Comments

1

"She's talked to experts from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle."- and they've all done a stellar job of ending homelessness.

2

" That means getting facilities like bathrooms "

Ballard Commons has two Honey Buckets for the bums, plus an entire scrub-a-bum facility a block away. The library reported in 2018 that our "houseless neighbors" were still shitting and pissing in the bushes and down the grates onto cars in the underground parking at the library.

So yeah, great idea, but you might want to work on potty training first.

We don't need another enabler-in-chief for the Big Hobo. These are the same as the morons who feed pigeons all day and then wonder why there are thousands of pigeons flapping around shitting on everything.

3

Why is it when the Stranger interviews candidates for City Council, and the topic is homelessness, the words “Poppe Report” never appear? That report contains the plan our City is now implementing, to de-fund our Homeless Industrial Complex and get effective assistance to persons in need. Yet we read about a candidate’s own ideas, with no connection made to what is actually happening. Why do candidates feel the need to reinvent this wheel? Why does the Stranger never ask about the Poppe Report?

5

@4: No, we can and are building subsidized housing for below-market rental rates (which is what I guess “affordable housing” actually means). See, for example, redevelopment of Yesler Terrace, a partnership between City of Seattle and Vulcan.

The other source of “affordable housing” is simply old buildings which are still safely habitable. For today’s luxury buildings to survive into their affordable housing days, we need solid construction codes, which costs developers more.

6

"The building is for people who will not have cars because they can’t afford cars and they’ll have this great access to transit and great educational access for their kids and also services for their needs. It’s an ideal situation. The problem is we need another 30 or 40 like that around Seattle."

See - if everyone would just stop trying to live independent lives on their own terms and join the hive; live where you OUGHT to live close to transit, go where you SHOULD go because the regional transit planners decided it was so, then we could have the green urbanist utopia everyone is clamoring for. /s

8

1 those places have done an expert job of attracting homeless. That's the goal here.

9

If elected to what?

10

Nobody is ending homelessness.

Homelessness is caused by systemic inequality. That's not going away because of anything anybody in the local government does. The only thing the Seattle's local government needs to be doing is trying to mitigate the effects of inequality in as best we can, or at least not pile on with more brutality. Maybe on the state level taxes here could be a little less regressive, but nobody on the local City Council is going to affect that outcome.

The voters of Seattle know the score. Hate groups like Safe Seattle or their sanitized fronts like Speak Out Seattle aren't winning any support. They got a big propaganda boost from Sinclair Broadcasting and that won over a lot of 60-80 year old voters. But they all live in Kirkland and Bellevue and Renton, not Seattle. So... wasted effort, goobers.

Expect the hate group's candidates to land somewhere around 4th to 6th place in the top two primaries. The choice on the general election ballot will be between an aggressive left Democrat and a slightly more aggressive left Democrat, if not a socialist.

After the alt-right loses, again, they'll go back to their conspiracy theories explaining why they always lose. We'll do this all over again in 2020, with about 20% of Safe Seattle's membership having died of old age. Some young sad sacks will fill the ranks, but not enough to matter.

11

@10: I keep seeing this word "inequality" thrown around. Can you define it, please? Is inequality like when a vagrant rolls out of his tent at noon everyday to figure out who to steal from to get his fix, he has less money than someone who gets up early every morning to work and be a decent and responsible citizen? Just doesn't seem fair, does it?

12

Tensor @3, I've read Slog (and the Stranger) for years, and this is the first time I've heard of the Poppe report: What is it? Can you link to it?

13

Okay, after doing a quick search of the Stranger's website, I am obviously wrong. I am sorry.

14

Not trying to nitpick here, but it is generally a good idea to identify the office/seat that a person is running for earlier in the story than the next to last paragraph.

15

Minor editing point: The subject isn't described as a candidate for District 4 until the very end of the article.

16

Making it ever easier to get by on the street is not an effective plan. Pointing to a development project and talking up the fact that the targeted residents will be too poor to own cars is a little suspect. I want to hear the candidate who espouses "free ride is over" positions.

17

@6: “everyone would just stop trying to live independent lives on their own terms and join the hive;”

By “the hive,” you mean that mass of vehicles jammed on the freeway at rush hour, right?

(Yeah, I agree. That’s why I take mass transit and chose to live near a station.)

18

Can I define inequality? Can I please define inequality?

Can I fucking define fucking inequality for you? Um, fuck no, asshole. Try a fucking dictionary. Try getting a fucking education. Decent citizen my ass. When do you work? Ever? You sound like what most communities would call persona non grata. That's Latin. It means fucking prick. It means if you have to ask what the fucking definition of inequality is, Seattle doesn't want you any more. Don't believe me? OK, sit back and watch the votes roll in next election. When your preferred alt-right 4chan stormfront motherfucker candidate place fifth or sixth in the primary, come back and tell me again you don't believe me when I tell you Seattle doesn't want you.

Pocatello wants you. Oklahoma City wants you. So does Wichita. Why not go where you're wanted? Seattle? No. Persona non grata, asshole.

