The left needs to tailor arguments to persuade a NY Times commenter from Mercer Island, and a hypothetical critical mass of the public said commenter represents? This can't be serious.

I miss when The Stranger was all kinky sex and show listings.

While I may not agree with every particular of the authors analysis or her recommendations, I strongly support her public reflection and willingness to publicly ask the hard question - "What did I do wrong?"

This is difficult and necessary, regardless of the issue.

"So what do we do? If the left wants to win, we need to preach beyond the choir."

Hannah (Krieg)...read those 2 sentences. Then read them again.
and again.
and again.
and again.

Oh, dear.

@1 is the perfect example of why progressives will never get it. They just think they are better than everyone else.

@6 if someone argued policy messaging should cater to thirteen12 from SLOG I'd mock them too. The concept is patiently absurd.

@7, and yet here you are every day on these threads, doing your best effort as the right-wing influencer you are to spread your message of contempt and toxicity--and all with an extraordinary level of message discipline. Why is that?

"Leftists are rightly motivated by a desire to uphold homeless people’s humanity, dignity, and agency"

Weird, most of the Leftists I read on TS seem to be mostly motivated by a desire to dunk on centrists and neoliberals.

If you feed the birds, you get more birds. In Bellevue, they don't feed the birds. The birds fly somewhere else.

"The left response to all this must ultimately
be rooted in creating social conditions --
of material abundance, of meaningful
work and relationships, of community --
under which no one is homeless and
far fewer people become mentally
ill or addicted to drugs."

yeah but when up against
a bought-n-Paid for far
right movement intent
on profiteering off our
Every Human require-
ment, we're not likely
to see a whole Lotta
care & concern for
our fellow man or
woman etc et al

I guess I'm currently just feeling
a shade pessimistic about our
odds for Any kinda Societal
benefits coming out of el-
trumpfster's upcoming
maladministration
Cum horror\Shit-
show of a fiasco

@2,

That was not ever the case and you're either terribly misinformed or lying if you suggest otherwise.

My god, are the writers for The Stranger paid by the word?
Brevity takes skill.

The author nailed it.
When are they coming up for vote? I'll vote them into power in a heartbeat.

I used to be a liberal Democrat, but the far left pushed me to the center. The left's problem is chasing it's tail into oblivion, you can't really solve problems running around in circles. Homelessness should have been front and center a decade ago, but now the mess is so bad a tourniquet won't help. Seattle's far left likes to look the other way of reality. We got to this place on your watch.

@7 it's 'patently'
as in textbookly so
and thnx! for Staying
On our Toxic Message
cum utter Contempt for
the absurdity of the 'right'

wing and its
psycophants

the talking points'll
be issued at the same
time tomorrow as for the
14th of every other month except for
leap year of course which is 2.7 weeks later

c u @
the Cooler!

@15

'Seattle's far left
likes to look the
other way of reality.
We got to this place on your watch.'

Home-
lessness's
Nationwide
so yeah it's Gotta
be Seattle Progressives' fault.

"the
far left
pushed me
to the center."

the Center was
pulled so Far to the
right it's no Wonder the
Left looks so terrifying! what
if I came up behind you & SHOUTED:

BERNIE FUCKING SANDERS!

would you consider
that a terrorist
act?

This is a good companion piece to Danny Westneat’s recent article in the ST - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/the-new-report-on-homelessness-shows-a-catastrophe-for-wa/

Katie, Great piece. I became concerned when you mentioned "moving chronically homeless people with complex challenges into low-barrier housing," and so I was heartened when you immediately then explained the challenges of a "housing first" approach. A year and a half ago, I got a "housing first" neighbor in the apartment next to me in the low-income building where I live. He was evicted within four months, but not before causing physical, mental, and emotional harm to me and others on our floor, to say nothing of the damage he did to the apartment he was in, or of the expenses that resulted from multiple visits from caseworkers, the mental health crisis response team, and police. In the end, the experience served only to hurt a bunch of apartment dwellers– folks who well understand and are sympathetic to the issues around being homeless– and surely put the guy back on the street, only now with (more?) multiple frightening incident reports in his file, and (another?) eviction to his name.

“Nevertheless, I’ve come to believe that there are some serious defects in the left’s approach to the homelessness crisis.”

There’s nothing scarier than a savvy progressive. I was hoping the progressive strategy would be to keep doing stupid things, like accusing single-family houses of being racist, or replacing police officers with unarmed mobile hug squads. Katie Wilson’s reality-based strategy might actually win votes for progressives, the horror! 😆

Long term inpatient civil involuntary commitment, by the thousands, to offset the problem created by late stage capitalism and human nature, is an expensive defacto dumping ground for the mentally ill and criminally insane.

There aren't enough working specialists in the entire nation to staff one city facility.

What was the solution presented in the Mad Max films? Because it doesn't work. Neither does the solution in a Clockwork Orange.

@8: You complain about right-wing influencers, but you're obviously fine with left-wing influencers. Why is that?

