“…or, as the county defines the term, people who get booked into jail at least four times a year for two out of three years.”

That’s not the county’s entire definition. From the link atop the next paragraph, the definition also includes, “with behavioral health or other disabling conditions,” which explains why treatment services are repeatedly mentioned in the rest of the post. The final part of the county’s definition reads, “and experiencing homelessness or unstable housing.”

Year after year after year of Seattle’s Homelessness Crisis, the Stranger has faithfully parroted CM Sawant’s claim that the homeless are all victims of capitalism: poor, hard-working locals cruelly driven out into the street by heartless Amazon &c. Now, the Stranger has been forced into making the reluctant admission that mental disorders, not housing affordability, drive most of the homelessness crisis in Seattle.

Ironically, the Stranger makes this unwanted admission not because it wants a solution to homelessness that might actually work, but because it regards even multiple-offending criminals as victims, who should never experience the inside of a jail cell.

@6: "because it regards even multiple-offending criminals as victims, who should never experience the inside of a jail cell."

But if their criminality is a by-product of mental health problems, then they shouldn't be shoved into a jail cell. They should be placed in a residential psychiatric facility until they are all better. It's a shame we don't have nearly enough capacity.

@7: “But if their criminality is a by-product of mental health problems, then they shouldn't be shoved into a jail cell.”

I agree completely, but that’s not the reason the Stranger wants diversionary programs. This post starts by carefully ignoring most of the definition the county uses to assign persons to the Vital program, because the Stranger simply does not want anyone going to jail, for any reason, ever.

in what alternate universe version of seattle is someone getting trespassed for park sleeping?
I guess it makes the story sound better than a person was picked-up for theft or assault then not charged because reasons, leaving the victim in the wind.

@9: That’s why Will fabricated a hypothetical example out of nothing. He needed a victimless crime for his example, and as only the most serious of crimes even get reported anymore (let alone investigated!) he couldn’t use a real one.

In the Stranger’s world, Seattle is super-mega-hyper policed to the point where the Third Reich was a hippie compound, and the only source of entertainment has Amazon executives taking a rare break from violent union-busting to cheer homeless children getting sadistically beaten in park encampments by drunken rejects from the police academy.

My son, mental illness was the start. The State said I cannot mandate him to receive help because he was 18. I was in fear of his increasing aggressive behavior and had to put him out. Now living on the streets of downtown, drug addicted, in and out of jail.
He very much sounds like a great candidate for Vital.

Vital will hire and pay people big checks and then resources will run out.

@11: "Involuntary commitment is the same as jail"

No, it's not. It bears more in common with the iron lungs that some polio victims would be destined to spend their lives in before the invention of a vaccine. Certainly nobody would think of a polio ward as "jail". And they existed for many of the same reasons that we need long term involuntary commitment. Some people have problems that they cannot handle while out on the street.

It sure would be nice if we could formulate an "opioid vaccine" that could be administered in childhood, rendering the recipients immune. Of course that's not likely given the chemical/neurological pathways that opioids exploit. I had visions of "fogging" Seattle neighborhoods with Narcan. Much like we used to spray DDT in cities and towns before its ban. Since Narcan is safe and asymptomatic when used on non addicts, the only barrier to this idea is cost. If we could produce it by the ton, we could easily introduce it into jets' chemtrails.