the comment he made about The Jungle at the State of the Community event in Lacey on Jan. 14.
“Rest assured no decisions have been made, including a timeline for when the encampment will close. It’s early days, and city and county managers are working with their teams to kick off the work to start developing a plan soon. And we do not anticipate a closing of the encampment this year.”
City Manager Jay Burney said Olympia is going to work with the City of Lacey, Thurston County and other partners to develop a comprehensive approach for the homeless encampment.
He expects the planning process to be long, estimating it could be 18 to 24 months before any concrete steps toward relocation or closure are considered.
During the public comment, residents and volunteers who work with people living at the encampment urged city officials to involve encampment residents in the planning process.
“I hope that you consider why it is that people still live in The Jungle,” said Colin Bartlett, an Olympia business owner and Thurston County Planning Commission member.
“If you spoke with jungle residents, they would first tell you that sustainable alternatives simply do not exist. The worst and most common outcome for people forced out of encampments is that they find themselves bounced back into the street … without the social and physical infrastructure they had built for themselves.”
Bartlett, who was unhoused for several years in Olympia, said The Jungle allows residents to live with autonomy, dignity and mutual support, including the ability to keep companion animals and manage mental health challenges with peer support rather than state supervision.
He urged the council to ensure that any plan must fully involve residents at every step of the process, meet their needs, and require their consent before any relocation.
“Any alternative you propose that lacks these basic conditions is not acceptable,” Bartlett said. “The last decade unhoused Olympians have had a simple demand of this city government that in all of that time has not been met — ‘nothing for us without us.’"
Mag Pollicino, of Olympia, said residents want clear information about any potential timeline and other decisions regarding displacement throughout the process.
Pollicino said they want immediate support, including weatherproof tents, clothing, medical supplies, trash receptacles and home-cooked meals.
“The residents in The Jungle know what they need. If Olympia and Lacey want to help, please talk directly with them, not around them,” said Pollicino, adding the residents of the jungle are best equipped to share how their health and well-being can be supported.
Pollicino also raised concerns about how discussions around plans to close the encampment were being framed.
“It sounds as though closing The Jungle is being treated as an item on a checklist, rather than what it really is — forcibly displacing our most vulnerable neighbors.”
Council member Kelly Green voiced support for a planning process that includes the residents. She said any long-term solution must involve the people living in the encampment.
She acknowledged the encampment is an unsafe and unsustainable space.
“This will be a long and difficult conversation, but I fully support the work we need to do to find an answer," Green said.
Burney said the city wants to explore ways to care for and house people living at the encampment.
“We want to look for options to care for people and to house people. We certainly want to hear from them, and we will as part of our planning efforts," he said.
Assistant City Manager Debbie Sullivan will lead the effort of working with jurisdiction partners and others to develop a long-term plan for The Jungle.
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DavidAlbert
"“I want to clarify that the city is just getting started in this work. We are committed to working collaboratively with our regional nonprofit and service provider partners,”
I think before you decide you are "to work collaboratively....yadda, yadda,yadda" with your regional nonporfit and service provider partners", you should find out, in great detail, what they have done for the residents of The Jungle in the past. I would suggest you might find out that these aren't really "partners" at all, and that you need new ones.
Friday, January 30 Report this
chrispc2u
My suggestion is, at the behest of all contributing Thurston County taxpayers who want a LIVABLE DOWNTOWN, is to immediately shut down and raze the this perpetual village of bums, who are professionally sucking of the teat of Olympia coffers and Uncle Sam and deliberately avoiding their responsibility to society. If they’re insane put them somewhere to get treated INSTEAD of patrolling downtown relentlessly with no direction, no goals or whatever while staring into the restaurant windows of people trying to enjoy their dinner! . Their downtown presence is crippling commerce and just a plain drag to look at or have to engage with when you’re in downtown Olympia. Enough enabling of the homeless druggie bums! Reclaim downtown Olympia for the responsible citizens who pay their taxes!
Friday, January 30 Report this
JnNwmn
"There but for fortune go you or I"
Friday, January 30 Report this
Quadlok
No surprise the guy so cowardly he can't even stand to look at people he thinks might be unhoused doesn't even have a user name.
