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Tammy Town Councilmember Tammy Morales (@CMTammyMorales) continues to ignore the homeless encampment off Rainier Ave S and Plum St that’s spiraling out of control. As of Wednesday evening, I counted 15 tents and 13 vehicles on the grounds of the former Burger King and 7-11 that recently burned down. New people keep moving in. Drug use is rampant and there are signs this is turning into a chop shop for bicycles. At the same time, there are babies on the premises and kids playing catch. Overall, everyone is chill. But most homeless people here are rejecting the shelter options being offered. They want tiny homes, apartments, or an RV lot. This is the on-going narrative at a lot of these Read More ›

Latest Chinatown Encampment Oh boy, here we go again. Dearborn St. continues to be a hot spot for pop up encampments. On one side, you have multiple tents and structures on Washington State Dept. of Transportation (@wsdot) property. On the other, rows of RV’s and piles of wooden pallets now being constructed into shelters. There’s also tons of trash and needles piling up everywhere. Open air drug use remains out of control. I’ve been to sweeps in this hood at least a dozen times in the past year. Thursday evening, I recognized some of the same homies. Some new faces, but mostly veterans like Tong and Yung. Some folks have been placed into hotel rooms and are making solid progress. Read More ›

Routine Night in Seattle Downtown fentanyl overdose, more drug/trap tents in front of #Seattle City Hall, and an arrest made a few blocks away in #Chinatown-ID for an altercation. Of course, the night would not be complete without a deranged person exhibiting menacing behavior towards me. Nothing to see here. Move along. This all happened within a 30 minute span Wednesday evening. Check the @seattlepd police blotter. Can’t make this stuff up. Wait until Major League Baseball (@mlb) fans see all this insanity next month. I’m gonna start charging for tours. Where’s Councilmember Andrew Lewis (@CMAndrewJLewis) and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (@kingcorha?) Councilmember Tammy Morales (@CMTammyMorales) remains MIA for her #CID district. For whatever it’s worth, City Hall Read More ›

“I’ve seen both pills and powder coming through,” Dennis Folk tells me. Folk is sounding the alarm that fentanyl is increasingly making its way into the King County jail and inmates are overdosing at a staggering rate. He is the president of the King County Corrections Guild, representing men and women who are trying to stop the flow of this lethal drug into the facility. “It was heroine years ago, now it’s fentanyl,” he tells me. Seattle Fire and medics respond to each overdose and administer Narcan. KYI Radio’s Ari Hoffman and I have been looking into this concerning trend. We’ve been told that there have been at least eight fentanyl overdoses in the jail since the end of May. Read More ›

Do we love our homeless countrymen and women enough to insist that as we provide roofs over their heads, they also diligently engage in programs to restore themselves to lives of dignity and personal self-respect? We often hear about what “we” — i.e., society —owe the homeless. But we rarely discuss what the unhoused owe us. It’s time for that to change. This is a matter of great urgency. Some of our (once) most prosperous and beautiful cities — San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc. — are imploding under the pressure of squalid homeless squatter camps, populated largely by openly drug-addled or mentally ill people who befoul the sidewalks with human waste, litter the streets with needles used to shoot Read More ›

Breaking I’ve obtained the horrific shooting video showing Korean American woman Eina Kwon being gunned down in her white Tesla in downtown #Seattle last week. Kwon was 32 weeks pregnant. Authorities say the baby was delivered via emergency surgery but later died at the hospital. Kwon’s husband was also hit by several bullets but is expected to survive. Police say the shooter is 30 year old Cordell Goosby, a convicted felon. He’s charged in Kwon’s murder and remains behind bars. Hundreds March for Eina This tragedy struck a chord with people from all walks of life who are just sick and tired of the crime, open air drug use, and deteriorating public safety conditions in parts of #Seattle Convicted Felon Read More ›

Hot Spots Remain Hot #Seattle‘s City Hall Park has re-opened. Amazon workers are back a few days in the office. Tourists are passing through the city. But even with the on going efforts to reactivate downtown, the fentanyl crisis is still raging out of control. The ecosystem of open-air drug use remains centered at the corner of 3rd Ave and Pike St, especially around the Ross store (@ross_stores.) Every vestibule is packed with addicts and dealers. It’s also spilling into the side streets and alleys. If you go back and look at all my coverage since April, nothing has changed out here. Major League Baseball All Star Weekend (@mlb) is about two weeks away. Will all this illegal activity be Read More ›

Washington, D.C – Discovery President Steve Buri, Senior Fellow Robert Marbut, and Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith spoke at a Faith and Law forum on Capitol Hill. Below is a summary from faithandlaw.org. Watch the forum and read more here. For nearly a decade, federal policies meant to address homelessness have centered around “Housing First,” which begins with an assumption that the crisis is driven primarily by a lack of affordable housing. But is it really? Studies show that most individuals experiencing homelessness suffer from severe addiction, untreated mental illness, or a combination of the two. Others end up on the streets because they have no one to turn to, typically owing to broken familial relationships. It’s time for a Read More ›

“I wish it was still going on,” Justice Andino tells me at Camp Hope in Spokane, Washington. “I liked it here.” Andino and his wife Tracy were the last two people to exit one of the largest homeless encampments Washington has ever seen. Andino holds back tears as he speaks. After living at Camp Hope for over a year, Andino says he will miss the community, the people, and the sense of safety. “I felt like the people gave a sh*t about you, you know?” Andino and his wife are moving on and into a new apartment, and he says his tears are tears of joy. Organizers claimed that more than 600 people lived at Camp Hope at its peak. Read More ›

Heading into last week’s Seattle City Council meeting, everyone in attendance knew the vote on proposed drug legislation would be close. As a result, the council chamber was packed with people waiting to give public comment. In the room and online, public comment was overwhelmingly against the proposed drug bill. The legislation would give city Attorney Ann Davison authority to prosecute for illegal possession and drug use in public spaces. Critics of the ordinance said it would create a new “war on drugs” and disproportionately impact minority communities. Councilmembers Sara Nelson and Alex Pedersen sponsored the bill and brought Deborah Juarez and Dan Strauss onto their side. As expected, the far-left socialist progressive wing of the council voted no on Read More ›