Where are all the people who were recently very upset about all these types of facilities being put in the CID to support this facility being put here?

This seems like a perfect place for such a facility. I don't get it. It would be the type of place where police/fire could direct people to in crisis at Cal Anderson or on Broadway. Gets them off the street and out of these businesses doorsteps.

This is not a methadone clinic or supervised injection site. People won't be hanging around the place causing any more trouble than they already are. What is the beef with a crisis clinic for a neighborhood in crisis?

Can someone help me understand the concerns here?

@1, @2: "What is the beef with a crisis clinic for a neighborhood in crisis? Can someone help me understand the concerns here?"

The "beef" is simple: public trust was lost a long time ago. Seattle is currently in the tenth consecutive year of homelessness crisis, and during that time, Seattle alone (not including King County) has spent over a billion dollars on homelessness response. Can any advocate of this crisis center show a single improvement which resulted from that billion-plus dollars? Because, looking around Seattle, it would appear no money was ever spent at all. Why keep paying for a result you can get for free? This is why, despite the Stranger's endless caterwauling, Mayor Harrell's sweeps remain incredibly popular. The housed residents of Capitol Hill do not want Capitol Hill's homeless to receive treatment in the old PolyClinic Building; they simply want the homeless gone, full stop.

As the article recounts, residents believe this proposed crisis center will not get persons out of Capitol Hill's doorways and parks, and off the sidewalks, but simply attract even more persons in crisis to the neighborhood: 'One woman feared the 30,000 square foot building would become a “big hotel for people coming and going.”' "The building is also reachable by literally every form of transportation—well, not the ferry or planes, but you get the idea. Multiple freeways are right there. So is the light rail. Even the streetcar if you like transportation to be a little slow. And buses! Bike lanes, too! And, it’s walkable." Neighbors believe the emergency responders will bring persons in crisis from all over the city to to the proposed center, and then those persons will walk a short distance away into the neighborhood, further increasing the burden on an area already long overburdened with homelessness.

For the first nine years of the homeless crisis, the Stranger relentlessly pounded a single, simple narrative: homelessness was the result of "capitalism," of Amazon cruelly pushing hardworking locals out into the streets. Simply build more housing, and it would be solved. Meanwhile, anyone with eyes could see the drug use, the discarded needles, the mental-health crises, all brought by persons we'd never previously seen in the neighborhood. Now that the Stranger's lies have been exposed, the Stranger simply ignores its own history, and demands that everyone agree with a new narrative: this urgent public-health crisis -- the very one the Stranger pointedly ignored for almost a decade! -- must be addressed by making locals bear even more of the burden. Guess what? Those locals do not agree.

Absent any evidence this crisis center will do anything except exacerbate the existing problems, the local residents will oppose it on Capitol Hill, just as the residents of the CID opposed the Homeless Megaplex there. And the Stranger will then angrily call them NIMBYs, etc., just as it did to anyone who dared question its old narrative. The sad part is, this crisis center might actually help -- but no one believes that anymore. And hasn't for a long time.

NIMBY here, NIMBY there.
NIMBY NIMBY everywhere!
ok the homeless that were in the Cheasty greenspace have been pushed out. Now they are next to Mt Baker light rail, three blocks away.
Why not a site with more comprehensive services that might actually help someone ?

Have to admit it, well said tenny

Have to admit it, well said tenny

@3 "The housed residents of Capitol Hill do not want Capitol Hill's homeless to receive treatment in the old PolyClinic Building; they simply want the homeless gone, full stop."

Oh well why didn't they say so, now the city can wave their magic wand and make all the homeless disappear! Anyway thanks for making my point that it was never about an unfair burden on the CID. Also your apparent belief that sweeps don't cost money is laughable. This whole comment was peak naive and entitled.

White Seattle liberals/"progressives"/leftists are so laughably naive and goofy. I get a good chuckle from their constant follies.

A mental health/substance abuse treatment referral & triage center capable of getting up to 45 people off the streets for a period of time between 24 hours and 2 weeks, in the company and care of right-thinking people who are trying to find them a bed in a treatment program, could have the net result of getting a lot of people back into more skillful and sustainable lifestyles and behavioral patterns. To locate it where a large population of people needing services already congregate, and have them go there instead of the ER when they're having a freakout, would do something the ER can't--get them to treatment.

The question is - do we have the treatment beds, and the availability of funds to cover the cost of a proper stay at inpatient rehab, for hundreds of people, and can any teeth be put into the referrals out to treatment to ensure that those who get directed there do a full at least 30 or 45 day course?

Do we have the resources to ensure that the continuance of care plans these people will inevitably make during their stay in rehab will be viable long term? This would include referrals out from there to sober living/group homes and transition into employment and housing.

These are the critical questions that need to be asked and answered satisfactorily to garner widespread support for this plan.

Even without good answers to these questions, I'm in favor of the plan - while I'm heartbroken that Polyclinic has been taken over by Big Medicine and is probably stupid now - their soon-to-be-empty building should still be used for the preservation and improvement of people's lives. Do it.

@5s: Thank you. I wish it wasn't true, but I lived within several blocks of the PolyClinic for twenty consecutive years, and that's the way local residents now feel.