@19 the key to Housing First is the "first." Housing Only is obviously doomed to fail, but unfortunately due to the dramatic shortage of behavioral health treatment infrastructure in this area that's too often what happens in reality. And people like you (and, as you noted, your ex-neighbor) are the ones who suffer. The only way out of this mess is massive investment in housing AND behavioral health.

The progressive failures here hurt the city very very badly. Now that we're midway through recovering I am worried people will forget the past, or new transplants won't know about it.

I respect what the author of this article is saying, but the nastiness and condescension and lying that I had to endure from progressives between 2015-2021 in discourse about this issue -- just sheer smug confidence in their righteousness while they drove the city into the ground -- has left me with the belief that they are just really bad people, by and large, and I have no interest in working with them again even if they did agree with me.

Furthermore, I do not want to see them get close to power ever again. The last time they had power, they tried to push the envelope by promoting the candidacy of Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. No. I'm never going to let this city get to that place again.

@23 -- yeah
but whattabout
second Yachts and
fifth Mansions & series
of Trophy Wives & Living
like fucking Pharaohs? if a
Few can do so, isn't it Better?

they've rigged it so
it all goes to the Top
and let the bottom 90%
fend/fight/fuckright off for Themselves

it's only Sustainable
for as long as we
Allow it to
be.

Drugs? Housed people use them too. Anyway, it’s common for people to get addicted after they become homeless. Trash? Actually, a lot of it is opportunistically dumped from passing cars. Bodily excretions? We need public restrooms. Shoplifting and crime? The claims are overblown. Anyway, homeless people are more often the victims of crime than the perpetrators. Feel unsafe? It’s all in your head, really you just don’t want to look at poverty.

This section has a notable lack of sources in an article that desperately attempts to source its claims.

Also a lesson learned from Kamala's loss this fall - telling people that their experiences aren't actually that big of a deal is a certain way to lose support. I've had dozens of negative encounters with homeless people ranging from unpleasant to dangerous - I stopped reading after the last sentence of this paragraph after the author suggested it must all be in my head.

@26: Ha ha ha, the paragraph you stopped reading in disgust was the author’s attempt to agree with you. It was a list of stupid things progressive say that she wishes they wouldn’t say! 🤣

@20
“I was hoping the progressive strategy would be to keep doing stupid things, like accusing single-family houses of being racist, or replacing police officers with unarmed mobile hug squads”

They’ve always got that in their back pockets if things don’t go their way.

“If the root of homelessness is commodified housing, then crisis-level mental illness and drug use can be seen, likewise, as creatures of 21st century capitalism.”

Ok, well, “commodified housing” has housed almost every Seattle resident for the entire history of the city, so that’s not it. Dark Age Europe produced violent crazy people at a rate unseen since, so capitalism had nothing to do with that, either. Any article on addiction which doesn’t mention Substance Use Disorder needs to get modern. So, the entire premise of this paragraph (and article, really) are wrong. The Stranger continues to insist homeless policy should be based in anti-capitalist belief, not reality.

@24: As the subhead reveals, this reformist impulse results from a craving for power, not out of any sincere desire to make amends for previous failures, or even to help the homeless: “Reclaiming This Issue Could Mean Reclaiming Power for the Progressive Left”

@2, That day is returning. The Stranger loses money on its "news" narrative payroll.

17, maybe pull your head out of your hole and read the mess that is this slog to understand you are the problem. Always blaming someone else, perhaps that's why we are stuck with Trump.

There are two things missing from this article:

From people working with homeless, their unanimous take is that the most important intervention is to catch people within the first two days of their homelessness. That's the most impactful for their lives, and the most cost effective. The talk about "need for low-cost-housing" is true but it's a distant future, not the impact that's urgently needed.
Parks and playgrounds are there to help families. When homeless take over a park and kids no longer play there, the well-off kids just get driven by their parents to a more welcoming playground; when the streets feel unsafe then well-off kids just get driven by their parents to Bellevue or a mall. It's the poor but homed people who suffer. Sweeps are an equity issue. They bring equity to the poor people.

I don't see how anyone could write a piece like this without addressing the recent HUD 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress. It concludes our regional response to homelessness has led to worse outcomes for the unhoused than in any other place in the country.

We had the highest rate of chronic patterns of homelessness in the country in 2024, and the largest numeric increase in the number of individuals who experienced chronic patterns of homelessness.

Other states, including more populated states, have had success in reducing chronic homelessness and the percentage of homeless who are unsheltered.

As a result, this isn't a question of "where the Left went wrong." It's a question of where Washington's elected leaders, particularly those within Snohomish and King County, went wrong.

Excellent article. Thank you for clarifying what has been in my thoughts for the past few months. I do think, however, that the key to managing the homeless crises, there is no solving for it, is to segment the homeless population and prioritize those that are most amenable to a housing solution. This means that people who through economic circumstance are in danger of becoming homeless, should be the first ones to be helped to ensure that they can retain their current housing. They should be separated from people who have alcohol, drug addictions or who have other mental issues.
This may sound harsh but people who have addictions should be forced to attend addiction counselling while being housed in an institutional setting. Providing them with independent housing would be futile. Discipline and coercion are the best ways to kick addiction. The army is really good at this in molding minds and bodies to achieve goals and I would use methods similar to what the army use to force these people to kick their addictions if they want to access tax-payer funded services such as housing. Helping people with mental issues is even more complex and I don’t have an answer to this but that does not mean that we cannot take action on the other two groups. It’s never an all or nothing solution.

