Housing first, but if you can't think of anything but you're next fix then treatment first.

It's nice to be presented with such a stark, clear choice between two approaches that won't work.

Every homelessness story is different; dividing the solutions into two broad categories just creates more cracks to fall through.

Started off couch surfing during college, didn't graduate and kept couch surfing as his alcoholism became worse, eventually coming out of the drunk tank without a friendly couch to ride.

People tried to crack that nut, but he's now dead,; society has no place for loveable losers.

There wasn't a real solution to his problem.

Well, after almost nine years (!) of Seattle's Homelessness Crisis, we finally have learned what was always required to make the Stranger admit drug use was involved in homelessness: propose deleting public funding for groups that can't get homeless persons off the street, due to the latter's chronic drug usage.

"...Suarez’s public rejection of Housing First policy has made enemies with some in the homelessness services and activist communities."

If the Stranger actually believes Seattle voters will take the word of "...the homelessness services and activist communities..." over that of pretty much anybody else, then the Stranger should prepare for more general election results like those of 2021 and 2023.

Have to agree, but it would be easier if housing based groups receiving funding were better organized and productive. Those of us who are housing first have opened a gaping hole in our defenses through lack of execution focus.

The irony of the Seattle political machine chastising Suarez because she is not a real democrat becomes even funnier when you realize how far astray they are themselves. Just look at the 43rd district dems. They are led by someone who regularly posts screeds against local democrats (along with harassing and demonizing anyone who dares to push back on his diatribes) and who led the charge to rewrite the bylaws so the 43rd could endorse non democrats for office. They of course are backing an actual non democrat in this race, Shaun Scott, who is a member of the Democrat Socialists of America.

The main beef against Suarez is her view that the homeless should not be allowed to destroy the environment around them while they are waiting for taxpayers to provide them free housing to meet their needs. That is called being practical. Scott does nothing but spout platitudes about taxing the rich and fixing upstream problems such as income inequality and racism (problems that have existed since the beginning of time). That is idealist thinking not grounded in reality and will only result in additional stories like the one from last week where a missing woman's body was found in a suitcase at a homeless camp. Further, Scott is on record saying the police should be abolished because they are all murderers descended from slave patrols, that we should institute provide failed policies like rent control and that capitalism is the root of all the problems in the world. It's amazing to see the establishment back someone who so clearly is antithetical to what actual democrats believe and fight for because the other candidate dares to question the narrative we have been fed.

Anyone who has personally dealt with close relatives combatting drug addiction knows that housing first is nothing but enablement and coddling of one's addiction instead of dishing out tough love. I often get crap online for dissing housing first. I'll be voting fro Andrea this election.

Hey Stranger editors. you've lost your relevance in Seattle. Those who have been active readers of the publication from the 90s-2019 are now older, still voting democrat, but aren't falling for the socialist/far-left propaganda you're constistantly trying to push onto Seattle after seeing how Sawant and other far-left candidates whom you've pushed into office have steered Seattle and King County into the wrong trajectory.

It's like people have no awareness of Maslow's Hiarchy of Needs. Housing First because you can't do "higher" level personal work without a roof over your head. DUH.....Gawd, Seattle desperately needs politicians who are educated and thoughtful. We have a city council full of mavericks who each think they alone can solve societies ills. We don't need another personal Savior, we need people willing to do the dirty work of providing shelter, services, and employment. You know, the basics of survival.

I've never seen us move forward on this issue with any real substance so the premise that we would be moving backwards is baffling to me.

@6: You're pissing in the wind again. Scott is going to mop the floor with her.

@11 I’m not debating that given the district but it’s humorous watching folks demonize Suarez over a single issue and give Scott a free pass and his positions. I think like Harris-Talley before him he’ll find bullying folks in Olympia doesn’t work very well as a strategy.

Better to go backwards rather than off the cliff created by failed harm reduction and housing first policies. Treatment first and a camping ban! Clean this shit up already.

Why are you giving free publicity to this weirdo

@5: Bingo. It's nice for the Stranger to say now, "...Housing First does not mean Housing Only," but Housing Only has been Seattle's policy, and it's been a colossal failure. The Stranger still does not mention the number of homeless persons who have died of overdoses on Seattle's streets.

"Those of us who are housing first have opened a gaping hole in our defenses through lack of execution focus."

Here's a list of studies which have told the city this; the first one was in 2015:

https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/Reports/HomelessInvestmentAnalysis.pdf

https://govlab.hks.harvard.edu/files/govlabs/files/seattle_homelessness_project_feature.pdf?m=1548707682

https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/future-lab-report.pdf

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Meeting%20societys%20expectations/Booming%20cities%20unintended%20consequences/Booming-cities-unintended-consequences.pdf

And, finally:

https://www.seattle.gov/documents/departments/pathwayshome/bpa.pdf

Money Quote: "Funders must invest only in evidence-­based, best and promising practices and providers should be required to effectively implement these practices and meet performance standards as a condition of receiving funding."

