Tenants of the street

They're called "tourists," but they don't walk around wearing fanny packs or snapping photos of landmarks.

"Tourists" are what resident street youth call rebellious or troubled teens who leave home for the summer to join a population already dependent on limited social services.

As a result, Seattle's year-round homeless-youth community experiences extra strain during the warmer months of the year.

"The U-District is one of the best places as far as getting help goes and that's why a lot of people stay here," said Blain Mahajla, 18, who has lived on the Ave. for the past six years. "It's a good place around here. I mean, people are pretty helpful, and they show you where things are and show you where to go and help you out when you get there."

While service providers and street youth agree the summer crowd can bring creativity and fresh perspectives, tourists also strain service providers' ability to accommodate the homeless who live in Seattle year-round.

"[The summer crowd] brings new people around and, while new people are cool, when you get so many people in one little area with so few services as it is, it's a strain," said Robert Duff, 20, a former tourist who came to Seattle during the summer of 1999 and never left. "They need to be around for whichever the reasons they need to be, so I guess I shouldn't look at them any different just because they need services too."

Duff, who is known on the street as Angel, left his parents in Everett and came to Seattle for freedom, which, along with drugs, he said, is a combination that is liable to keep kids on the street long after the summer days have ended.

Many tourists are attracted to the taste of freedom they get "traveling" on their own during the summer. On the streets there are no rules, no responsibilities and no restrictions, said Duff, commenting on tourists' mindset shortly after arrival in Seattle.

However, Duff warned that the allure of freedom eventually becomes the "ultimate capture" that morphs a tourist into a permanent resident.

While some tourists come for the adventure, other homeless youth may have nowhere else to go. According to Duff, while many resident street youth have run away from abuse, gotten kicked out of their homes or been released from foster care after turning 18, tourists are somewhat unique in that they have the option of returning to an actual home.

For many, street youth shelters and drop-in centers are the only places where they can get a shower and a cot to sleep on. But shelters only possess a limited number of sleeping spaces assigned through a lottery on a nightly basis. Those who lose in a shelter's lottery must either find another shelter with available beds or sleep outside.

During the summer months, tourists take up beds in shelters, causing many shelter "regulars" to be turned away.

Seattle is known for its social services, said Robert Ring, a caseworker with the Orion Center for the homeless in downtown Seattle. Because of this, kids from Portland, Colorado and even as far as Missouri flock to the Emerald City to take advantage of the shelters.

While tourists are not necessarily snubbed by the established homeless community, there are those who do not respect the sense of camaraderie among the established street youth, said Duff The attitude of residents is summed up in the slogan of the Five Point Cafe located in Belltown: "Cheating drunks and tourists since 1929."

Street youth mostly prefer to keep police out of their lives -- depending on each other for protection and justice.

Tourists who inhabit the streets by day while going home at night are a source of frustration to street youth who aren't so lucky, said Duff. Non-homeless tourists crowd the streets, panhandle and take resources from drop-in centers and teen-feed services during the day.

Because the transition from tourist to resident street kid is so common, some members of the street-youth community try to discourage the summer crowd. But once a person has made the decision to live on the streets, it is extremely hard to get off them, said Ring. Personal advancement programs for adult homeless are few and far between compared to the quantity of programs available to people under the age of 24, he said.

Laura Pritchard, one of the directors of ROOTS, a community organization based in the University Methodist Temple that serves as a shelter and teen-feed host, has seen youth supposedly passing through the U-District who get stuck and unwillingly become resident street kids.

But just as residents can influence or intimidate tourists to stay away from Seattle, Pritchard said they can also be a source of good advice and encouragement to tourists not to make the same mistakes.

"The homeless population is out there, man, so don't try to push it away because it is there and it's something that should be paid attention to," said Mahajla.

As veterans of the tourist season, Mahajla and Duff have observed that whether or not a person will stay on the streets becomes clear soon after they have established themselves in an area.

"It's taken either one of two ways," Duff said. "Either you grow up and you grow up fast or you don't -- you just don't grow up anymore, ever. You reach a certain point and you stay there mentally and you'll never move."