While good, this misses the big classic deadlock of Seattle politics. Where do we build. The easiest and most viable route is on the transit corridors and in the city center. Already has transit access, viable sewers and utilities, etc... But almost instantly the usual suspects start screaming "equity" and shut that route down.

Meanwhile, no one pushed for anything in the areas the actual rich live in. Perfect example. The Stranger's favorite hard-on, "Ron Davis, Urbanist Dad" was doing the ever tiresome "you gotta love it!!!" commentary on upzoning and construction north of University Village in the area up to 55th west of 40th. But what was obviously missing from the maps and excitement? Anything south of UVill across Sandpoint Way. Funny dat, no? What could possibly be south and east of Sandpoint Way over there, immediately next to the upzone and behind existing commercial strips on SW?

Oh right, some of the wealthiest areas of NE Seattle. They're just as near UVill, immediately off a larger arterial than any of the streets in the upzone, and have transit runs. So where's the upzone? Where's the Urbanist Dad or the Stranger? See the first sentence of this paragraph.

So not only are the boring normies given all the BS pointed out in this article, but the Seattle left targets them and only them for all negative impact of their alleged "solutions". Then they wonder why their polities are rejected.

I really appreciate this analysis, it is honest, thoughtful and courageous. The one suggestion I would add, based on my experience in our neighborhood, is that we need police to catch and jail vandals and thieves. Right now, they are "low-level" crimes not even worthy of investigation. My guess is, this behavior is driven by drugs and mental illness, which deserve compassion, but at the same time, after repeated car break-ins and thefts, I am tired of it all, and so are our other neighbors. When they are caught, they are given fines they don't pay and court dates they don't bother to show up for, with no consequences. Can we have both compassion and consequences?

As someone who spent years working with people who are homeless and mentally ill, I agree with almost all of this. The part I disagree with is what seems to be a limited view of housing. What my experience working in Seattle and Atlanta showed me and what the data shows is that causes homelessness is primarily lack of housing at all levels and all types and what is needed in Seattle is housing of all types: supportive for those with mental illness and other problems, subsidized housing, social housing, and market rate housing. Your left orientation may not want to hear this but in current US system the only way to build enough housing is primarily by the private market. We need to provide as much money as possible for housing that needs to be paid for with public funds but the amount of housing that will be built that way is far short of the need. Only by clearing away obstacles to building enough market rate housing such as zoning (see the current Comp Plan debate) can enough housing be built to lower the price of housing so people don't fall into homelessness in the first place. Hard to believe in Seattle, I know, but that is case in much of the rest of the country and the rest of the world. Keep enlarging your perspective Katie but enlarge it just a little more.

@31-- "Always blaming someone else,
perhaps that's why we are stuck with Trump."

Bingo. sorta.

kristo@17:

quoting @15:

'Seattle's far left
likes to look the
other way of reality.
We got to this place on your watch.'

so it's always someone elses' fault?

Home-
lessness's
Nationwide
so yeah it's Gotta
be Seattle Progressives' fault.

my head up my ass it may be
but at least I can mostly
still fucking Read.

@29 & @Wormtongue:

'Ok, well, “commodified housing” has housed
almost every Seattle resident for the
entire history of the city,
so that’s not it.'

by-oh-so Conveniently omitting
short-term rentals and private equity
et al purchasing vast swaths of our Housing

you make quick,
short work of
our Reality.

my
oh my how
Totally unsurprising.

It's good to read some soul-searching on this issue. It would have to come from the "left" as the "right" is consumed by their victimhood, celebrates their ignorance, and is unwilling to take any sort of personal responsibility or offer any sort of solution.

And it's particularly good to see nuance on the "Housing First" bumper sticker/meme. It should be evaluation first, then appropriate housing.

I was a little dishteartened to read the usual criticisms of the "stay out" areas, for I think that anyone who looked at the the situation rationally would have to admit that what was going on in those areas was untenable. True, it just moved the problems to other parts of town, but in the absence of any real solution it's a viable option.

I, too, don't know what the solution is. The "conservatives" would probably tell you that the homeless need Jesus, but that's just them either feathering their nests (if they're clergy) or just being cheap. Blaming everything on "tech jobs" is ultimately self-defeating in a town where probably 70% of the jobs are tech, tech-related, or tech-dependent. That makes the messenger come across as a dreary moral scold.

We live in a country where healthcare is a commodity, and every facet of society is centered around making the obscenely rich feel comfortable and don't have to pay their fair share of taxes. That's not likely to change soon. In fact, it will probably get worse in the short term. We live in a city that makes nice noises about "affordability" but is actively condoizing the single-family zoned neighborhoods. Putting six houses with no parking on a lot that previously had one house and selling each unit for $650k is not affordable.

