(Image: City of Seattle)
King County is again putting of its annual attempt to count the number of people living outside, in vehicles, or under-sheltered here.
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority says it plans, instead, to “conduct qualitative engagement with people living unsheltered to learn more about their experiences and how we can better meet their needs.” CHS reported here in 2019 on the formation of the new authority with hopes for more regional approaches to addressing the ongoing homelessness crisis.
Following 2021’s waiver allowing it to skip the count due to the COVID-19 crisis, the county authority announced it will not conduct the survey again in 2022 because federal requirements call only for counts in odd year.
But Publicola reports that the authority could end up missing out on much needed federal funding by skipping the count effort as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development is mandating agencies that skipped 2021 to catch back up in 2022.
The last count performed in King County took place in January 2020 and identified nearly 12,000 people experiencing homelessness where with an increase in the number of people living in cars and RVs.
The county’s “point in time” counting effort was overhauled in 2017 with a new approach officials said would provide a more complete look by dispatching teams of three to four volunteers led by the paid guides across census tracts throughout King County.
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Only in King County would we need to hire consultants to figure out what the homeless need. Let’s start with housing. Then we can move on to addiction services and mental health counseling for those that need it. Grants for the working homeless to pay first/last months rent and damage deposits.
They don’t want to count because they know the number of encampments grows the more money we spend. In other words, their narrative is a lie. Seattle has nearly 10 times the number of rough sleepers as NYC. Why? Because we allow it. We will never solve the encampment crisis unless we finally acknowledge that it is primarily fueled by drugs, and that Seattle’s permissive policies have made us a magnet for drug addicts that want to live a rule and consequence-free life. The long-term solution is more supportive housing and in-patient drug and mental health treatment, but the near-term strategy should be congregate shelters and a citywide camping ban. Another reason homelessness is worse here is that politicians like Sawant have build their brand around it. The worse it gets, the more it fuels her Trotskyist Revolution again capitalism. Capitalism is problematic, but so is a ruthless politician that intentionally worsens the problem to increase her power.
Cronyism is problematic.
Maybe the heading should of read: “For second year in row, King County wont attempt to be accountable for homeless population”
Give the homeless some HOUSING already! We need compassion based approaches and not sweeps and the like.
Where? How? I’m asking for real. We don’t have space for anyone who is sadly unsheltered to have housing. It takes years to build buildings, and by the way, if you have a policy of free housing with no requirement of treatment (for addiction or mental health or both), you’ll have an unending supply of people to give free apartments to.
Not one city in Europe has the encampment problem we have here. It’s not because of free housing. It’s because they enforce laws against public intoxication and can force people into treatment for multiple months. Then and only then are those people eligible for housing support.
Improved outcomes, not treatment attendance, drive people to change. 1811 Eastlake shows this.
This picture is largely incorrect, To give some context: most European cities have larger budgets for low income housing and a smaller budget for the police force compared to the City of Seattle. For example the City of Milan manages about 2,500 apartments (at a relatively small loss). The Italian police force(s) annual budget is about $300/citizen. In comparison SPD costs about $1k per resident with a violent crime rate twice as high as in Milan (the highest in Italy btw). ‘Forced’ treatment in Italy is limited to a few thousands persons per year and often in alternative to a prison sentence. I believe this comparison is largely similar for other large cities in the US vs EU, pointing to a European approach to housing and addiction that is less punitive and/or focused on policing than in the US. Sadly, European newspapers also complain of large homeless encampments, often largely populated by immigrants and refugees.
There’s compassion, and there’s stupidity. Simply “giving the homeless some housing” is the latter if want to actually fix the problem.
Seattle has stupidity, framed as compassion, in spades. Anyone that challenges the stupidity is framed as not compassionate. It has taken years, but at least people are starting to push back on the false and destructive narrative
It’s crazy that the county might risk losing federal funding because counting is hard. I doubt the “qualitative” reasons driving homelessness have changed much over the last few years. Sure, Covid has impacted both the homeless and the city and county workers addressing homeless issues. But without actually knowing the number of people living outside, in vehicles, and under-sheltered, how will anyone know whether things are getting better or worse, or whether the various “plans” are moving the needle one bit?
This regional homelessness (gormlessness?) authority is really off to a flying start, eh? A bunch of the suburban cities have refused to give money, and now the agency is going to skip basic data gathering (flawed though it is), and put the spigot of federal dollars at risk. I hope they’re playing 12D chess, because here in three-space it looks pretty bad. Thank you, Seattle Times editorialists, for the Regional Approach to Homelessness™.
