'Massive amount' of homeless RV camping closed Smokey Point rest area
ARLINGTON — Homeless people in recreational vehicles were filling the parking lot almost nightly at the Smokey Point rest area before it was closed in 2021, according to a state report on encampments in state right-of-way.
It was one of 281 encampments identified between 2015 and September 2022 on Washington State Department of Transportation right-of-ways in Snohomish County. That was the second-highest tally, behind King County’s 922.
“The fact there are unhoused people on DOT right of way is not a new thing,” the agency’s assistant secretary Mike Gribner said in a Washington State Transportation Commission meeting Tuesday. “What is different is the volume and the prolific increases we see now across the United States.”
Encampments aren’t safe for people sleeping alongside highways and under bridges or for state transportation maintenance crews, WSDOT maintenance policy manager Andrea Fortune said.
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