I fear that we are going to become a city with a lot of very affluent people, and a handful of desperately poor people, who the affluent will regard as their pet charity, with everyone else coming in from the far suburbs.

My sister in law works for one of the homeless housing providers. At the end of the year her boss called her into her office and handed her a bonus check for $7000 which is on top of the $80,000 a year she makes. It was because our tax dollars had to be spent or they went back to who’s in charge. Don’t ever let anyone in government say there isn’t waste.

Probably the best piece on this subject The Stranger ever produced. Very well done.

I’m guessing it’s not very popular with some of The Stranger’s other writers.

@39: Well, no, it’s just an actual fact that at any moment in Seattle’s history, almost all residents were housed, and almost all of the housed had obtained their housing from the private sector. Public housing, social housing, and charitable housing all have their places, and we should subsidize and encourage each one, but the simple fact is the private sector provides most of the housing. It’s one remedy for homelessness, not a cause.

The author seems to have taken several steps towards grasping what everyone outside the Progressive Left echo chambers (btw, has everybody got their Bluesky™ account set up yet?) understood years ago: the habit of couching unpopular and/or half-baked ideas in PhD-level obscurantist euphemisms doesn't work. (For instance "neoliberal underinvestment in subsidized housing" -- is there a simpler, more direct way to express this?) People have caught on to the game that when Progressives would rather gloss over a difficult topic, their words get longer and harder to understand.

On the plus side, any approach that shows even modest gains has a chance of gaining public support. The problem is so bad that even making it slightly-less-terrible could be presented as proof of concept. Show voters something that works and don't insult their intelligence, explain how to do it at scale, and watch them flock to your agenda.

As much as I appreciate the author’s nuanced approach to what has been obvious (for years) to most Seattllites about the failings of the far left, I do wish they had spoken more directly to the issue of personal responsibility. The far left has an allergy to acknowledging that personal responsibility and accountability even exist for homeless people. Unfortunately for them that warped perspective will continue to be an impediment to any political traction even in what is arguably our country’s most liberal city and state.

"The problem
is so bad that even
making it slightly-less-terrible
could be presented as proof of concept."

--@Tragedy of the Commons

how do you sell it
without auctioning it off
so many sticky fingers in the pie

other than that
Brilliant.

@41: But $87,000 in salary and bonuses is peanuts in Seattle. That’s like a one-bedroom apartment, no kids kind of lifestyle, not something anyone could reasonably call middle class. At $87,000 a year, your sister in law’s salary doesn’t strike me as “government waste,” it strikes me as a working-class, first-job-out-of-school kind of salary. Depending on her qualifications, she is likely underpaid at that salary.

What's not discussed in Katie's column nor among the commenters here is managing the demand for any type of affordable housing if there are no qualifiers put on it. There are a great many people who live outside the city limits in surrounding communities who would jump at the chance to live in the city and have taxpayers fund a portion of their rent. That can't happen. You can not build enough affordable housing to meet that demand. Any type of subsidized housing at its core should be temporary and should also be provided only if someone meets some qualifications (e.g. they have already lived in the area for a year, they have a life changing event such as loss of job, illness or other unpreventable financial tragedy) and need help to get back on their feet again. If you are working a barista job and think you are owed a one bedroom unit that the rest of us should partly fund you need to get a roommate or a different job. Leftists seemingly think we just need to "tax the wealthy" to subsidize things for everyone else and in real life it just doesn't work that way. There will never be enough money or resources (like land) to fulfill that pipe dream.

Bravo, Thumpus dear! And let me quietly murmur to Our Dear Subship182 that "Housing Providers" are generally not government employees. And it is beyond credulous that either government agency or charity would provide a bonus.

Perhaps Subship182 should either distance themself from their highly theoretical Sister-In-Law, or perhaps enroll in a community college class on critical thinking.

@40 I know you think I'm an idiot high school student, but this is actually one of the best comments I've seen on this site. You hit the nail on the head as far as the factors making a solution to this problem all but impossible. My one point of disagreement is that I think Seattle unfortunately already is the type of city you fear it becoming, and that's what we're seeing reflected in the streets.

What fucking leftist is against publicly funded mental health facilities? There are people who desperately need the services. Dismantling mental health facilities was a goal of Saint Ronnie.

Yes, the facilities have had bad reputations (especially because they were used to cure homosexuality through electro shock therapy), but they can at least provide shelter and food for people who largely can’t fend for themselves.

That also stems from a need for a nationalized health care system where people can afford to go into a residential rehab program. Sometimes it’s cheaper just to stay addicted.

@51 . . .

plus makes for
a great target
for our wrath
and our ires

and keeps us
from looking up

@49: "We live in a country where healthcare is a commodity, and every facet of society is centered around making the obscenely rich feel comfortable and don't have to pay their fair share of taxes."

