Tenters endure in nearly all corners of the county

enters endure in nearly all corners of the county

Rachel Pritchett
Sun Staff


Maria, 21, in her ninth month of pregnancy, and her boyfriend, Gentry, 28, hope love will conquer all. After being evicted from her Tacoma apartment, the pair came to Bremerton. For a month and a half, they've lived in a large tent under a madrone tree on a lot in East Bremerton. They hope they're in a real place by the time the baby comes.

"It might not happen," said Maria, a determined women who receives $349 a month in welfare and who is training to work at a new Jack in the Box on Kitsap Way.

Gentry said he lacks a Social Security card and cannot find work.

She has parents here.

"Me and my dad, we ain't getting along right now," she said. Her father thinks Gentry is a loser. She refuses to trade the man she loves for a roof over her head.

Food and equipment for their tent comes from Delsie Peebles of The Lord's Neighborhood Diner. The couple enjoys watching "The Simpsons" on their battery-power television. Neighborhood residents drop by with food and a Bible.

While most homeless people in West Sound are drawn to Bremerton, with its extensive web of free meals, stores and social services, there is a scattering of tenters throughout.

They comprise a small fraction of the homeless community, but one that never disappears. The tent population often is on the move, displaced by complaints from neighbors, police and development.

In January, a tenter was living at Island Center on Bainbridge Island, according to Ellen Johnson, director of clinical services at Helpline House.

But their ranks on the island have diminished, due to the intense development in Winslow, she said. Not so long ago, they lived in the woods behind Helpline House, Safeway and Ace Hardware, Johnson said. Apartments, houses and office buildings now stand where trees once did.

The story's the same for tenters in Poulsbo, most of them squeezed out from their customary spots around the intersection of Highway 305 and Finn Hill Road.

"The Olhava development has displaced people," said Tricia Sullivan, North Kitsap Fishline executive director, though one man still is known to have a tent there.

Tenters occasionally live in the vast tracts of forested land in North Kitsap overseen by Olympic Resource Management.

Not many live in the forested area of South Kitsap, apparently because it's too far from places they can find food and supplies.

In North Mason, Guatemalan and Hispanic brush pickers and Christmas tree-farm workers live in tents, cars and vans on the plateau above Tahuya.

All over, homeless tenters find refuge at state parks, where they can stay for 10 days without moving in the summer; 20 in the winter.