Ask a Seattleite what they think about homelessness, let them talk for a minute, and—especially if they’re a Very Political Person—you can make a good guess as to where they stand on the city’s political spectrum.
In the decade since city and county leaders declared homelessness a civil emergency, attitudes have crystallized into camps with distinctive ways of talking about the crisis, who’s to blame, and what to do about it. Unfortunately for the left, our story isn’t working.
The short version goes something like this: The root cause of homelessness is a severe shortage of affordable housing, the result of neoliberal underinvestment in subsidized housing and a long history of exclusionary zoning, intensified by Seattle’s tech boom. The solution is to fund housing, shelter, and services at scale; sweeping people from one place to another is cruel and useless.
There’s a lot of truth in that little paragraph, but it has failed to hold the allegiance of the average Seattle voter. This should matter to us, for the sake of the nearly 10,000 people living outside in King County and the many thousands more sleeping in shelters or unstably housed; we need political power to enact policies that work. But the left should care for another reason, too. Over the past decade, homelessness has become a true wedge issue in Seattle politics. The failure of our approach to this crisis has helped to elect leaders who are now busy undermining other, undeniably popular progressive-left priorities, from workers’ rights to multimodal transportation to taxing the rich. Reclaiming this issue could mean reclaiming power for the progressive left.
How We Lost
I watched this narrative ship run aground, and not as a mere witness. Some seven years ago, I was pushing the left’s story on homelessness as part of a coalition supporting the “head tax,” a modest business tax that would have expanded affordable housing, shelter, and homeless services. Big business teamed up with NIMBY types to kill the tax, and in so doing they told a very different story: Where we saw insufficient resources, they denounced a do-nothing city council squandering taxpayers’ money while tents, needles, and crime proliferated in the parks and on the streets. With an energetic assist from The Seattle Times opinion section, their version prevailed, and the council repealed the tax barely a month after unanimously passing it into law. It was a disorienting experience, to say the least.
The following year, big business tried hard to make Seattle’s elections all about homelessness. Unhappily for them, they overreached. Big-dollar campaign spending, culminating in a splashy million from Amazon, introduced a new theme: Did voters want a city council bought and paid for by our corporate overlords? The answer was no. Soon after, the most progressive council in living memory passed a far larger tax on big business – the JumpStart Seattle payroll expense tax—in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, committing the bulk of the long-term spending to affordable housing.
Alas, the drama didn’t end there. The corporate brain trust licked its wounds and regrouped around a new strategy. In 2021, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce announced that it would no longer endorse or spend on candidates. Instead, it would focus on issues. First up? Homelessness. That year businesses spent big on a ballot initiative called Compassion Seattle.
While Compassion Seattle promised to force the city to get serious about its major crisis, the left saw a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Language that sounded great to most voters (compassion! housing and services! tent-free parks!) threatened to enshrine sweeps in the city’s charter, some feared. Others smelled a ruse to polarize that year’s elections, forcing candidates to take sides on the measure and casting progressive contenders in a bad light. The initiative was struck down in court before it reached the ballot, but it still reverberated in the elections, and the left lost the races for mayor and city attorney, along with one of two citywide council seats.
Two years later, with homelessness still on voters’ minds, big business and its centrist allies finally got their council supermajority. Our councilmembers now wonder why we let people reject offers of shelter, and why we fund outreach to unsheltered homeless people at all; their signature legislative achievement thus far is banning people accused of certain drug or prostitution related crimes from large swaths of the city. And JumpStart? They revoked the commitment to a long-term spending plan centered on housing. Boy, did we lose.
What can we learn from this saga? It’s tempting to argue that it doesn’t matter what the left said or tried to do about homelessness. There are so many reasons why visible homelessness surged during the pandemic; even if local elected leaders did everything right, they would be vulnerable to blame. Anyway, in 2021 and 2023 policing was the higher profile issue. And all issues aside, a “kick the bastards out” vibe was almost inevitable as voters strove to move on from a traumatic few years. The powerful opponents of Seattle’s progressive council had no shortage of fodder; a backlash was overdetermined.
All this may be true. Nevertheless, I’ve come to believe that there are some serious defects in the left’s approach to the homelessness crisis. Even if smarter choices may not have prevented our recent losses, they could help us to hold power the next time around — and to actually make progress on this thorniest of social problems.
What We’re Wrong About
The central weakness of the left narrative on homelessness is a habit of deflection that makes it sound, at best, as though we are in denial about the grim reality on the streets; at worst, like we embrace it. 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.
It’s not that there’s no truth to these rejoinders. But they amount to trivializing what anyone who spends some time walking around Seattle’s streets can plainly observe: People with acute mental illness whose behavior is disturbed and occasionally aggressive. People using drugs, often incapacitated or passed out on the ground. People in dire need of medical care, suffering and in some cases slowly dying in public. And trash, and excrement, and broken windows.