Healthcare is a commodity because it results from the labor of many hard-working, talented individuals (doctors, nurses, therapists, drug researchers, engineers of medical devices), who spend years learning and retaining skills so difficult, only a relatively small number can possibly have them. Currently, in the United States, that resulting commodity is rationed by price. Other countries have other ways of rationing their healthcare commodities, but it is always rationed by some means. You can confiscate every last penny from those undeserving rich, and it won't pay for all of the health care, at the quality desired, which the population wants. Even if you could find some way to get all of that aforementioned expensive labor for free, there would still be a limited (and then rapidly declining) amount of it available, and so it would be rationed.

Contributing greatly to the cost of US healthcare is a culture which accepts as normal both chronic adult obesity and sedentary lifestyles, then demands miracle treatments for the resulting, predictable health issues. If you want to reduce the amount of expensive healthcare options requested, I suggest you start there.

tensor dear, do put a sock in it. The biggest driver of healthcare costs is the insurance industry, not fat people (who tend to die off if you haven't noticed). Another reason is that the AMA heavily lobbies to limit medical school admissions and the number of medical schools. Immigration of foreign doctors is also limited.

You can toady up to the wealthy all you want, but they'll never screw you - at least not the way you want them to.

shorter wormmy:

"we're Exceptional"!

exceptionally stupid
or exceptionally well-
played by the Richys
including their lackeys
toadys & tidy-up-afterers

could it be both?

@54: Well, of course it’s all the fault of evil healthcare CEOs and arrogant, spoiled, elitist doctors. You’re fully entitled to the benefits all of that aforementioned labor @53 — stat — at whatever (low) price you wish to pay for it. Just make the rich pay their fair share! Problem solved! No need for you to change anything about your diet, exercise, lifestyle, or to take any preventative actions at all. Just blame your bogeymen. (And castigate anyone who dares disagree with you as a “toady for the rich.” That’ll shut ‘em up!)

While you’re enjoying all of the healthy success that plan earns you, do please drop us a line, and tell us of a country or society on earth where health care is not rationed. Go ahead, we’ll wait. (Even fresh water, which literally falls from the sky for free, becomes a commodity — and you know better than most of us how much effort is required to keep the price of potable water affordable.)

"rationing"?

who's talking (other
than you) about 'rationing'
Healthcare? we're talking about
limiting access to & not doling out

something Civilized nations
Do as a matter of course
not kowtow to Wealthy
patrons or pray for
GoFundMe or
I'll fucking
DIE

"No need for you to change
anything about your diet,
exercise, lifestyle, or to
take any preventative
actions at all."

your
Assumptions
are most telling
blaming the victims
is about all you Have

@57: And for all of your empty posturing and pointless personal attacks, you also can’t cite a single country or society on earth where health care is not rationed.

I’m not in any way opposed to confiscatory wealth taxes, and I’m especially favor of such taxes if they subsidize a single-payer healthcare system. I’m merely pointing out that such a subsidized, single-payer system will still ration care. (And, if it’s a good system, also provide incentives and means to get your ass off the couch, and into a healthy living program.)

Tax the rich all you want, please do. Eventually, you will collide with the reality that health care is provided by skilled labor, and leftists will demand good pay and benefits for labor.

There's a reasonable leftist critique of the status quo, on both policing and homelessness, that it addresses symptoms rather than root causes. It suggests alternatives that are often expensive and difficult to scale.

Because the alternatives are hard, over the past 10 years the Council has often swept away the old way of doing things and replaced it with approximately nothing.

This doesn't work. Furthermore, if your solution to root causes is "destroy capitalism", it's not a solution, and you leave people who care at all about the fate of the city to embrace the imperfect symptom-treating that existed before.

@56 "Well, of course it’s all the fault of evil healthcare CEOs and arrogant, spoiled, elitist doctors"

Nobody's blaming the doctors. And nobody hates insurance companies more than doctors, and other healthcare providers, who are denied the ability to help people by using the skills and abilities they developed through all that schooling and training when some insurance company ghoul second guesses them and decides actually the treatment or procedure isn't necessary after all.

@60 what do you think happens in a government run system? Replace insurance toadie with government toadie. They are still telling rationing care as noted above or making you wait 9 months to get your ACL repaired because its not urgent. Many people who live in countries with universal health care also carry private insurance so they can "skip the line" so to speak.

@60: “Nobody's blaming the doctors.”

If you’re already having trouble with Mrs. Vel-DuRay, then calling her a “nobody” probably won’t help you. ;-)

@60, @54: Most of the time I lived in Seattle, we dutifully voted for Rep. Jim McDermott, on his promise to create a single-payer healthcare system. So, lecturing us on the evils of health-insurance companies has been a complete waste of time for at least the last quarter-century or so. Please do try to keep up.

"Only by clearing away obstacles to building enough market rate housing such as zoning (see the current Comp Plan debate) can enough housing be built to lower the price of housing so people don't fall into homelessness in the first place."

This is the trickle down method and it doesn't work. Increasing density and adding market rate housing does not result in significantly lower housing prices. The City's own "Market Rate Housing Study" (BERK 2021) confirms this fact. As do a number of other studies, like the one currently on the front page of the Urban Displacement Project at UC Berkeley.

