Things didn’t look good for the future of the Nickelsville homeless encampment last week.

But things change.

In an email sent to local media today, Scott Morrow – the long-time homeless organizer and advocate who was ousted as the leader of Nickelsville on Jan. 29 – announced that he was reinstated by popular vote over the weekend. It’s an important development, and one that signals the end of a coup that threatened the camp’s future.

As we reported Friday, Seattle’s Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), which pays for water, honey buckets and other services at the encampment, and Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, the church responsible for the agreement that allows the encampment to stay at its Dearborn Street location, had both threatened to pull their support if Morrow was not reinstated. Though Good Shepherd Pastor Steve Olsen told Seattle Weekly late last week that he remained “hopeful and prayerful” that a last-minute resolution could be reached, as of Friday LIHI and Good Shepherd were both preparing to cut ties with the camp. Without the support of LIHI and Good Shepherd, the 35 campers currently hunkered down at Nickelsville on Dearborn street would have faced eviction.

Morrow’s reinstatement presumably puts an end to a drama-filled period at Nickelsville. A number of long-time residents told Seattle Weekly last week that Lisa Hooper, who took over Morrow’s role after his ouster, and Anthony Jenkins, the camp’s head of security, were behind a power grab at Nickelsville described by 60-year-old Herman Kahaloa, who left the encampment in December, as a “vicious takeover.” Sharon Lee, executive director of LIHI, tells the Seattle Times that Hooper and Jenkins have now been barred from Nickelsville.

With Morrow back in the fold, it’s back to business as usual at Nickelsville.

“Any democracy can be messy, but I’m still a believer in it,” Morrow’s statement reads in part. “My acknowledgement elsewhere that I haven’t put the time into Nickelsville that it needs and deserves, and my intention to improve now that I have the chance, was and is genuine.”

Morrow, who also founded the Seattle Housing and Resource Effort, created the nonprofit that runs Nickelsville nearly a decade ago.