And after that Zambezi River of verborum fluxus, we're still looking at some bum burning down a building.

"KOMO wasted no time blaming this fire on the homeless."

I've pasted the text of the KOMO article below. Charles, can you direct us to the portion where KOMO blames this fire on the homeless? I am unable to find that passage myself. Indeed, as I read it, this article merely explains this location became a homeless encampment the fire, and does not, in any way, attempt to identify the cause of the fire.

SEATTLE — A cluster of RVs now sits on top of the site where two restaurants and a gas station used to operate in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Neighbors have expressed repeated concerns about crime connected to encampments on the property at 2025 Rainier Ave South after a Burger King and a 7-11 both burned down.

Currently, at least seven RVs are now on the site of the former Burger King, as well as tents and vehicles in the encampment.

“We were staying in our car for months - me and my friend we moved here in her trailer," said Yunique, a woman who is living at the encampment with her 8-month-old son.

Yunique said she understands the safety concerns of the neighborhood and she doesn't leave her trailer after dark. “We don’t just wake up and say ‘Oh, we want to live in a trailer', I just want my son to feel stable," she said.

The people in the encampment told KOMO News they have not been given notices to leave and they are hoping to be able to stay for a while.

In the last year, multiple fires forced the closure of a Burger King and 7-Eleven gas station on the property. A Baskin Robbins ice cream shop also closed after its building was damaged during a fire, as well.

“I certainly worry that it is going to drive away business," said Shawn Mason, who owns a furniture store on Rainier Ave. “We’ve been in this location for 15 years, and it’s just mind boggling how much it’s changed. People come up to me and ask me if I’m leaving because of everything going on here, and I have no intention of doing that.”

A 29-year-old man was shot and killed near the encampment in January.

A mechanic shop across the street from the encampment has closed as well, and the building has been vandalized.

The property itself is currently listed for sale at $ 16 million.

Charles,
Are you certain that it’s not you who hate them? You seem hostile to even considering getting people into shelters and getting treated for addiction or mental illness. That’s not exaclty compassionate. It’s an approach that is causing them to be subjected to death, violence, rape and illness. It’s almost like you hate them for some reason. Why? Hate? Or something else even more sinister? Tell us Charles. Why do you hate them so much?

The problem with your post, though, is the incontrovertible fact that the homeless ARE demonstrably responsible for a great many of these fires. Particularly as it gets colder, as they use propane, etc, to try and get warm.

Now, if you want to make an argument that the homeless should have safe ways to get warm, along with shelter and housing that keeps them off the streets altogether, fine. But that doesn’t seem to be your point.

In a post-truth world, I find it’s best not to repeat rumors spread by randos on the Internet. What is gained?

Because It’s
Far Easier to Hate
Those Who Have Nothing
than Those Who Have Everything

when one person
a sole human being
owns it ALL well then
things'll be Better all round.

so take
Corporations
take take take
take it ALL whilst
the Planet bake bake bake

what've ya got
to Lose?

As I mentioned yesterday, that stretch of Rainier from Darigold to Genesee is a mess and has been for decades, mostly because of the building to the north. People were squatting in that old Safeway, and that is almost certainly the cause of the fire. Not quite arson, but not a desirable situation by any means.

Some empty buildings are quite successfully secured - look at the former Rite-Aid at the corner of Rainier and McClellan for example. For the sake of public safety the city should require that on all vacant buildings. That might cause property owners to be open to renting the space at a more affordable rate (to keep it occupied) or disposing of it before it becomes a blight.

As usual, Charles toes the Stranger’s line, claiming anyone frustrated with Seattle’s expensive, never-ending homelessness crisis simply hates the poor. Gullible commenters swallow and regurgitate this lie without question, even though it deeply insults Seattle’s actual working poor, the vast majority of whom are not homeless. (Although the Stranger and supportive commenters frequently chide other citizens of Seattle about supposedly disrespecting the poor, neither the Stranger nor these commenters have sufficient respect for the poor to avoid telling lies about them.) This frustration could also originate from the endless parade of human suffering and misery occupying Seattle’s once-public spaces, suffering Seattle’s taxpayers have expended hundreds of millions of dollars to alleviate, seemingly without any effect at all — even as schools close, and bridges crumble — but again, the Stranger clings to a comfortable, victim-blaming lie rather than face an unpleasant truth.

As @2 described, Charles was unable to produce his stated example of actual blaming of the homeless for these fires, but again, that didn’t stop Charles from upholding the Stranger’s official position. Every year, the Seattle Fire Department extinguishes hundreds of encampment fires (https://mynorthwest.com/3870841/seattle-fire-pace-respond-1000-encampment-fires-year/), so homeless persons as a source of unexplained fires elsewhere is not just groundless speculation. By the simple expedient of never, ever reporting an encampment fire, the Stranger reserves to itself the option of calling everyone in Seattle who disagrees with this state of affairs a poor-hater.

And it just keeps rolling onwards, homeless persons just keep dying, and the Stranger blames everyone except the politicians it favors.

I didn't really see an anti-capitalist, Marxist theme in Charles' article (although I don't doubt that this may lurk in his subconcious). It's more about how we perceive others around us.

"We are a social animal, and this means we have a sharp (if not powerful) instinct for reading and responding to the appearance of other humans."

This is true. And particularly so for those forced to live on the streets. While most homeless find themselves there for purely economic reasons, some are affected by emotional/mental problems. And it's their fellow homeless that are best suited to judge the company of the neighboring street dwellers. That's why some sheltering options are not suitable to them. A cot in a warm facility might sound good on a winter night. But not if there is a non-zero chance that the person next to you might find it necessary to stab you because you glanced in their direction. Even the ultimate goal of plentiful non-congregate housing will not suffice if the person in the next unit finds it necessary to set it on fire (Renton Red Lion Inn shelter).

We have to do something about the mental cases. Then the purely economic disadvantaged cases can be handled more easily.

I literally get off the bus to my dentist there (and then walk 8 blocks).

It probably is highly correlated.

But remember most fires are caused by either lightning strikes (weather in the mountains) or people (who like to burn stuff they shouldn't).

I have sympathy, but opiate addicts smoke their drugs and nod out. This causea fires. Want to endorse a weapon-free public place to sell and use drugs, I am there with you. Until then the fires will continue and the futility of removing the homeless in an infinite loop will continue.

@14
Weapon free?
How do you plan on enforcing that?

"But even as the Seattle Fire Department fought the flames, social media began debating the cause of the fire. Many, of course, blamed homeless people."

Charles, was there a specific social media post you believed evidenced "many" blaming the fire on the homeless? Your link was not to a specific post: it was to the main page for the to the Columbia City Facebook Group, which is private, and therefore not at all helpful.

As I noted above, the KOMO story merely reports that homeless encampments formed after the fires, so unless you can direct us to a relevant social media post, there is no evidence whatsoever to support your assertion. If you want people to take you seriously, you need to support your claims.

Agree wholeheartedly with @9