The problem is caused by gross and increasing wealth inequity and financialization of the housing market. Late state capitalism; gotta love since you can't leave it.

@62 learn to read. She blamed the insurance industry and, secondarily, the AMA for artificially limiting the number of doctors. Clown.

@61 why is US healthcare spending astronomical yet our health outcomes trail the rest of the developed world? Can it be that insurance orgs aggressively "ration" healthcare in order to boost CEO compensation and shareholder profits? No, it's the public who are wrong.

@64: Because there are no doctors anywhere in the entire AMA, Mr. Totally-Not-Clown.

“…why is US healthcare spending astronomical yet our health outcomes trail the rest of the developed world?”

Learn to read harder: “… a culture which accepts as normal both chronic adult obesity and sedentary lifestyles, then demands miracle treatments for the resulting, predictable health issues.“

You’re welcome.

As far as I can tell the conservative approach to homelessness, if it exists at all, is to criminalize it. Put people in jail, throw away their belongings, maybe issue fines they can’t pay. This is the default response to homelessness even in “blue” cities, papered over with a network of inadequately resourced non-profits to clean up around the edges.

Homelessness is always going to be seen as the left’s failure because they’re the only ones even trying and they are doing so in a country that doesn’t have the resources we need because we just let rich people hoard all the money. So we fall back on punitive measures then blame progressives for a structural problem that is everyone’s responsibility and everyone’s fault.

@65 the US is not uniquely obese. For example, Qatar has a higher obesity rate than the US--but their average life expectancy is a full three years better. Qatar has universal health care.

@63: "Increasing density and adding market rate housing does not result in significantly lower housing prices."

Not immediately. Give it some decades, and today's new luxury housing will have become tomorrow's solidly affordable housing. If you don't build, build, build now, that transition can never happen.

"The problem is caused by gross and increasing wealth inequity and financialization of the housing market."

Actually, in Seattle's case, it was caused by great democratization of wealth: Amazon and other tech firms hired huge numbers of employees at high salaries, producing hordes of young adults with plenty of money to spend on in-city living. But do keep pounding away at your preferred narrative if it makes you feel better. Speaking of which:

@66: Excellent message discipline; Katie herself could not have written a comment more supportive of her article's points.

Now, what actually happened in Seattle was City Attorney Holmes unilaterally deciding that camping, misdemeanor assault, and petty theft were no longer crimes for his office to prosecute -- especially when homeless persons committed them. The photograph which accompanies this article shows the result: shared public spaces simply appropriated for private use, causing a decline in quality of life for everyone, with no benefit to anyone, campers included. The "capitalism is a failure" crowd -- Sawant, the Stranger, Katie Wilson, etc. -- loved these large public displays of suffering and misery, as their "proof" capitalism had failed. Sawant lived in a 1%-er mansion in Leschi, and so didn't have to suffer the sight of any dirty encampments near her lovely home. She in particular found Seattle's large population of homeless persons extremely useful, as her own personal supply of political cannon fodder. She dressed them in her red t-shirts, and had them scream obscenities and threats at Seattle City Council Members, e.g. during the EHT repeal (a loud and rude violation of "Seattle nice" which Wilson seems to have missed entirely).

Meanwhile, the City commissioned, and received, report after report after report, detailing how the pastiche of overlapping private homeless service providers had squandered the funds the City had provided for homeless response (a partial list of such reports may be found at hbb's comment, https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/05/24/73946179/the-hunger-games-of-housing/comments/4), but we have no evidence any of the supporters of Seattle's homeless policy ever deigned to recognize any of these reports.

After many years of ever-larger expenditures with no improvements, the voters rebelled (or, in the Stranger's contemptuous formula, business interests bought the Council) and retired most of the persons immediately responsible. Seattle now has a long, hard road back to being a pleasant place to live, but pretending it got here through overly harsh and punitive measures simply makes an unfunny joke of what Seattle's citizen taxpayers have endured for the past decade.

@67: Qatar covers about the same amount of ground as Connecticut, has a population of 2.5M, almost all of whom are working-age adults (and 70% of whom are male), and has the highest per-capita income in the world. (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/qatar/)

Other than all of that, though, it's a spot-on comparison to a large and diverse country half a world away, so obviously you've got me on this one. Congratulations?

@68
"@63: Increasing density and adding market rate housing does not result in significantly lower housing prices."
You respond: "Not immediately. Give it some decades."

That's funny. The problem is now, not decades from now. Inequity is increasing, not declining. Under the current regime the situation will not be improved by giving up zones to developers for almost nothing.

"great democratization of wealth: Amazon and other tech firms hired huge numbers of employees at high salaries, producing hordes of young adults with plenty of money to spend on in-city living."

That's even "funnier"—How does greatly increasing the area AMI help "democratize" us? Displacement proceeds apace...

"Increasing density and adding market rate housing does not result in significantly lower housing prices. "

But building SROs does. Let's goooo

@69: "Inequity is increasing, not declining."