In the end, though, none of this will matter. The housing crisis will start to abate only when we drastically increase the rate of net new housing, at all price points. That will happen when we break the single family homeowner zoning stranglehold, and legalize lowrise multifamily everywhere SF housing is now permitted. Until then, everyone who’s not on The Property Ladder™ will suffer with inflated prices for housing, or no housing at all.
This is literally the only policy proposal that seattle has pursued for 20 years now. Tear down single family homes and neighborhoods and build more density and the end result has just been more people living here putting more pressure on the same old and failing infrastructure that the city refuses to invest in because long term planning and investment doesn’t buy votes the way throwing another $100 million at homeless non profits and NGOs does (west Seattle, and U bridges for starters, magnolia next, and god knows what’s happening under the city that we can’t see in terms of pipes, waste water, etc.)
While they have not completely eliminated single family zoning, it’s a complete red herring when it comes to solving the homeless issue in this city. The city has been systematically upzoning neighborhoods and increasing density for at least 2 decades now and the result is that it’s more expensive that ever to live here.
What do you really think is going to happen if you eliminate single family housing? People are going to buy homes for a millions dollars, tear them down, invest another million dollars and a year or more of their time to build low income rental units?!?!? It won’t happen. Eliminating single family housing will make developers rich, increase the burden on the same infrastructure that the city refuses to invest in, and will make neighborhoods less livable (elimination of single family homes with yards means removing trees and green space, more cars clogging roads and looking for street parking, etc)
It’s time for a new approach, the build build build approach has been a total failure and the last thing this city needs to do pour more gas on that fire.
The only reliable way to provide truly affordable housing (i.e, not housing that is affordable only to those making 80% of the median income) is for the government to build it.
Pretending that Seattle is a closed system has not worked and will not work.
“ The only reliable way to provide truly affordable housing (i.e, not housing that is affordable only to those making 80% of the median income) is for the government to build it.”
Source? Do you have actual studies, examples, and peer reviewed papers that prove this or this just something you believe?
Given the way the Seattle government systemically refuses to maintain existing infrastructure what do you think the long term prospect would be for all this free housing you want the city government to build?
Seattle is and has pretty much always been expensive to live in. You want to live here, take whatever crappy job you can find, work really hard at it, at night go to one of the many community colleges that haven’t ample government programs to provide free or discounted tuition, then get a slightly less crappy job and work really hard at that, take your 2 year degree and go to one of the many state funded universities (UW Bothell and UW Tacoma and both great options) study something with a proven track record of providing a solid return on your investment (I would suggest computer science or accounting). Then get a slightly better job and work really hard at that and start saving some money. After about 10 years you should have gotten a couple promotions and raises and be living in a decent apartment. Then keep working really hard and forgo things that waste money (like eating or drinking out at ridiculously over priced restaurants that serve mediocre food with terrible customer service) and after about another 10 years, maybe less if you’ve found a partner that shares your work ethic and goals, you’ll have enough money to put down a down payment on a house or a condo. As you continue to work hard at your job, and maybe make additional investments in your skills and your home, your income will increase while your home value appreciates. With your new higher income level and the equity in your first property you can move up to something nicer.
That’s how I went from a 22 year old high school drop out living in a car to a 47 year old home owner raising a family in Seattle. Took about 20 years of constant hard work overcoming obstacles and set backs but never giving up and never stopping working hard and striving for what I wanted.
Don’t want to do that? Sound like took much work? Lynnwood, buiren, federal way, Tacoma are all available to you as places to live for less than Seattle. No one is any more entitled to live in Seattle that I am entitled to a waterfront mansion in Madison park (which I don’t and never will have). You want something, working for it and earning it will always be a faster and better path to getting it than sitting around and whining about how unfair everything is and hoping the government will take money from those that do work hard and use it to buy you what you want.
If you want to live, grow, and succeed in a place like Seattle the solution isn’t a mystery, the path is known and well trod over decades and decades here and in many other expensive cities across the US and rest of the world.
I’m glad the education system worked so well for you. It’s not that way for everybody. I first enrolled in a community college when I was 23 and didn’t get an associate degree until I was 40. That ended up being worthless. I’d had enough by that time, and didn’t pursue anything higher. I’ve been lucky enough to have subsidized housing, which at one time was plentiful in Seattle. I’m ‘entitled’ to stay here. Seattle is my home, my birthplace.