Maybe direct some of that anger at the oligarchs who have hoarded an unprecedented amount of wealth, rather than those that have been literally kicked to the curb as an implicit threat to the rest of us about what happens if you fail to conform and produce excess value to be gobbled up by plutocrats.
Friday, January 30 Report this
Chris_R
Dear Dante, Please get these crackheads out of the woods and into treatment ASAP.
Friday, January 30 Report this
JW
"There but for a raging fentanyl addiction and felony convictions for s*xual assault go you or I..."
The bleeding hearts cling for all they're worth to the idea that the Jungle is a collection of down on their luck folks that lost their jobs when in reality it is a regional hub of crime, filth, and human degradation.
A competent leadership would have this gone in no time. Heck, a concerted sweep by a large contingent of law enforcement would probably result in housing for 75% of them in the local jails due to outstanding warrants.
Friday, January 30 Report this
treezza
1) "She said they want immediate support, including weatherproof tents, clothing, medical supplies, trash receptacles and home-cooked meals." Does anyone have a problem with this comment? I do. Sounds very ENTITLED and DEMANDING. Yes, there are homeless people who have fallen on hard times and are trying their best to recover, but it seems to me that too many have made this a lifestyle. No one has a right to demand what they think they should have.
2) If there is to be any enabling, then the government should be enabling these people to GET A JOB! There is work to be done out there. Unfortunately, so many are either felons that no one will hire or drug addicts. Are we taxpayers to be perpetually supporting this vagrant lifestyle?! Why should we who work be forever paying for the bad choices of these people who think it's their "right" to sit around all day and do nothing but drink, do drugs, and whatever else one does when not living a productive, meaningful life.
3) Of course it'll take 18-24 months before anything will happen. The City of Olympia "leadership" is incredibly incompetent and incapable of making wise, sane decisions.
4) If any of the stated freebie demands are met, there needs to be conditions. One of those conditions needs to be that these people give back to the community in a real, meaningful way. There are lots of ways for people to do work that's needed in the area--one of which is to CLEAN UP ALL THE TRASH THESE PEOPLE HAVE THROWN ALL OVER THE AREA. Thirty years ago it was rare to see trash on the roadsides or anywhere else. So, any help given needs to be acknowledged with thanksgiving and action demonstrating thankfulness to the community who supports these people.
5) There needs to be an EXPIRATION DATE for how long this community will support an individual. It's time for people to have some goals and vision for their future, and do what's needed to advance in life.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
JulesJames
Can we at least require full names, date-of-birth and last known legal address for these recipients of government services brought into the Jungle? Maybe a database to indicate which have been given legal shelter, then left it? Which are minors and should be returned to their families or placed into foster care? Which have entered addiction treatment how many times? Because just handing out taxpayer assets blindly to all with the hand out only encourages more hands out.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
OlyBlues
The Jungle has been a real highlight of city of Olympia government failure for years. Mayor Payne lied to the public saying they would be clearing this wasteland out this month, now to backpedal and say well we need more time. Enough is enough! The Jungle is well known to support: overdoses, people being doused with flames to burn alive, environmental destruction and pollution, human trafficking, sexual assault, trafficking stolen property, the list goes on. This toxic wasteland needs to be cleaned up. These elitist, entitled squatters are trespassing on public and private property they have NO right to be on. Serve them eviction notices, quit pandering to them, and get them OUT! The Jungle has been a blight and regional embarrassment for years highlighting the failures of Olympia city government. Time to end this mess once and for all. Then let the Feds designate the polluted land as a Superfund site which is coming next.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
jimLacey
“The residents in The Jungle know what they need. If Olympia and Lacey want to help, please talk directly with them, not around them,” said Pollicino, adding the residents of the jungle are best equipped to share how their health and well-being can be supported.
Well, no, I don't think the residents are equipped to provide much constructive input into a solution. Otherwise I don't think they would have ended up there in the first place. On the other hand, city, county, and state leadership have shown pretty conclusively over the last couple decades that they aren't qualified to find a real solution either.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
WeLikeLacey
It’s too bad we don’t have investigative journalists at local news outlets anymore. There are a few people who post photos and interviews, but no one really puts in the investigative effort. No one goes undercover to see what’s really happening in the Jungle. Today’s “reporters” are missing, or ignoring, the “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How” of this story.