Again, sticking to your preferred narrative may help you to feel smugly superior, but it will not help anyone address the problem.

"The problem is now, not decades from now."

1960: The population [of Seattle] was around 550,000
2000: The population was 563,374, surpassing the previous high of 1960
2010: The population was 608,660

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Seattle)

So, if after fifty years (1960 - 2010) when the population of Seattle had increased by a grand total of 9%, someone had told the City Council and Mayor to plan for an increase of over 20% in the next decade, what do you think their reaction would have been? "Yes, we'll get right on it!"? Or maybe, "You're a looney!"

'How does greatly increasing the area AMI help "democratize" us?'

Because the increase in AMI was spread across a large population increase. If it had been confined to a very small number of persons -- you know, the point you keep claiming is true, even though you have provided absolutely no documentary support of any kind whatsoever -- then the housing prices would not have increased by much. A few rich persons won't drive up housing prices, because they do not have the numbers required to increase demand across the board.

"Displacement proceeds apace..."

And persons who get priced out can move to the multitude of other places in America with lower costs of living. No one has an inherent right to live in Seattle, Manhattan, Mercer Island, or anywhere else. Although not priced out, my family and I decided the benefits of living in Seattle were no longer worth what we were paying to live there. So we moved (far) away, and are much happier now. Taking action to improve our quality of life beat sitting helplessly in Seattle, impotently whining about changes we could do nothing to affect.

@71 "Although not priced out, my family and I decided the benefits of living in Seattle were no longer worth what we were paying to live there. So we moved (far) away."

Impossibly tone deaf. Recall how much you spent to relocate far away, and ask yourself whether someone finding themselves unable to afford their rent would realistically have that option.

Tensorna dear, the AMA (like the ABA) is basically a labor union. They lobby on their members behalf (although not all doctors are AMA members. Indeed, by some sources, only about 15% of practicing physicians are members). I don't begrudge them their lobbying efforts, but I think any rational person would conclude that they - along with the insurance industry - are the ones who are "rationing" healthcare. (I know how you love that word).

I can see that, despite your protestations, you are homesick for Seattle and no doubt regretting what has turned out to be an unwise life choice. You're completely correct that no one has a "right" to live in Seattle, and not all of us can afford it, particularly these days. Mr. Vel-DuRay and I have been blessed, and we realize that. But your bitterness and unfounded criticism is not the answer. It makes you seem brusque and churlish, and I'm sure that's not your intent.

Phoebe dear, I absolutely agree that cross-Cascade stereotypes are stupid and ill-advised. Western Washingtonians need the bountiful agricultural output, recreational opportunities, and clean, affordable power that Eastern Washington provides. Eastern Washingtonians need the tax base of the Puget Sound area (along with the lavish Federal Largesse our politicians ensure for the entire state) and the cutting-edge medical care, sporting, and cultural opportunities that the Seattle Area provides. There's no shame in being a country mouse or a city mouse, and we should stop acting like there is. I just wish our political parties and certain media outlets would stop fostering those sentiments.

@72: Seattle's cost of living didn't rise from 2014 levels to current levels over a just a few nights last week. The Stranger has been complaining about high rents for years, amid no indication rents will ever return to previous levels. Anyone in Seattle still hoping to party like it's 1999 really needs to do a better job of their adulting. (My family moved far away because it worked for us. There's no need to move "far away" to escape Seattle's very high cost of living.)

@73: I'm aware of what the AMA is and what it does, dear. None of that comes anywhere close to your tinfoil-worthy description of the AMA's actions @54, which you have provided no evidence to support. You also seem unaware that much healthcare is not provided by doctors, but rather by physicians' assistants, nurses, therapists, pharmaceutical companies, and makers of medical devices. That's a lot of labor, much of it highly skilled, and in any developed society, such labor comes with large price tags. Both elimination of private insurers, as Dr. McDermott wanted to do, and imposition of confiscatory taxes on the wealthy, are good ideas, but not neither each of them singly nor both of them together will grant you an entitlement to the skilled labor of many persons. Health care will continue to be rationed, the only question is how. You might want to stop fooling yourself on that point.

Speaking of which, I'm more than happy with my decision to leave Seattle, every bit as much as I was happy to move there right out of college. In my last years there, everything I had once loved about it either disappeared, became irrelevant to my changing lifestyle, or could be had better and cheaper elsewhere. While I have fond memories of what Seattle was, I'll never miss what it has become. I'm aware my natural pride in returning to my native New York may indeed come across as triumphal, but I thank my good fortune every day that my family and I had the opportunity to leave Seattle, and we took it at the best possible time.

Oh come now, tensorna dear. There’s no need to be like that. It’s OK to be wrong sometimes. I’m quite frequently wrong about one thing or another, and do you see me flying off the handle? One would think a “native New Yorker” would have more emotional maturity. Are you from upstate?

In any event, you sound like one of those dreary Facebook scolds who left Seattle but doesn’t know how to quit us.

