The Olympia Brewing Company, once a major employer in Tumwater, WA, now is a campus of abandoned buildings owned by developers awaiting some future plan.

The Pacific northwest is abundant with a huge number of natural resources. For centuries one of the main ways of surviving in this area was fishing. There are all kinds of seafood available in the waters of the Puget Sound and indigenous people harvested from the abundance of the waters. They went to sea in small boats crafted predominantly from cedar, and the cedar trees were abundant. Chief among the fish harvested was salmon. The fish returned by the hundreds of thousands from life in the ocean to the streams and rivers that run into the sea to spawn. People harvested the salmon and dried the meat to sustain life through the months when the salmon weren’t running. Prior to European settlement, the population was relatively small and many fish escaped and the fish populations remained strong and healthy despite the human practice of fishing. The harvesting of cedar and other trees to make houses and boats had little impact on the temperate rain forest, which continued to produce trees at a rate that far exceeded human harvest.

When European settlers arrived, they soon discovered the abundance of resources and settlement increased the population many fold. There were jobs to be had in commercial fishing, in harvesting the timber, in transportation and countless other ventures. By the mid 20th century huge power producing dams had been built on the major rivers and the abundant electricity spawned the processing of aluminum and large manufacturing operations. One huge industry was the production of aluminum aircraft. At one time most of the airplanes manufactured by Boeing for military and civilian aviation were built in and around Seattle. Jobs were abundant and people continued to flood into the area.

Many of the jobs and industries of the 19th and 20th centuries, were not sustainable, however. After a century of commercial fishing and canning it was clear that the salmon populations were dwindling. There simply weren’t enough fish to sustain the industry. Some held out hopes in fish hatcheries, which could produce large numbers of salmon and other game fish, but the hatcheries produced relatively few species of fish and hatchery spawned fish were less healthy and less productive than the native varieties. While hatcheries produced many fish and were themselves a new industry providing jobs, this practice was not a solution to the declining populations of fish. The consumption of timber also was taking place at a pace faster than the ability the forests to replenish. There are sustainable forestry practices that allow trees to regrow, but the practices of clear cutting huge acreages could not be sustained. It simply takes the forest more years to produce healthy trees than people could wait for the resources.

As the fishing and timber industries declined at the end of the 20th century other industries such as transportation and manufacturing shifted as well. The economy of the region shifted away from the once abundant jobs to fewer positions of employment. The region then experienced a shift in the economy from those traditional jobs to a huge increase in highly technical computer engineering jobs. Microsoft became a major employer in the region, offering jobs to those with technical skills and spawning supportive industries and employment. The economy remains very strong in the region following this major shift in the type of jobs available.

Along the way there were lots of people who got left behind. It isn’t an easy shift from working in a cannery to writing software. Many people were not able to find jobs in the new economy as their jobs were lost from traditional fields such as timber, fishing and manufacturing. As new people moved into the region in search of the highly technical jobs of the computer industry, others were forced to leave their homes and seek employment in other places.

These days one of the signs of the shifting economy are the people who stand on street corners holding signs asking for any jobs, handouts, or other assistance that can be offered. I come to the area as a visitor and I haven’t taken the time to get to know these people, though after a week in the area there are some I recognize as regulars in their vigils on the streets. I do not know their stories. Some, I assume, once had jobs and are no longer employed. Some are the victims of mental and physical illnesses that cause disability and make it difficult or impossible for them to have regular employment. Some are veterans who returned from service to find no jobs in the place of their growing up. Some are the unfortunate victims of temporary situations who will recover from the crisis that forces them to this particular mode of survival and will leave the streets when their circumstances change.

The Pacific northwest is a bit of a magnet for homeless people who drift into the area from other parts of the country. With a relatively gentle climate, it is possible to survive on the streets without the dangers of exposure that are a part of places with harsher weather. The urban areas offer the hope of jobs and other means of survival. I don’t know much about it, but there must be some reward in spending a day holding a cardboard sign on a street corner, for there are people who do it day after day. If it yielded no support, one would expect the practice to cease. Being dependent upon the generosity of others, however, is a risky business and there must be some days that are extremely disappointing and some times when there are not enough gifts to obtain meals and hunger is the result. Certainly those who are on the streets do not have enough money to access expensive items such as health care and transportation.

There must be unique stories for each individual who is out on the streets asking others for help. It is a dynamic that I don’t fully understand. Perhaps if I lived here I could get to know some of the people and learn some of the stories. What I do know is that the economy of the region works for some, but not all of the people who live here. Alongside the triumph of those who succeed are the tragedies of those who do not. Not all of the ventures of the people of the region are sustainable and the shifts in the economy produce losers as well as winners.

We can’t go back to the way things were, and the way forward is less than clear for some of the people in this region.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.