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SEATTLE, WA — Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness Initiative has released a new resource to help communities address homelessness. The 12-page Community Primer informs and equips readers to address homelessness within their own localities. Since the federal introduction of Housing First in 2013, homelessness across the country has skyrocketed: street-level unsheltered homelessness has risen by 36%, and total homelessness by 27%. With the advent of fentanyl, the problem has only worsened. This crisis all too often feels intractable. California, for instance, spent $24 billion on homelessness between 2019 and 2024, but homelessness only increased. The problem is that West coast cities and states have tied themselves to ideologies that do not address the underlying causes of homelessness. However, the crisis is Read More ›

Seattle and King County have the third-largest homeless population in the country, and it’s only getting worse. A Discovery Institute study in 2024 found that 86.6% of the Seattle and King County homeless population were not born there and that nearly half — 49.7% — first began experiencing homelessness outside of Seattle and King County. Filmmaker SIX SEVEN KEVIN explores the reality of these findings by asking the homeless themselves where they come from. Answers range from New York and Alaska to Africa and Guatemala, revealing the crisis of a city that attracts homelessness without offering any solutions. 6’7 Kevin is a documentary filmmaker and journalist known for the Dregs of the City series on YouTube, where he explores America’s homeless culture Read More ›

The federal government is hoping you, the public, won’t notice that homelessness in America reached an all-time high last year. That was the impression given by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) when it quietly released the 2024 annual homelessness report on the Friday between Christmas, Hannukah, and New Year’s. Nationwide, 771,480 people were experiencing homelessness in 2024, an 18 percent increase from the year before and the highest number on record. The HUD administration attributes this record-setting number to a lack of affordable housing, systemic racism, and rising inflation. Impossible to hide, the report also highlights the strain caused by a surge in migrants and asylum seekers: “new arrivals” made up 13,600 of Chicago’s sheltered population and Read More ›

The following press release for the new documentary “Behind Closed Doors” is from ChangeWA. ChangeWA and Ginny Burton are friends of Discovery Institute. Our work on homelessness is featured in “Behind Closed Doors” in an interview with our program coordinator Caitlyn McKenney. ChangeWA has teamed with filmmaker V Ginny Burton to produce “Behind Closed Doors,” a shocking 30-minute documentary which exposes the unsafe and drug-filled conditions within King County’s low-barrier housing and provides strong evidence that these are not conditions where formerly homeless individuals “can get their lives back,” as King County Executive Dow Constantine has repeatedly promised. Burton’s interviews with residents and workers from several of King County’s housing projects reveal that most residents continue to use illegal drugs, Read More ›