@75: At the end of this comment, I’ve put the address to another Slog thread, wherein you repeatedly and wrongly told me how I ‘really’ felt. Whether from your borderline mystical way, the simple expedient of studiously ignoring my plain statements, or some combination of the two, you just kept getting it wrong. I’ll leave you to relive your glory days of such tedium. If you want to continue our conversation here, then please do provide some documented examples of the AMA’s anti-immigrant, anti-medical-student, anti-medical-school activities you mentioned @54.

Having never posted on Facebook, I’ll defer to your expertise on that topic. I’m just someone who hopes for Seattle’s recovery, but comes here to watch the Stranger constantly refuse to admit it’s recently been part of Seattle’s problems, not part of Seattle’s solutions. If ever I wanted validation of my choice to leave Seattle, I would have every confidence the Stranger would so provide.

(https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/08/04/25330903/mayoral-primary-2017-oliver-inches-up-moon-holds-steady-durkans-lead-shrinks/comments)

My, I had no idea that you had such an obsession with me tensorna. I'm flattered. Let me know if you want an autographed headshot.

That was a rather magnificent exchange on my part, wasn't it? You were as butthurt as ever, as much of a corporate toady as ever. Your moral outrage shone as brightly as ever (I especially liked your umbrage at what you considered a "dick joke" about Mayor Schell, since he was dead. He's still dead, and it's still true that he only ever took a stand when he was at a urinal. If you think that's a "dick joke", we obviously don't run with the same crowd).

And I stand by all of my comments, including how stupid the Central Library is, and how the town was suckered by a "world-class" architect.

As for the AMA, go read this, comment if you want. Yes, it's Wikipedia, but I think it's sufficient for our level of discourse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association

@77: Just pointing out you've been chronically wrong about my feelings. Do with that as you will. (You might want to contact that nice man who told you all about your clairvoyant powers; you might still get your money back, right?)

That wikipedia page was a hoot, and most certainly written by some folks who'd failed out of medical school, I'd wager. If the AMA's is "... against allowing physician assistants and other health care providers to perform basic forms of health care," then they've been an abject failure, at least as far as this recent patient has observed. During my recent round of medical treatments, I saw more physicians assistants than I did doctors.

@78 I know aggressive ignorance is your thing, but if you felt like pivoting to knowing what you're talking about about this might help:

https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/03/15/ama-scope-of-practice-lobbying/

@79: The primary claim made in that blog post is one my "lived experience" gives me personal knowledge about: 'But the AMA has held out in one important respect. It continues to lobby intensely against allowing other clinicians to perform tasks traditionally performed by physicians, commonly called “scope of practice” laws. Indeed, in 2020 and 2021, the AMA touted more advocacy efforts related to scope of practice that it did for any other issue — including COVID-19.'

My own experience shows this effort to have been a complete failure, at least where I live and for the health care I needed. As you blithely ignored, I saw more physicians' assistants than I did doctors. Now add in all of the other persons I encountered who provided health care, and that measly two-doctor figure diminishes even more.

Nothing against having just two doctors; they each did excellent work, and I had no need of any other doctor -- not even my PCP. They just were a small minority of the persons who actually provided hands-on health care for me.

Note that another of the claims made @54, etc. was also addressed by the blog post you quoted: "To its credit, in recent years, the AMA has largely reversed course. For instance, in 2019, the AMA urged Congress to remove the very caps on Medicare-funded residency slots it helped create." So, the AMA's supposed crusade against medical students has ended, at least in that regard.

(You might want to tell Mrs. Vel-DuRay about that one; she's certainly had enough of my youthful impertinence of late.)

“That wikipedia page was a hoot, and most certainly written by some folks who'd failed out of medical school, I'd wager.”

Please don’t wager, dear. I’d hate to see your family out on the street because of your foolhardiness and braggadocio.

If you think that corporations and prominent organizations don’t monitor their Wikipedia entries, you truly are a little lamb who’s lost in the woods. You need someone to watch over you.

@81: The link @79 kindly provided has some information relevant to the Wikipedia page you cited. I suggest you read the post at that link before vouching for the veracity of that particular Wikipedia entry. (For your edification and convenience, I quoted said relevant material for you @80; you’re welcome.)

Also, just to resolve your confusion on this point, please note I would never place a large wager upon anything you’ve referenced.

I could never get enough of your "youthful" impertinence, tensorna dear. Your naivete and odd devotion to the American medical system is charming in its own way.

Why don't you extoll the virtues of the insurance industry? That would be a nice change.

@83: “Why don't you extoll the virtues of the insurance industry? That would be a nice change.”

Thanks again for validating my point about your perception, dear. As recounted above, we voters in WA-7 spent a couple of decades voting to eliminate the health insurance industry. If you truly saw that as our way to “extoll the virtues” of that same industry, well then, thanks yet again for validating my point.

There you go again, tensorna dear, with your nostalgia for Seattle. I'm sure that if you apply yourself and stop buying Avocado Toast, you can scrape together enough to move back. It may mean a studio apartment initially, but adversity helps build character.