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Researching Hoovervilles many years ago, I came across an object that continues to be one of my favorites.
It is a map of the number and distribution of shacks dated March 5, 1941.
It helps illustrate in a visual way, for me, the issue of homelessness
and underscores the number of years Seattle
has been struggling with how to address this issue.
The map was part of Comptroller File 169237 from the Housing Authority.
The file included a letter to City Council on the “shack problem,” a report
summarizing location and issues, the number of shacks by census number,
a report on the physical condition of shacks,
including cooking, lighting and plumbing facilities, as well as race of occupants,
and rental value. As well as this map, which caught my attention immediately.
The letter from the Housing Authority
to City Council emphasized that none of the present
occupants of shacks should be forced to vacate,
but that all vacant shacks should be demolished.
They also suggested that notice be given that no additional shacks could be built.
They defined a shack as, quote, “a dwelling of more or less temporary
character constructed without benefit of formal design or plan
of second hand nondescript building materials and located indiscriminately.”
The Housing Authority counted a total of 1687 shacks in the City.
The Shack Elimination Committee was named by the City Council Public Safety
Committee after the Housing Authority’s report was submitted.
Committee members included the Commissioner of Health,
the Superintendent of Buildings, the Chief of Police,
and the Chief of the Fire Department.
The Committee reported back to Council in April 1941 that they had inspected five areas.
The west side of Beacon Hill, Louisville, which was between Airport Way,
Sixth Avenue South, Massachusetts Street, and Holgate.
Areas along both sides of Six Avenue South between Holgate and Dakota.
Hooverville on Alaskan Way, and Interbay near the garbage fill.
Other groups of shacks such as along the Duwamish and near Smith Cove
were not included in the study because buildings in those areas
had existed for many years and were owned and occupied by fishermen and other part
time workmen who had a small annual income.
Some of these areas, including Hooverville, had existed since the early 1930s.
On April 1941, a Seattle Times article reported on the burning of shacks
at Seattle's Hooverville on the waterfront,
describing the Port tractor,
destroying structures and pushing them into a big bonfire.
The property was needed for the defense program.
A Black member of Hooverville, Two-Name Dave Green, owned a nickelodeon
or juke box, the reporter wrote.
And as the bulldozer continued smashing the shacks,
tinny strains of “St Louis Blues” rang out defiantly.
The Housing Authority wrote to City Council again on May 9th, 1941,
expressing concern that the vacating of shacks
was going to be accelerated and that services
would not be available to shack dwellers who wanted relocation assistance.
A Seattle Times article dated June 27th, 1941, stated, quote, “even as smoke
was clearing away after the burning of 26 shacks near Sixth Avenue
South and Spokane Street yesterday,
city health authorities were planning mass destruction of 40 more dwellings Monday.
That burning would take place at Sixth Avenue South and Lander.
The Chief Sanitary Engineer of the Health Department was quoted as saying
it would be the last wholesale destruction of shacks in the city in the effort
to solve the shack sanitation problem.
Citizens continued to write to the Mayor and City Council in 1941 for the removal of individual shacks.
By 1942, in October, according to the Commissioner
of Health, 1543 shacks have been destroyed in Seattle,
with the assistance of the Navy, Coast Guard and Port of Seattle personnel.
For more information, please see SMA’ Digital Document Library
“Hoovervilles in Seattle.”
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