19

@11: He seems to be defining “inequality” about the way you suggested. Seattle’s 2016 survey of homeless persons found a majority (55%) used alcohol, meth, or other drugs ( http://coshumaninterests-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/City-of-Seattle-Report-FINAL-with-4.11.17-additions.pdf ). As this was self-reported data, with no attempt at independent verification, the actual numbers may be much higher.

@10, @18: So, the guy who assured us Mike O’Brien would “sail” to reelection is back making more election predictions, eh? This election season oughta be good for popcorn sales!

(You get bonus points for claiming to speak for Seattle, having seen your favored candidate just up and quit without your having any explanation as to why.)

20

". . . educating the public on who is experiencing homelessness."
You can't educate the public on who is experiencing homelessness when you don't have real data. Real data requires scientific evidence or legal proof and cannot be based on asking somebody why they are homeless.

" . . . soccer game 1-1/2 hours away." The City has requirements for an amount of land that should be designated parks per capita population. But the City hasn't kept up and now they are getting rid of available land for parks by building housing on that land ( i.e. Discovery Park land that was gifted by the US government and the TALARIS institute land in View Ridge neighborhood). Parks are important and should be planned for - they could be paid for with IMPACT FEES.

21

6, There are literally dozens of similarly-sized cities in the United States which have the sort of "build anything you want anywhere you want" ideology that you implicitly are advocating. So move to one of those places! You'll be happier; your neighbors who actually like urban living will be happier; and there will be less friction in BOTH places.

22

Seattle residents have unequivocally rejected the hateful rhetoric of Safe Seattle and their fronts. Recent surveys are consistent with the results of the last election cycle: demonizing people in need, whether homeless or at risk or in crisis, you name it, does't fly with the electorate. Voters want to do more to help them, not to punish them. The don't blame them for their situation. They blame the city's stingy response. They don't think you can cure anything with more cops and more jails. We tried that in the 90s and it didn't work.

The closest you'll ever get to the far-right lunacy of Safe Seattle is Jenny Durkan. The one who announced the city welcomes Trump's caged migrants. Sure, she's kind of sort of a cop, but in the end she's as liberal as the rest of Seattle. And nothing like you.

Enjoy 6th place, Tensor. Again. Mike O'Brien is going to be replaced by Mike O'Brien 2.0. Nobody who doesn't sound and act very much like him has any chance of getting out of the primary.

I hope after yet another embarrassing loss, you guys will give up the dishonest propaganda and come into the light of open civic debate by treating facts as facts. As long as you're taking seriously the distorted reality broadcast by KOMO or Jason Rantz, nobody is going to need to work with you or listen to you at all. Or just figure out you don't belong in this city at all, and move. Kansas goes bankrupt drinking your kool aid but they continue to drink it. Why not join them?

23

@22: Still staggering with risible helplessness under your pitiably absurd delusion you speak for Seattle’s voters, eh? Would those voters be the ones who elected Jenny Durkan by a double-digit percentage, the voters who signed the Referendum petitions on the EHT, or the voters who successfully informed Mike O’Brien 1.0 he should not confuse your silly predictions with the dismal reality of his actual job performance? Discuss.

(Also, not everyone who disagrees with you wears jackboots. You might want to learn that before you lose — again — in actual elections.)

24

Everyone who supports hate groups like Safe Seattle and its many hydra heads wears jackboots. Everyone who thinks you can treat substance abuse with jail wears jackboots. Who thinks if you're poor or in crisis or homeless, you haven't been punished enough? Jackboots. You think failing to properly punish anyone without a home will attracts more of "them", who are always a burden to "us"? Yep, that's the jackboots. If your whole worldview is that life is fair, and you'll never be one of "them" because you don't do all the things they did do bring it on themselves, then you know what it takes to turn into a jackbooted magahat. As soon as you get angry at helping those needing help and feel joy at helping those who don't need help, you're a conservative. Which is fascist who can sit in polite company.

Anyone who expects to see candidates who believe any of the above crap in the general election ballot, is, well, just dumb. Probably doesn't know which feet the left and right boots go on.

25

@24: Getting comfy with the reality of losing, I see. Given your demonstrated inability to change your beliefs in the face of facts, you’d better get really comfortable with losing a lot more.

And if calling your fellow Seattle liberals fascists — and impotently demanding we leave for failing your purity tests — comforts you in your continued losses, then you’ll just keep on doing it.

(Ironic, then, how your coping mechanisms for losing just create ever more losses, isn’t it?)

27

@26: I know little to nothing about Safe Seattle, and therefore I have never offered an opinion as to how any candidate endorsed by Safe Seattle (if Safe Seattle has actually endorsed any candidates) may fare in any elections. The idea I may have done so is yet another of many pitiable delusions fronted by @24.

“FWIW - addicts who assault people and/or break into cars and/or brazenly shoplift with impunity to support their habits jolly well ought to see the inside of a jail cell now and then.”

I could not possibly agree more. Much of Seattle’s homessness crisis originates from drug addicts who did not grow up here. If we want to offer them drug treatment, then that speaks to a generosity @24 fails to recognize.


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