Who is living in the Jungle? Age, gender, disability, addiction, family?
What are they doing while living in the Jungle? Panhandling, praying, drinking, using drugs, selling drugs, selling stolen goods, collecting government benefits?
When did they move to the Jungle? Did they ever leave and come back?
Where did they live before they moved to the Jungle? Olympia, Seattle, outside Washington?
Why did they move to the Jungle? Job loss, addiction, injury, family issues, legal issues, freedom from social norms?
How will they make the changes necessary to leave the Jungle, and avoid ending back in the Jungle? And how has anyone helped them? Governments, counselors, churches? How can the City of Olympia help them, and at what cost?
There are many decisions to be made about the Jungle, but before those decisions can be made, many questions need to be addressed.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
Shushu
Having worked as a psychiatric nurse before my recent retirement, I can assure the complaining taxpayers who want the Jungle shut down with no viable solution that to do so would be more expensive to the judicial system and public. There is not enough support centers or practitioners out there or in jails and prisons to offer help. All these big ugly housing that is being built should have a staffed psychiatric and support system in them to include peer groups and teams. They also should not kick someone out and back to the jungle for one infraction of an addiction or misdemeanor crime. Housing is now just a revolving door.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
Porter
You're All a bunch of armchair quarterbacks.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
KEW100
The long hard work of helping folks who find themselves creating such areas is just that... Long, hard work. It is commendable that the council realizes this. We should all be grateful for those taking an approach that involves as many interested parties as possible, providing for resources and compromises along the way.
I presume we all know what is happening in Minnesota. Suggesting a solution to our own manageable problems that has resonance with the actions taking by the current Administration is short sighted and immoral.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
wolfmanner
Shut it down once and for all. It's a stain on Olympia. Or round them all up and place them on the Capitol steps for the idiot governor we have.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
TheVirtualOne
Agree with pretty much every comment except sQuidSlick, who’s just a troll. To everyone else, thanks for sharing your thoughtful comments.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
Mugwump
I'd like to share a link to this excellent opinion piece in the New York Times about a family trying to deal with a son's mental illness.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/opinion/family-mental-health-homeless-schizophrenia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IlA.J0m3.2Jn2Lf43pI2M&smid=url-share
The point of me sharing the piece is to acknowledge that we have people in our community who are not capable of making healthy decisions for themselves due to their untreated mental illness or addiction disorder. This is NOT a moral judgement of these people who are suffering amongst us every day. It is a hope that we can perhaps accept the fact that some diseases, and they are in fact diseases, prevent people from getting the help they need to be healthy contributing members of society. As such, might it not be in THEIR best interests to help them by ensuring that they receive the help and treatment they need, even if, at first, that treatment is compulsory?
We are failing these people, every day.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
BillSpencer
The only actual solution to this is to tax the wealthy statewide and build permanent supportive housing. How do you expect people to get clean when they're living in a swamp? The homeless in our community are victims of unchecked greed & wealth inequality. Poverty causes the crime and anti-social behavior that some folks in the comments section here are complaining about. If these "bums" had housing, healthcare, and universal basic income, maybe they wouldn't be crashing out in our streets.
Saturday, January 31 Report this
HappyOlympian
What a mess, takes definitive chutzpah to apply the word "dignity" to the folks "living" there. Sounds like a lot of folks going to make a ton of money here. Why cure the disease when you can make more treating the affliction? City employees, non-profits, get to work on this for years at tax-payer expense.
Sunday, February 1 Report this
IroquoisPliskin
The tiny home villages apparently cost the city and tax payers $3000 PER unit PER month. People like myself who's rent is 1600 for a one bedroom for which i must make 3 times per month to even qualify for know that's a scam and know there's corruption going on because there is NO way thats the cost per month per unit there is NO way. I am beginni to feel there is an incentive to keep the homeless population high. It seems the budget and many liberal law makers income depends on high populations of homeless. Its tiring to watch people be handed more resources than you bust your a-s to earn. Its tiring knowing that its me and others paying for this nonstop. This country is only great for the wealthy and the poor if you ate just working class you are a battery for the others.
Let the $3000 per unit per month sink in... i wouldn't have to work at all with $3000 a month and could house myself and yet its being laundered on this tiny home villages and other scams in olympia. Follow the money.
