recovery

For years, the political left has controlled the conversation around homelessness, addiction, and mental illness in most major West Coast cities. They control the nonprofits. They control the bureaucracies. They control the county commissions, the grant systems, the academic language, and most of the policy decisions. And yet the crisis keeps getting worse. That should tell us something. At some point, we have to stop judging these policies by their intentions and start judging them by their results. Because no matter how compassionate the language sounds, the outcome is obvious to anyone willing to walk the streets: more tents, more overdoses, more untreated mental illness, more open-air drug use, more crime, more suffering, and more people slowly dying in public. Read More ›

SEATTLE, WA — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently released its 2026 grant criteria for $4 billion in homelessness funding, with a major shift toward treatment, recovery, and renewed self-sufficiency for all who are able. “Federal reforms have finally created space for local leaders to put treatment and recovery back at the center of homelessness policy,” says Discovery Institute President Steve Buri. “Real compassion means helping people reclaim stability and dignity, not leaving them trapped in addiction and illness without a path to restoration.” Discovery Institute has updated its essential policy brief, calling on local governments, Continuums of Care (CoCs), and service agencies to leverage these new federal reforms and make treatment and recovery central to Read More ›

A City in Urgency Seattle is moving rapidly to expand shelter for homeless drug addicts before the FIFA World Cup comes to the city. Faster than the public has been given time to fully understand. Mayor Katie Wilson set a goal of adding hundreds of new units in a matter of months. The strategy relies heavily on taxpayer dollars to expand tiny house villages. No one questions the urgency. But speed should not replace accountability and transparency. Lack of Transparency Right now, Seattle is making high-impact decisions about land, funding, and service delivery through a relatively tight network of policymakers, advisors, and providers. And the public has not been given a clear, transparent picture of how those decisions are being made. Read More ›

Let’s go back to the campus of the Orange County Rescue Mission (OCRM), where each formerly homeless student wears a lanyard that holds up an electronic ID card. The card is a key for his or her bedroom but also tracks whether and when the students show up at their class or work assignments. Freshmen — students in the first 3-5 months of what is typically an 18-month program — go through assessments of physical and mental health, educational and legal status, computer skills and financial understanding. They participate in therapy groups, work through three books in a Design for Discipleship series, and wear yellow lanyards. Sophomores wear green lanyards, get all the documents and character references they need to Read More ›

Long Journey Home The last time we saw 32 year old Kaylee Gordon, she was high on drugs, covered in dirt, and being put on a stretcher in downtown Seattle. Today she is safely back home in Wyoming and is on the road to recovery. Gordon met her niece and nephew for the first time. She also knows her entire family loves her and there is no more reason to run. They just sent me these photos and wanted me to thank everyone involved in this incredible search and intervention that saved her life. Especially, Seattle Police (@SeattlePD,) street preacher Matthew Meneicke, and homeless outreach workers Kristine Mooreland (@kmmoreland) and Andrea Suarez (@weheartseattle.) Gordon also had a chance to review Read More ›

As my last column showed, the San Francisco government dismisses addicts from hospitals and returns them to the Tenderloin’s drug-laden open arms. Many San Francisco taxpayers have grown cynical about the streets-hospital-streets routine, with ineffective policing and insufficient 30-day drug/alcohol rehab programs thrown in. The San Francisco circle game permanently helps almost no one but costs thousands of dollars per day of hospitalization, tens of thousands for a typical insurance-paid rehab program, and millions in grants to politically-connected nonprofits that merely enable drug use. You can research this yourself by looking at website ads for drug and alcohol addiction programs. One typical ad emphasizes private rooms with queen- or king-sized beds, amenities like indoor basketball courts, a professional recording studio, Read More ›

A California rescue mission rehabilitates people through love of God and fellowship. I spent four days and nights last month at the Orange County Rescue Mission, a Christian outfit serving the local homeless. I left with stories from 40 men and women about years of cycling through drug deals, arrests, jail, probation, parole violations, homelessness and prison. Andrew, 36, dropped out of high school and once had a job, but studying and working shifts at Jiffy Lube was boring. Meth was exciting. He enjoyed planning robberies and didn’t mind a few months every couple of years in jail: “Better drugs there than on the street.” He married and had children but wasn’t sober at their births. He came to the Read More ›