homelessness

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 ›

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 ›

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 ›

C. S. Lewis once said, “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.” The same goes for teaching about how to help the homeless and poor. Ever since 2013, federal policy has been “housing first”: Get homeless individuals under a roof with no pressure to get the mental health help many need, and no pressure to fight the drug addiction and alcoholism. We tend to equate compassion with giving-without-strings. That’s not the way influential poverty-fighters in the late 19th century thought. Maybe Read More ›

Post Mortem in Spokane On Friday, “Camp Hope” shut down for good. At one point, organizers claimed more than 600 homeless people lived on this piece of WSDOT (@wsdot_east) property in the East Central neighborhood. After 18 months, more than half ended up in shelters or housing options that made sense for them. But officials say a few hundred likely ended up back on the city’s streets for various reasons. I spent the weekend trying to understand what worked and didn’t work. Camp Hope organizers say determining all that is going to take some time but everyone’s progress is being tracked. And some are saying this could be a model for sanctioned encampments. As for the state of the city, Read More ›

Jonathan Choe and radio host Ari Hoffman join Fox Business to react to Seattle residents joining forces to clean up the city’s squalor before the MLB All Star game. Click here to watch the clip.

Hidden Seattle A few days ago, outreach group We Heart Seattle (@weheartseattle) found a stolen United Rentals (@UnitedRentals) forklift abandoned in a #Seattle homeless encampment along the East Duwamish Greenbelt. But there was much more. Walking further into the heavily wooded area, we discovered a constellation of tents and structures, even some set up under I-5 which is Washington State Department of Transportation (@WSDOT) property. We spoke to several people who say they are intentionally trying to live off the grid. This is a choice. Once again, this is not a housing issue. “Housing first” is not working. Yet this entire region is doubling down on this failed policy. There are people who do not want to pay rent, bills, Read More ›

KCRHA Absolutely Crushed In a scathing Op-ed, King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn (@KCCReaganDunn) destroys Regional Homelessness Authority (@KingCoRHA) saying, “there are foundational issues that make the KCRHA doomed to fail and unfit to be trusted.” Click here to read the Seattle Times article. In Case You Missed It The King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s (@KingCoRHA) 5-Year Plan has been approved. Vote happened Thursday afternoon. The Governing Committee is made up of elected officials like Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell (@MayorofSeattle) and King County Executive Dow Constantine (@kcexec.) Despite calls to dismantle KCRHA after the abrupt resignation of former CEO Marc Dones last month, they are still moving forward. It’s now on them. This agency is responsible for the bulk of homeless Read More ›

This column begins year two of my weekly writing specifically about homelessness: 52 down, 52 to go, and then it’s time to turn columns into a book. People new to the homelessness debate often find the recommendations of various groups confusing. So here’s a simplified, maybe over-simplified means of understanding the big four prescriptions: Let’s unpack this. Housing First advocates in government and at the National Alliance to End Homelessness say homeless individuals should receive permanent housing with no questions asked: They cannot be required to address their alcoholism or addictions, nor should they be pushed to meet with mental health professionals or take any medications. Further, Housing First emphasizes “client choice” regarding the housing that is offered: Those who Read More ›

Exclusive Finally tracked down D2 Councilmember Tammy Morales (@CMTammyMorales.) She’s been dodging me all year. I simply asked some basic questions on behalf of her constituents in the #Chinatown-ID, still dealing with a crush of crime and open air drug use. The homeless crisis is spreading into South Seattle neighborhoods, especially off Rainier Ave S. But she continues to be MIA on these issues. SODO also remains a mess before the Major League Baseball ALL-Star game but I didn’t have time to ask her about that since she ran off. Morales seems unfazed about canidates running for her city council seat. By the way, first time dealing with Evelyn Chow. She’s one of Tammy’s handlers and is now using the, Read More ›