Sunday, February 1 Report this
DavidAlbert
Olympia's so-called "partners" are eating at the public troughs. Get rid of them, and get new ones.
Sunday, February 1 Report this
Boatyarddog
Thank you@Quadlok for your usual spot on comment. None of these pompus, neutered, privledged males have the intelligence to understand the problem let alone speak about it. There is nothing more they can add to help, so they just let feces roll out of their crooked mouths. Pathetic as Hell.
Sunday, February 1 Report this
Boatyarddog
And JW your a fucking lunitic, i know some people would love to meet you in person, because incarceration WILL over populate the Jail(s) and they will see more taxes spent on a Do nothing nonsolution.
Sunday, February 1 Report this
BevBassett
What we will never see here, I guess, are Thurston County folks who can be this impassioned and aroused over the crimes in places like The Olympia City government and the Port of Thurston County (aka POO) where they are royally ripped-off by extremely large amounts of money and assets. Folks with yachts, airplanes, real estate firms, consultants, Weyerhaeuser, logging companies, bureaucrats--and many more--people who are quietly robbing us blind and fouling and destroying our environment/lands. Well, those people are the ones we need to get upset about and mad at. NOT EACH OTHER, AND NOT OVER THESE POOR LOST SOULS TRYING TO STAY ALIVE OUT IN THE MUD AND COLD OF THE JUNGLE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!
Wake up, people, and recognize that the enemy is not each other, but 'them'... Don't let them drive wedges between us. There, but for the grace of God, go you and I. Let's not misplace our anger and pain in these days and times...
Monday, February 2 Report this
Somney
The article states a lot of the people living there have not entered other programs because they have pets. This barrier does seem arbitrary. If one was living unhoused then having a dog as a companion would seem like a benefit. It would alert you to night time threats, a companion for emotional support etc. you would not want to give up your companion.
Monday, February 2 Report this
Thepantywhisperer
Quadlok he may have been anonymous but I agree with what he/she has said and I'm pretty sure my names not some cowardly screen name calling someone cowardly for posting anonymous!
It really is a shame the people who pay for the people who choose to live in the jungle and like places can't enjoy themselves downtown or anywhere around there anymore because of what bum ass leaders have allowed Olympia to become.
I'm not saying all these people are bad and everyone needs a place to live. However, we deserve to not encounter toxic waste dumps and everywhere we look and or being chased down and screamed at for simply walking by. Is that land owned by the city? I'm gonna look into that actually. Thank you for allowing me to rant I just got an idea.
Monday, February 2 Report this
TurdFerguson
How about a number? How many people call the jungle home? Maybe we start by limiting the population in the jungle to people that are already there.
Next- who are they, what’s their story, how can they be assisted in changing their situation?
Spending 18-24 months for review and planning is not acceptable. We the people have had enough.
Tuesday, February 3 Report this
Boatyarddog
TurdFerguson like Trump claims "WE THE PEOPLE have had enough" Trump ssys He speaks for the "Silent Majority". BOTH are extreme Narrsisistic Nincompoops. They certainly speak only for their own. NOT OLYMPIA !!!
Thursday, February 5 Report this
bobesan
The closure of the mental institutions in both the USA and Canada several decades ago was the downfall of both countries. Many people can't take c/o themselves & are a danger to society w/o such help. Nobody's the "good guy" here, IMO; neoliberalism isn't working. The Lower Mainland of Canada has similar homeless problems to here.
Friday, February 6 Report this
chrispc2u
The pandemic is OVER. Hard working people with 9 to 5 jobs are sick and tired of the drug addled riff raff zombies floating around downtown Olympia because the enabling bleeding heart Greener mentality has permeated our state government. Raze the “jungle” like they razed the bum town on capital lake just after the pandemic. ENOUGH of enabling professional bums born from the pandemic. The United States Supreme Court is now hearing an Alabama case to outlaw panhandling because good citizens who pay their taxes and contribute to society - not sponge of it have had enough. If temporary housing has to be built build it out of town where they belong. We want our town back!
Friday, February 6 Report this
JoanneMc
Agree with others like bobesan, widespread closing of mental health hospitals has brought this upon us; community mental health has apparently not been as successful as initially hoped for.
Saturday, March 7 Report this