Power, Politics, and Seattle’s Homelessness Machine

In an eerie, “zombie-like” incident last September, a homeless woman in Seattle attacked another woman, biting a chunk out of her forehead. The homeless woman lives in Seattle’s Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) apartments, a homeless service provider that follows the Housing First model, providing housing without any requirements for treatment or sobriety.

In this investigation, Senior Fellow and journalist Jonathan Choe examines the crime, chaos, and disorder that proliferates in and around DESC’s multiple locations, their powerful connections to Washington politics, and the protection they receive from those connections.