I think it’s possible to acknowledge these realities without sensationalizing them á la “Seattle is Dying,” and without demonizing or dehumanizing the people who are suffering through them. When we don’t, or when we do so using only the most euphemistic and sanitized language, we leave a void that’s too easily filled by right-wing narratives and false solutions. These gain traction because at least they’re pointing to what people see and proclaiming it unacceptable.
It’s true that homelessness is a housing problem, and in a high-cost region like King County a missed paycheck or a doctor’s bill can be enough to tip someone over the edge. But it’s also true that drug addiction and mental illness often precipitate the loss of housing, and that once someone falls into that vortex, on an individual level, housing alone may not be enough to pull them out. Most of us on the left do recognize this, but we tend to downplay it and ignore some of its implications.
When, for example, it’s said that homeless people reject offers of shelter, the common left reply (beyond pointing out that shelters are consistently full) is a litany of the most reasonable of reasons: many shelters don’t accommodate couples or pets; there’s nowhere to store belongings; you have to arrive late and leave early. All true, and many people would gladly move into shelter or housing without these limitations; that’s why tiny houses are popular. But it’s also true that some people’s reasons are more complicated and less sure to elicit sympathy. They may fear going through withdrawal and not want to disrupt the strategies they’ve developed for obtaining and using drugs. They may have paranoid delusions that lead them to avoid shelters, or disruptive behaviors that get them kicked out.
Even if such cases are rarer than the ones we deflect to, the people for whom drugs or mental illness are significant factors in staying outside tend to be more visible and more likely to break laws and behave in ways that make other people uncomfortable or afraid. When we’re squeamish about admitting this and have little to say about what to do about it, we open the door for punitive policies and narratives that blame homeless people, portraying them as loafers who are coddled by handouts and don’t want to follow rules.
I’m not suggesting that the left relax our insistence that affordable housing at scale is needed to solve the homelessness crisis. But we also need to talk more about mental illness and drug addiction, and show ourselves to be the adults in the room when it comes to solutions. Too often our attitude is one of bland assent that we do need more voluntary mental health and addiction treatment services, coupled with support for “harm reduction” strategies like safe consumption sites. Unfortunately, this comes across as an unserious plan that will only amplify the chaos.
How We Can Win
So what do we do? If the left wants to win, we need to preach beyond the choir. Where better to find the average Seattle voter than in the comment section? “Left Leaning Patriot,” who wrote this response to a New York Times article on homelessness, actually hails from Mercer Island, but I think represents well the kind of person whose support we can’t afford to lose:
“Homelessness is a very nuanced and multi-layered problem and clearly there is no one-size fits all solution. I want to be compassionate, but it is fatiguing. It makes me sad to see the homeless camped out on city streets and parks. It also angers me to see the homeless leaving piles of garbage and feces on those same streets and parks. I don’t like fearing for my safety walking the streets at night after going to a restaurant or worrying if my car will be broken into or vandalized. I know many people are in their dire situation due to a bad situation or simply bad luck. At the same time, I know there are people who don’t want “help” and choose to be on the streets, many often victimizing others in the same situation by selling drugs, trafficking sex, etc. Billions being spent with very limited results. Our society is broken. I don’t have the answer, but something needs to be done…”
Bingo. If this person lived in West Seattle, they might have voted for Lisa Herbold in 2019, then Rob Saka in 2023. Queen Anne? Andrew Lewis, then Bob Kettle. Leschi? Maybe even Kshama Sawant, then Joy Hollingsworth. You get the drift. We had their vote, then we lost it. How can we win it back?
First, it’s not enough to say “stop the sweeps.” We need to offer a positive and realistic plan for how the people living in tents in the park near Left Leaning Patriot’s house are going to become stably sheltered or housed, freeing that space for its intended uses. This could be something similar to the JustCARE program that PDA, REACH, ACRS and Chief Seattle Club pioneered briefly during the pandemic, which succeeded in moving chronically homeless people with complex challenges into low-barrier housing through intensive and individualized outreach. (This approach has continued in the state-level Encampment Resolution Program, whose future funding is uncertain.) It’s fine if this takes longer than a sweep, even much longer. But it can’t be put off to some indefinite utopian future.
