Comments

1
Remember when everyone bashed on Nickles for not getting this done? McGinn hasn't been any better.

Time to vote that clown out of city hall too. Oh wait...we could get a professional basketball team back....
2
Why can't we enable and support more Share/Wheel self-organized tent encampments? And let's have the police stop throwing away homeless people's tents and sleeping bags and coats and boots. That last should be an easy and no-cost step the city can take.
3
Yawn........
4

Why can't we build one of those "apodment" high rises, but in someplace super cheap yet accessible to services (using light rail)?

With 250 sq ft apartments, you should be able to fit all the homeless in one or a few buildings.
5
Did you remember to include people north of the ship canal who had to walk in the rain because bus routes are even slower now?

Rapid Ride my ass.
6
@2 -- The police don't throw away people's boots or shelters, moron.

The city attempted to clean out criminal encampments on Beacon Hill's Jungle in 2003.

When homeless advocates complained about the loss of tents and personal belongings, the city responded with new policies for managing seized property.

The city can't "encourage self-organized tent encampments" without taking on the liability for the encampments and without completely abandoning the building and fire codes the rest of us (imo correctly) must follow.

If you honestly care about homelessness (I suspect you don't) or, for that matter, the interface with public services and homelessness (John T. Williams), then shut up, learn a little and actually DO something.

Until then, let the grownups do the talking.
7
@4: i like the cut of your jib.
8
it seems as if the problem is intractible, particularly during a recession and stagnant recovery. so beware of making plans with perfection as the goal. you will only fall short.

@4: you're welcome to develop that project anytime. i'll be curious to see what site, and more importantly, what funding you can secure that isn't already being battled over by actual non-profits housing providers.
9
"One unsheltered homeless person in January is one too many" No kidding.

It looks like one woman they tried to count was already dead (third story in the link, and there's no report of cause of death).
10
Concur with @7 about real solutions that @4 offered, as opposed to meaningless platitudes while working people reside in Kent and Renton.

Action. Not words.
12
So, @11, you're saying we should bring back flophouses, so that people who prefer to live life inebriated don't die as a result?

Hmmm. Is there a city plan for that?
13
An early step -Free drug an alcohol treatment. Free mental health care. It's a much higher priority than new stadiums.
14
@4 yes, that would be AWESOME!

if we put 2,700 apartments the size of many of these aPODments (tm) - 125 sq ft - all in a single building, it would only be about 10 stories on a one acre building footprint.

lay that on top of the Cap Hill light rail station and you'd get some real TOD that only a serious urbanista could love!
15
@12: will, "flophouses" and "apodments" are both essentially SRO's. there used to be all levels of such housing up till the advent of urban renewal after ww2, so there weren't folks sleeping on the streets.

this is a good (and academic) book on how poor people used to be housed in Murka: http://www.amazon.com/New-Homeless-And-O…

@14: 10 stories, 43K sf footprint with 2000+ 125 sf apts? your building sounds like a nightmare to this serious urbanista.
16
You mean you can't find 2,736 uber liberals willing to take one person into their home in Seattle? Wow....

Please wait...

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