Seattle Homeless crisis episode 11: Scott Murrow share Wheel Bum Boss

mainestategop ^ | Brian Ball

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Scott Morrow circa 2010s at the founding of the nickelsville homeless encampment then known as Tent city 1

Yes Folks, We've confirmed from reliable sources its his actual picture from about a decade earlier.

 Although SHARE is run by the homeless guests themselves, the administration of tasks and spending of annual expenditures comes from the staff. In this case Share coordinator Scott Murrow who is one of the founding fathers of SHARE WHEEL. But it would seem that his tenure is not without controversy...

Ever since Scott Morrow who also once ran the Nickelsville homeless encampment has used intimidation tactics to badger SHARE residents of indoor shelters and tent cities to participate in left wing protests under the threat that they will lose their beds if Share doesn't participate. Also share participants who are unable to fill their chore quotas are forced or be kicked out.


Groups that SHARE has worked with include the Transit Riders union, a corrupt union of bus drivers and riders but is mostly for the drivers, the Socialist workers party, Occupy Seattle and various other left wing radial groups.

SHARE’s co-founder Scott Morrow some say has crossed the line by forcing homeless people who stay in the taxpayer-funded shelters his program operates to participate in political protests and organizational activities orchestrated by Morrow and the Seattle Housing and Resource Effort they don't agree with.

Seattle Councilmember Jean Godden agreed. “Yes, it probably is time that we have an investigation. let the contracts on those homeless programs go, so they should investigate.” Licata said an audit by HSD would be sufficient, as it would “get us to the same place.” The audit turned up nothing new but Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb told the Weekly, “We recently asked the FBI to look into the accusations.” Whitcomb declined to elaborate further, other than to say the request was made well before The Times story appeared and that Seattle PD is also participating in the probe.

At issue is an explosive story that appeared in The Seattle Times on Monday. Written by Emily Heffter, the lengthy piece, relying on accounts from a few of the homeless residents who reside in SHARE’s programs, offered up a series of anecdotes which suggested that Morrow was running the place like a general – and that the homeless were his foot soldiers.

Some of the allegations raised:

-- At an packed April meeting of the King County Committee to End Homelessness at City Hall, Morrow told his homeless congregants to sign up to speak or risk being kicked out of their encampment for a week. 

-- The people whom SHARE serves say they are under constant threat of losing shelter or transportation. 

-- “In the fall of 2012, SHARE said it needed more bus tickets to get through the winter, but the city and county refused. So SHARE closed down its shelters and set up a camp at the King County Administration Building. Residents said in letters to City Council members that they were told they would be denied shelter after the camp-out if they didn’t participate.” 

-- One homeless resident, Mike Messer, wrote that Morrow “blackmailed us into doing his forced advocacy by threatening us with loss of bus tickets if we didn’t ‘volunteer’ to sleep at the courthouse.”About two weeks later, SHARE got the bus tickets and reopened its shelters.

-- “Camp residents also say they risk losing shelter if they don’t come up with gift cards or other donated items for the organization’s annual fund-raising auction. “ 

-- Earlier this year, Councilmember Richard Conlin learned by e-mail that Morrow had removed portable toilets from the Nickelsville encampment to punish campers. Conlin replied “This is very disturbing.” (Conlin declined to comment to Seattle Weekly.)

HSD’s deputy director Catherine Lester had this to say in a statement sent to the Weekly:

“We will be working closely with law enforcement – Seattle Police Department and the FBI – on their investigations into these allegations. We’re going to coordinate with law enforcement on the results of those investigations and determine what the next steps will be. We will take appropriate steps as necessary. We take very seriously our responsibility to monitor and account for how public money is spent – related to SHARE and all of the agencies that we contract with.”

SHARE and its partner WHEEL, which describes itself as a self-help group, and not a social-service organization, charges the city $5.60 per bed, per night, to keep its shelters running, or about half what the next-cheapest city-funded shelter costs. The city paid until recently the organization $403,000 to provide up to 300 beds a night. SHARE runs two other encampments, in Kirkland and Shoreline, and indoor shelters which are now closed. The Times story is not the first to suggest that SHARE has a times colored outside the lines – perhaps the result of a unique management style. Shelters are run by residents and a small group of staffers who live in SHARE housing earn $15,000 a year. KING 5 News offered a similar take last November and, more than a dozen years ago, Seattle Weekly’s Nina Shapiro wrote about city balking to give SHARE an additional $55,000 in funds, largely in part because of its concern that the organization was spending too much money on political activities.

Morrow, 55, could not be reached for comment. An extremely secretive individual, the Everett native and homeless advocate his entire life rarely speaks, said Licata, adding that he can’t ever recall Morrow addressing the council himself. His business card says he is a SHARE consultant. Three times a week the man who helped create the non-profit organization in 1990, passes out coffee in the early-morning hours at Victor Steinbrueck Park. 

“I’ve hear a lot of ugly rumors through the years, but this a guy who is utterly committed,” said Tim Harris, executive director of Real Change. “This [SHARE] is based on an empowerment model – that you are part of a community and that you gotta give something back. It’s not as simple as it seems.”

Next time well talk about other atrocities including an incident where a woman was raped and evicted from Share for being raped along with her entire family by Scott Murrow.

[Gen.Blather]

Seattle has a homeless problem because they have entirely too many services to care for them. These services enable the homeless to remain homeless drug users and alcoholics or merely people enjoying their 60’s outdoor lifestyles. The solution is tough love. Want help? Fine, you’re going to give up your drug, live in a facility and work for your keep.

One of my former coworkers who was making over $60,000 per year along with medical insurance told his friends he had decided to drink himself to death. After not showing up for work for a couple of weeks, they finally fired him. He got kicked out of his apartment and was living on the street. Several employees tracked him down and he told them he simply ran out of money before he managed to kill himself. They gave him money and he told them he’s use it for alcohol and he did. The paper got involved because he was running a blog at the library and he wrote about how he sold their stuff and drank the resulting profit. How do you help somebody like that? Why, in fact, should you?

[familyop]

Not all homeless people are drug addicts, alcoholics or crazies. Get rid of some state and local regulations, and let them build houses on cheap lots.

Or let the default process take the remainder of its course. The NIMBYs, many of them alcoholics, drug addicts and crazies, too, will be out and quiet then anyway.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Halleluyah, I’m A Bum!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uKbIkYGsIg

Bring back the flop houses!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse

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They used to have lots of these boarding houses all over America. But now its too expensive to run them thanks to property taxes and massive regulations

They still have them in some red states I think in Oklahoma. A friend of mine used to stay at one in Omaha. It was great! The guy who ran it was a nam vet and had zero tolerance for drugs or trouble makers but thanks to tax hikes to pay for the new baseball stadium they closed down and all the tenants were out on the streets. I think they still exist in places like Tulsa or OKC but they're going going gone.

They aren't really that bad. The only ones that are bad are the ones where landlords allow tenants to do stupid S**T and hold no accountability.

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The problem is these services are not geared toward getting them a job and a home. Its just keeping them barely alive in limbo.

Maurice NewHope who used to be homeless and works with me told me how these programs they got in Seattle they really don't care about you at all. They just want taxpayer funds. They actually get paid more to keep you on your phany than help. Its more profitable to them.