Second, we must be clear, in our words and in the solutions we call for, about the degree of ongoing support that some people need. Even when treatment is available for someone in crisis, too often they’re ejected a week or two later with no meaningful follow-up. It’s easy to do some hand-waving about “housing first,” which in principle is absolutely correct. But it’s become clear that most permanent supportive housing, in its current form, isn’t set up for the people with the most severe challenges. And the fentanyl crisis has made everything exponentially worse. People need a way to use drugs safely when they lapse without finding themselves homeless again. Others need attention and intervention before behavior related to mental illness gets them evicted. Even if someone has goals for recovery or stability, a plan, motivation to pursue it, and people supporting them, it’s a rocky road. It’s easy to hate on homeowners and business owners who fear that shelter or supportive housing will bring drugs and disorder to their neighborhood. But if there’s not sufficient staffing and skilled support for residents who need it, their concerns aren’t entirely unfounded.
Finally, we need to recognize that for a very small percentage of people, even this isn’t enough. They need longer term psychiatric care in an institutional setting; for a few, involuntary commitment may be the only way to bring them off the streets. There are also a very small number whose behaviors are too dangerous for a communal living situation. This needn’t be prominent in our narrative, by any means, but we do need to be able to acknowledge it: both because it’s true and because denying it undermines our credibility when we say, also truly, that what the vast majority of homeless people need is simply an affordable home.
Obviously, a local government like Seattle’s can’t do all of these things alone. It will require resources from the federal and state levels and coordination between many currently disjointed systems and organizations. But we on the left need to be able to tell this story, or one like it that actually responds to people’s perceptions of the homelessness crisis as they walk around our city streets. And when we next have political influence, we need to lend our support to building whatever parts of this infrastructure we can, to demonstrate its effectiveness even if at a small scale.
In the meantime, we must make sure that those now in power don’t get a pass for their failures to meaningfully address the homelessness crisis. Back in 2021, I argued against Compassion Seattle and, through my work in the Transit Riders Union, played a role in booting it off the ballot; now I wonder if that was a mistake. Had it passed, which it surely would have, people might be asking more questions about the 2,000 new units of “emergency or permanent housing with services including access to behavioral health services and necessary staffing to serve people with the highest barriers” that the city was supposed to create within a year of its adoption, and which now-Mayor Harrell retained as a campaign promise. And the initiative’s language on encampment removals, while vague, arguably would have given unsheltered homeless people more protection from arbitrary dislocation than they currently have. As it is, it’s too easy for our mayor and council to pass the buck and blame the dysfunctional King County Regional Homelessness Authority for the lack of progress.
What’s Radical on Homelessness?
I can already hear one likely reaction from my fellow leftists: “Katie, you’re just telling us to move to the right on homelessness! You’re becoming a cranky centrist in your middle age.” But I don’t think that’s true.
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. Psychosis and addiction both feed on the alienation, isolation, and sense of meaninglessness that have followed the creeping marketization of every facet of social life. Poverty worsens both. And while the bad old days of long-stay psychiatric hospitals may be harder to romanticise than other parts of the 20th century welfare state, their dismantling, the deinstitutionalization of their patients, and the failure to replace them with the promised community-based care are all part of the same story of neoliberal defunding and privatization.
Many leftists deeply distrust the institutions — governments, housing and service providers — that are supposedly trying to fix these crises, often with good reason. But there’s simply no way forward that bypasses the state and the nonprofit sector; “mutual aid,” or grassroots service provision, is great but it’s a tiny band-aid. As leftists we should see these institutions, not as enemies, but as vessels that can contain the interests of the ruling classes, or the radical and humanistic ambitions of our movements — usually, complex admixtures of both. They are a terrain of struggle, and its our job to build them up as tools fitted to our task.
Leftists are rightly motivated by a desire to uphold homeless people’s humanity, dignity, and agency. But this turns into a strange kind of libertarianism when we fail to acknowledge how mental illness and drug use can impair people’s ability to make good decisions for themselves and can lead people to act in ways that harm themselves and others. We need to find an approach that grapples with this reality, while also upholding people’s humanity, dignity and agency. By telling the real story of what’s needed, and the resources it will take to do it right, we can expose the hollowness of right-wing narratives that pretend some “tough love” is all that’s needed to bring “service-resistant” people inside, and shove them through what Daniel Malone of DESC has memorably called a “magical treatment carwash” that people emerge from cured and into gainful employment.
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. But we also need better answers for the here and now, both for the sake of the people who are currently suffering on the streets, and so we can gain and retain power long enough to make progress toward more lasting change.
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.
Can’t let this thread end without tipping the hat to kristo’s brilliance with the words, @57:
“rationing”?
who’s talking (other
than you) about ‘rationing’
Healthcare? we’re talking about
limiting access to & not doling out”
That’s right, kristo! We were totally NOT talking about ‘rationing,’ but rather, ‘limiting access to and not doling out.’ Those are totally unconnected to ‘rationing’!
I don’t know what’s funnier, that the words reliably pile-drive your face nose-first into the concrete, each and every time, or that despite the tedious regularity of that outcome, you remain deluded into believing you can master them.