addiction

Owning a home, or at least having one, has long been considered an essential part of the American dream. But what if Americans judged success not by whether people had housing, but by whether they discovered — or rediscovered — who they were created to become? Imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who could be strengthening cities like New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles had local leaders invested in systems designed to restore lives and cultivate human flourishing, rather than embracing the federal government’s Housing First approach adopted in 2013. Housing First made housing placement the primary intervention and measure of success, while removing expectations for treatment, sobriety, employment or progress toward self-sufficiency. In doing so, it too often Read More ›

In partnership with the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the new “Best Practices Toolkit: Addressing Homelessness and Addiction Through Treatment First.” From the press release: This first-of-its-kind resource provides communities with practical and proven strategies to help Americans transition from homelessness and addiction to recovery and self-sufficiency. This toolkit advances a “Treatment First” model that prioritizes coordinated and accountability-driven engagement in evidence-based treatment and recovery support services to ensure access to effective, comprehensive, and evidence-based care necessary for homeless individuals. “It’s a policy change many of us who have spent time on the frontlines serving the homeless have been arguing for,” Senior Read More ›

The following excerpt is from a Christianity Today article written by Marvin Olasky, the magazine’s editor in chief as well as a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow. Olasky makes reference to an article written by our Project Coordinator and Research Fellow Marsha Michaelis, titled “Washington’s Homelessness and Drug Policies Have Created a Culture of Death and Disorder.” Olasky provides further insight on this important topic with compassion and conviction. We encourage our readers to read the full article at Christianity Today.

Addiction is nothing new in our country. Sometimes it’s hidden away and people with abnormal habits can still lead mostly normal lives. But numerous studies over the years have linked substance abuse and homelessness.

One oft-cited study showed that more than four out of five chronically homeless people have had alcohol or drug problems. That’s over a lifetime, but another study tested 400 homeless people on the St. Louis streets and shelters for recent cocaine use: Most had detectable amounts.

Jeremiah is a formerly homeless man whom I met at Eden Village, a refuge for the formerly homeless in Springfield, Missouri. He told me about two vivid memories. The first was a one-time disaster: His home burned when he was a child, and Jeremiah made it out with his grandparents and stepdad. But his mom went back in for his sister and never came out.

Skid Row in Los Angeles stands as a stark example of what happens when ideology overrides reality. Spanning roughly fifty blocks, it is one of the most concentrated homeless zones in the United States, filled with people trapped in addiction and untreated, severe mental illness, often marked by psychosis — a loss of contact with reality. For years, Los Angeles has wrapped its homelessness policies in the language of empathy and housing justice. But Skid Row reveals a harsher truth. What exists there is not simply poverty. It is a concentration of addiction, untreated mental illness, disorder, and human collapse in one of America’s most visible zones of urban breakdown. Los Angeles has embraced Housing First, a model that places Read More ›

More than 48 million Americans are battling substance use disorder. Many are deteriorating in plain sight — on sidewalks, in encampments, and in emergency rooms. Others decline behind closed doors. Overdoses are shattering families, especially within the homeless population where the death rate among people living on the streets has surged by 77 percent. Yet in a media landscape quick to amplify controversy but slow to recognize consequential reform, President Donald Trump’s executive order to overhaul America’s addiction response passed with remarkably little national attention. It shouldn’t have. At its core, the order affirms a truth long understood by those who have worked on the front lines: no man or woman living with addiction ever dreamed of this life. When Read More ›

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 ›

Last weekend, former President Barack Obama acknowledged a blunt political reality: “The average person doesn’t want to have to navigate around a tent city in the middle of downtown … and we’re not going to be able to generate support [for treatment] if we simply say, ‘It’s not their fault, they should be able to do whatever they want,’ because that’s a losing political strategy.”

What makes the remark notable is not merely its candor. It is the history behind it.

It was the Obama administration that institutionalized the federal government’s one-size-fits-all embrace of Housing First in 2013. They promised the approach would end homelessness within a decade by prioritizing immediate housing placement.

The theory was simple: Housing would stabilize lives.

But the results have been anything but stabilizing.

Drug-Fueled Chaos Lake City neighbors are blasting socialist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson after her first State of the City address. They say she failed to offer solutions to combat the fentanyl epidemic destroying lives on the streets. People living on 33rd Ave NE say their hood is an absolute disaster zone and looks like a scene out of a zombie movie. Addicts are laid out on the road, kids play in a needle infested park, and drug encampments are spreading on to sidewalks. One brave resident shot this video today from his car to prove how bad it is right now. He’s challenging Mayor Wilson to show up and see the drug-fueled chaos and human suffering for herself. This community Read More ›

Repeating Mistakes During Tuesday’s State of the City address, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson will say she is building more affordable housing to address the city’s homeless crisis. But she’s doubling down on the same “Housing First” policies that have failed this region for more than a decade and it won’t work. Not until she figures out how to deal with the “service resistant” class of people living on the streets. These are the men and women who are heavily addicted to drugs and refuse all shelter and treatment services currently available. Just drive down Rainier Ave S and you will find them everywhere. All the encampment sweeps under her watch have forced many people to move to this part of Read More ›

Taking Matters into Their Own Hands Seattle leaders have failed Belltown business owners, allowing drug addicts to take over sidewalks for years. Councilmember Bob Kettle is MIA, Mayor Katie Wilson has no immediate solutions, and City Attorney Erika Evans says she won’t prosecute open-air drug use. So now the owner of Club Dogfish on 3rd Ave is taking matters into his own hands, setting up plants and trees in his vestibule to keep out the fentanyl users. But this move could be a violation of a city ordinance to keep public spaces clear. So now the showdown begins. Will the city give small business owners a break or will they selectively enforce the law? I wonder if this will be Read More ›