Nearly every time Seattle Mayor Ed Murray steps in front of cameras to discuss Seattle's growing homelessness crisis, he says the same thing: We need and state and federal help.

A debate last night between the two men vying to be governor of Washington offered little indication that significant help is coming, no matter who is elected.

Democratic Governor Jay Inslee and Republican challenger Bill Bryant debated in Pasco, where they were asked one question on the issue: Do they think the state needs a "homeless czar"?

It was an easy question to answer without saying much at all.

"We don't need a homelessness czar," Bryant said. "We need a governor."

Across Washington, about 19,500 people were homeless in 2015, a 5 percent increase from the previous year, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The increase among unsheltered people was even higher at 20 percent over the previous year. And those calculations may be low. The state Office of Public Instruction says 35,000 public school students are homeless across Washington. In King County, 4,505 people sleep outside, a 19 percent increase from last year.

Cities like Seattle are now trying to figure out how to meet both the emergency needs of those residents sleeping outside right right now, and create long term housing—all while managing neighborhood backlash over tents and needles.

Bryant has aligned himself with those angry neighborhood groups, even showing up at a Seattle City Council meeting last week to testify against allowing people to camp on some limited public lands. At the debate, Bryant outlined a "six-point plan," in which none of the points really meant much at all.

Bryant said he would institute a "no tolerance policy" for camping on state-owned land, a policy that is both cruel and unenforceable. He offered no explanation for where the people currently sleeping outside should go. Bryant also said his administration would "give local law enforcement the authority they need to go in and deal with the criminal element in some of these camps, and we'll also allow them to clean them up when necessary."

That promise—echoed in the demands of neighborhood activists—presupposes something that just isn't true: that police are not currently dealing with "criminal elements" among homeless people. Not only is the conflation of homelessness and crime dangerous, but there is nothing stopping police from enforcing the law against homeless people today. Even in cases in which the city and state authorities don't forcibly evict people living in an illegal homeless encampment, police have the same ability to enforce laws about drug use, violence, or any other crime as they have anywhere else. The city and state recently cleared an area known as The Jungle, specifically citing the need for police and emergency responders to be able to access the area. Bryant's implication that cities are somehow not giving police "the authority they need" makes for a good talking point, but is not based in reality.

In his opening statement, Bryant said he wanted to get homeless people "out of tents and onto their feet." He has also repeatedly promised to improve mental health care in Washington. But, as he has built a campaign opposing new taxes, he has yet to outline how he would pay for any of that. Bryant said only that the state should "look at how cities are spending state money on homelessness" and spend more on "permanent housing and job counseling."

Inslee—who's likely to win reelection easily—didn't offer much more. He touted the low-income housing he says has been built during his administration, as well as increases in voucher programs to help people get into housing, efforts to house homeless veterans, and coordination among state departments on youth homelessness. (Inslee's office says he spent $240 million over three years on homelessness prevention and housing.) He promised better integration of physical and mental health care, and said increasing the minimum wage would help homeless people who are employed.

"These folks are citizens, they're neighbors, they're family members," Inslee said. "If they can get a little help, they can get back on their feet."

While all those efforts are welcomed by homeless advocates and service providers, Inslee all but ignored the urgency of the crisis facing cities like Seattle. In the year since Seattle and King County declared states of emergency on homelessness, Inslee has not offered the sort of significant infusion of emergency money you'd expect to see if, say, thousands of people were sleeping outside after a natural disaster. And he did not address the state transportation department's ongoing sweeps of homeless encampments. While long-term housing efforts are critical, the state has not stepped up in a meaningful way to address the current reality.

Inslee made no indication last night that anything would change with another term, and Bryant's "sweep everyone everywhere" approach promises to be even worse.

On other issues: Neither candidate would say whether they support changes to the state's laws about how to prosecute cops who kill people. Washington's threshold for prosecution is particularly high. An initiative that is currently gathering signatures would change that. The candidates debated in Pasco, where police killed a Mexican farmworker last year.

Both said they would be open to closing tax loopholes to create new revenue for the state. (Inslee's camp points out that last year Bryant criticized the governor's plan to fund teacher pay raises by ending tax breaks for oil refineries and bottled water.)

Inslee said he supports the Washington Voting Rights Act, while Bryant was noncommittal. And while Bryant said he is "very uncomfortable with the state being able to take life," he said he would uphold the death penalty as governor. Inslee has issued a moratorium on all executions. Bryant criticized Inslee's work on fully funding K-12 education, while Inslee defended the millions of new dollars the state has put toward education—all familiar themes from past debates.

In an August poll, Inslee was up by 12 points and Bryant hadn't gained any ground since the primary earlier that month. Inslee has out-fundraised Bryant almost three-to-one.