Homelessness

The Las Vegas Secret Las Vegas “mole people” are real. It’s the worst-kept secret in the city. In Part 1 of this investigation, Kevin Dahlgren and I are showing the problem, but also trying to figure out why elected officials want this crisis hidden instead of solved.

“Expect to hear more from us…” Stop The Sweeps Seattle is now making veiled threats at Mayor Katie Wilson. The Antifa aligned far-left activist group claims Wilson isn’t stopping encampment removals. So it appears they’re getting ready to protest and be disruptive, just like the old days. “Expect to hear more from us about the Wilson administration moving forward…” Bait-and-Switch According to Stop The Sweeps, they expected Wilson to be a friendly. Instead, they now realize the socialist mayor is a politician, just like her predecessor Bruce Harrell. Stretched Thin Stop The Sweeps also implies volunteer comrades are stretched thin due to all the other causes they are trying to protest. Supporting Street Life Meanwhile, these grifters are raising money Read More ›

Every legislative session in Washington state, a few infamous bills absorb all the time and attention that ordinary citizens can reasonably devote to restraining their government — while still minding the important business of their own lives. This year, it’s a “millionaires’ tax” (also known as an unconstitutional state income tax), and a “modernization” of law enforcement that would ensure county-elected sheriffs serve at the behest of an unelected state board. Rightfully, the people are fiercely fighting these bad ideas. Meanwhile, about 350 other bills are quietly passing into law, many of them just as bad. Most of us won’t even know about these laws until we cut ourselves on their sharp edges while minding the important business of our Read More ›

Running Scared Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is once again running scared from the media. Wednesday afternoon, Wilson quietly left a press conference about homeless shelters before it even ended. One local tv station reporter could be overheard arguing with Wilson’s communications director Sage Wilson, demanding an explanation. This is straight up amateur hour. Contentious Relationship Since taking office in January, Wilson and I have had a contentious relationship. Wilson’s team tried to block me at her City Hall inauguration ceremony. Evading… Wilson has also referred to me as an “extremist influencer.” Evading… Even on the campaign trail, Wilson’s Antifa volunteer security tried to block me from asking her questions. And More Evading… All I do is ask questions for a Read More ›

California Governor Gavin Newsom regularly repeats his mantra: “Shelter solves sleep; housing solves homelessness.” Hmm. From 2022 to 2025, I wrote weekly columns about homelessness and gained insight by living for three weeks in shelters. Based on that I can say: In general, it is not true that housing solves homelessness.

Maybe it solves homelessness for people who are not addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill, or victims of abusive childhoods, but most homeless people are in one or more of those four categories. Maybe housing solves homelessness if the rest of us don’t like to see homeless people: Get them out of sight and they can be out of mind.

Invisibility benefits those who have homes. Unseen homeless folks don’t ask us for money, so we are free from giving what often goes to buy drugs or alcohol, or from not giving and feeling heartless. But for those who are out of their minds for various reasons, housing does not solve homelessness.

Augustine 1,600 years ago famously said regarding God, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” The earthbound equivalent is “Our bodies are restless until they reside in a home.” For many, though, walls and a roof alone do not make a home.

Instead, hiding away addicts or alcoholics inside an apartment leaves many apart from everything except a needle or a bottle. Hiding away the severely mentally ill leaves them apart from everything except walking nightmares. People who are desperately ill need to be together with someone who can offer compassionate help.

That’s one reason a chart used at the Orange County Rescue Mission (OCRM) in Tustin, California, impressed me. It’s one of the places I lived at for a few days in 2023 and in January 2026 to gain some street-level understanding of these issues. Instead of using one marker to assess progress in coming out of homelessness—a signed apartment lease, say—OCRM evaluates a more holistic list of ten, including: “spiritual … sobriety/substance abuse (if applicable) … mental health … shelter/housing … social/family relationships … income and employment … physical health, food, and nutrition.” (This quotation and those that follow are from the OCRM “Outcome Assessments,” and I’ve seen that actions back up those words.)

Update 3/5: The State Senate passed HB 2266, with amendments. The bill will now go back to the House to be reconsidered. A vote is expected the week of 3/9. Please call your local Representative today! than 20,000 people are living on the streets in Washington state, most of them suffering from an untreated mental illness and/or drug addiction. HB 2266 is currently moving through the Washington State legislature to make it easier to develop subsidized housing and emergency shelters in the style of the failed Housing First policy. This bill would override local ordinances and zoning laws, put residents in real danger of increased crime and lawlessness, and leave the homeless housed but without the real help they need. Read More ›

Waste of Taxpayer Dollars Even after two mega sweeps last month, homeless drug addicts are back at the corner of MLK Jr Way and Rainier Ave S. What a waste of taxpayer dollars. New drug encampments are also popping up across the city. That’s because all the addicts know Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson won’t follow through with arrests, and City Attorney Erika Evans won’t prosecute for illegal camping. Just a reminder, the FIFA World Cup is just three months away.

The following article was originally published at Seattle Red 770 AM by author Jasneet Gill, covering one of Senior Fellow Jonathan Choe’s recent appearances on The Jason Rantz Show. Investigative reporter Jonathan Choe is raising concerns over Seattle’s homelessness crisis, claiming that Mayor Katie Wilson’s new approach is failing to deliver real results. Despite the Mayor’s recent public boasts about her progress, Choe argues that the city is actually stuck in a cycle of failed policies that are only making things worse as the 2026 World Cup approaches. Claims of success vs. reality During her State of the City address, Mayor Wilson took a “victory lap,” bragging about her ability to move people from the streets into housing. However, Choe’s Read More ›

After decades of working inside homelessness services, I’ve learned that the greatest lie we tell ourselves is that we don’t know what works. We do. The problem isn’t a lack of data, innovation, or funding. The problem is that real solutions require decisions we are unwilling to make and truths we are afraid to say out loud.

It is easier to expand systems than to fix them. Easier to signal compassion than to practice it in ways that are uncomfortable. Easier to manage homelessness than to end it.

Most people assume homelessness persists because it is too complex to solve. In reality, it persists because solving it would disrupt an entire industry built around its permanence. Over time, the system stopped being accountable to outcomes and became accountable to itself. Programs are judged by how many people they touch, not how many people leave the streets. Success is defined by engagement, not transformation. In this environment, homelessness is no longer a crisis to be resolved, but a condition to be administered.

One of the hardest truths is that housing alone does not stabilize people who are deeply addicted, severely mentally ill, or both. I have watched housing placements fail because we insisted on treating housing as the solution rather than the setting in which recovery might occur. For people actively using fentanyl, methamphetamine, or alcohol at life-threatening levels, housing without treatment can become a slower form of self-destruction. When it collapses, we try again and call it trauma-informed care, quietly accepting failure as inevitable.

Real solutions begin with recovery, not as a moral requirement, but as a practical one. A person cannot stabilize while in the grip of serious addiction. No amount of case management, harm-reduction supplies, or wellness check-ins can substitute for sobriety when the brain itself is hijacked. Cities like Portland and Seattle know this, yet continue to build models that treat recovery as optional. We call this compassion, but too often it looks like abandonment.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson bragged about delaying an encampment sweep so she could place several homeless people into shelter and housing, implying this would be a new way of getting people off the streets. “There I talked with a woman who was five months sober,” Mayor Wilson said at her State of the City Address, “and had three small dogs. We were able to identify a spot for her in a tiny house village.” But after Wilson’s State of the City Address last week, We Heart Seattle’s Andrea Suarez did a simple follow-up to see if that woman with three dogs actually made it off the streets. “People don’t always accept the services they’re referred to,” Suarez explained. Surrounded by Read More ›