None of which has yet to happen.

Giving out free needles, foils, and meth pipes is not working.

Giving out free apartments in which to use one's free needles, foils, and meth pipes is also not working.

In fact, it's enabling people to go deeper into addiction.

Andrea Suarez's compassion is unmatched. She cares deeply about helping people get out of addiction and into housing.

I don't understand why The Stranger fights to keep people suffering and addicted--with no hope of services. It's cruel. It's wrong.

We need to help people, not hurt them.

We need change

ELECT ANDREA SUAREZ!

Housing first works. Except for one little detail. Do you know who doesn 't want to live next door to an untreated mentally disturbed junkie? Other untreated mentally disturbed junkies.

The other little problem with moving people out of the tent camps and into housing: Those tent camps usually coalesce around a dealer or dealers that serve their little "community". Want to move the homeless junkies into housing? You will not only have to tolerate drug use in the housing facilities but the drug sales to support them.

@16: Yet somehow when there were many "untreated mentally disturbed junkies" in Seattle but housing was cheaper (like the 1990s) and where there are many "untreated mentally disturbed junkies" but housing is cheaper today (like West Virginia), "untreated mentally disturbed junkies" in the main lived/live in buildings rather than tents and life goes on.

@17: If you think Seattle’s population of "untreated mentally disturbed junkies" in the ‘90s was even a significant fraction of the size it is now, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Maybe several.

@15 am I correct in assuming you believe all housing in Seattle should require sobriety? If it's cruel to let an impoverished person live in a place where they can drink or do drugs surely it's no less cruel to let a rich person do the same? How many doctors, lawyers, and/or tech bros have Seattleites "enabled to go deeper into addiction" by not preventing them from drinking or drugging in their fancy single family homes? For shame.

Let’s try this thing “proven” to work that somehow hasn’t worked despite trying it fifty years!!! We just need to try it harder and give more money to incompetent (and corrupt) organizations that have no incentive to solve anything. It’s “evidence-based”!!!

@19 if you can support yourself and not rely on taxpayers for housing, food etc then by all means do whatever floats your boat as long as it doesn't negatively impact your neighbors either (e.g. no stealing their stuff or harassing them). The minute you ask for the greater community to provide you free housing and other services there will be strings attached. That really shouldn't be a sticking point in these programs.

@21 that's just standard conservative ideology. The other commenter said it's "cruel" to let people drink or use drugs in their homes, which I suspect is disingenuous, but I figured it was only fair to ask and see if they honestly believe it's "compassionate" to mandate people remain sober even in private or they also just want to put restrictions on people who access the social safety net.

@18: Seattle was literally featured on the cover of the Rolling Stone:
Junkie Town
They came for the music and stayed for the smack
By David Lipsky
May 30, 1996

I lived on Capitol Hill and worked Downtown then. There was a whole lot of heroin going on. (Some crack too.)

@23: There's a huge difference between a dozen or so rock musicians dying of heroin overdoses in their Capitol Hill apartments, and hundreds of homeless persons dying everywhere around town from fentanyl overdoses. (One of those differences is the Stranger probably mentioned the former.)

I remember reading that article back then. At that time, I lived on Capitol Hill, worked on First Hill, and was frequently downtown. The last, especially, has orders of magnitude more homeless/addicts now, than it had back then.

@24: "There's a huge difference between a dozen or so rock musicians dying of heroin overdoses in their Capitol Hill apartments"

But it was in large part due to this publicity that Seattle became a drug tourist destination. Had it only been a few hobos found dead on the sidewalk, no one would have noticed. A subtext of the Grunge Rock era was that we had heroin, chesp and available. Our city fathers should have read the movie scripts of people like Cameron Crowe and turned down filming permits.

@24: It's because they are "out in the open" today instead of "inside buildings" like they were back in the day. Doing drugs outdoors was never and still isn't a "first choice" option. But these days many more folks don't have any other option!

@24 "The last, especially, has orders of magnitude more homeless/addicts now, than it had back then."

Current cost of living in Seattle is more than 300% what it was in 96, and much of the inflation has been in the past three years. Like 26 wrote, many or most of the people you see on the street these days would have been able to afford some shitty apartment in which to shoot their black tar back in 96. The problem isn't addiction, which has always existed, it's housing. And fent ODs are far from a Seattle specific crisis.