With all the homeless and raccoons roaming about in that area, I doubt it will work.
Good luck to them though.
Mike

I live just north of Seattle, and my thoughts are that this could be wonderful, and if the homeless can get some nutrition I have no problem with that. The gangs and other juveniles that roam at night are the people who make me wonder if this is a viable idea. If they can deface Gasworks Park overnight with no notice they could make a shambles of this garden. I do hope there are ideas about security.

They need to stick to common fruits, the exotics will not get used.

Raising fruit requires constant attention to pest control.

The Beacon Food Forest is up and running. Not much fruit production yet - those types of plants take longer to mature and become productive - but plenty of annual veggies being grown and shared. Produce was being offered free at an onsite site stand through early October.

The garden is apparently staffed by volunteers and does have a management board that oversees the project. Not sure why this type of public garden would be significantly different from the various p-patch community gardens scattered about the city, other than the produce is not grown for a single family's consumption but for anyone. Many p-patches have a communal gardening plot as well, with the produce donated to local food banks. The p-patches are hugely popular and very successful and operated on completely organic gardening principles.

We have a very old orchard with large trees. We have been picking the fruit and delivering it to our Food Bank. Gives us some exercise, satisfaction and helps out the hundreds of families that need it. And, they are happy with the "less than perfect ones", making applesauce.

Good for you!