@6: And they feel that way because of the chronic failure of expensive policies which should have alleviated the problem by now -- policies that the Stranger relentlessly championed without question, even as evidence of colossal failure literally piled up in the King County morgue. But of course you blame the victims for not wanting yet more vicitimization. (And we're talking about some of the most reliably leftie-liberals in the entire country.)

@8: I hope the crisis center does indeed start operating out of the old PolyClinic building. In addition to every concern you mentioned, there is another point the writers (and sympathetic commenters) at the Stranger will just have to accept, even though they'll most definitely choose to go down screaming: sweeps of encampments on Capitol Hill and First Hill (at B'way & Union, the Polyclinic site sits right on the border) will have to increase before the crisis center starts operating. Even a perception of the crisis center exacerbating the homeless situation on Capitol Hill and First Hill will bring residents out in droves to oppose it. (And, yet again, we're talking about some of the most reliably leftie-liberals in the entire country.)

@9 "of course you blame the victims for not wanting yet more vicitimization"

The fact you think local home and business owners who have to see homeless people, not the homeless people themselves, are the "victims" would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

@9 - your point about doubling down on sweeps in advance of the crisis center opening. I think we all want our parks, greenways and sidewalks back. But here's a question. Why not wait until after the crisis center opens and then double down on sweeps? With the notion that sweeps would lead to people heading to the crisis center. If the police and hopefully an embedded social worker or two telling you that you can't stay here in this tent, and just the fact that this interaction is happening, means you're clearly in crisis, shouldn't folks be offered crisis resources at the point of sweep? What's the point, or the social or public health good, of sweeps, if there's no place to empty the dust pan?

@6: "Anyway thanks for making my point that it was never about an unfair burden on the CID."

Yeah, a statement about a homeless service center possibly being a burden on one neighborhood absolutely proves a homeless service center could never possibly have been a burden on another neighborhood. (I suggest your parents apply for a refund from your school.)

"Also your apparent belief that sweeps don't cost money is laughable."

I said absolutely nothing about the cost of sweeps, hence your risible belief that I did. (Parents, school, refund, etc.)

@10: What, exactly, did the residents of Capitol Hill and First Hill do to cause the homelessness crisis? And who said the homeless themselves are not victims?

Anyway, to reveal your empty virtue-signaling for what it truly is, here's the comment where you assert that freeway-blocking protests should take precedence over persons trying to use those freeways to reach life-saving medical care. Enjoy the dismal peak of your so-called humanity, https://www.thestranger.com/news/2025/02/11/79915503/uw-student-activists-fear-repression-under-trumps-new-executive-order/comments/57

The locals are worried that this facility will attract even more mentally ill homeless people to its location and then NOT get them off the streets. So they'll just sort of cluster around it like the do around other services that serve this population.

Considering the stated mission of the county crisis centers, Capitol Hill seems like a logical site (note, it’s not the last - merely the next). I understand the justifiable concerns of the residents and businesses but the center should help (and if it doesn’t / makes things worse, then the county can pivot).

Wasting money on the endless Seattle Process serves no one’s best interests.

@11: "Why not wait until after the crisis center opens and then double down on sweeps? "

Because that will overwhelm the crisis center:

"The goal is to have 16 beds for crisis stabilization where people can stay for up to 14 days, an observation unit with 24 recliner chairs where people can stay for 24 hours, and an urgent care clinic that will serve 30 people per day and everyone who walks in will be seen."

Start sweeping encampments after the crisis center opens, and it will start seeing 30 persons per hour. (And, even without local sweeps, how long will it take to reach the capacity goal of 30 per day?)

Remember, the crisis center is intended to be a 'landing zone' for emergency responders to bring persons in crisis from across the city, as Kenny Stuart, President of the Seattle Fire Fighter’s Union, noted:

“Every day we respond and care for people experiencing these terrible problems,” Stuart writes. “A persistent problem has been the lack of ‘landing zones,’ facilities to take people to where they can get the short and long term care and treatment that they need.”

So, between the large homeless population already in Capitol Hill and First Hill, and the persons brought in from across the city, how long will it take to exhaust the crisis center, even after it reaches these intended levels of service?

For years, the Stranger told Seattle to surrender all public spaces to the homeless, that it was "progressive," and "compassion," to allow the homeless to self-medicate with street drugs in filthy encampments. Now, having finally acknowledged this path was actually the recipe for disaster citizens had long described, the Stranger demands a neighborhood already long overburdened by the very same approach to homelessness the Stranger had recommended, now accept a facility that may well bring even more persons in crisis to the neighborhood.

Again, I hope the crisis center opens, and I hope it provides a path to wellness for as many persons as it possibly can. But I moved out of Pike-Pine years ago, and so this is no longer my decision. We'll see if the Stranger's prior "progressive" approach, which it has now abandoned without the slightest hint of self-criticism, has completely exhausted the goodwill of Seattle's most liberal neighborhoods. Let's hope a sufficient amount of tolerance remains there for this crisis center to have a home.

@15 - the idea that all the encampments can simply be erased overnight by having this pipeline in place is pie in the sky. Yes, there are hundreds of unhoused and vulnerable people with clear mental health and substance abuse issues, subsisting, eking out the basest existence, in every park, parking lot, sidewalk, empty lot, greenway and hell, the eaves of some of our older apartment buildings on Capitol Hill.

Sweeping before the services are setup will do nothing to prevent the inevitable reset of these desperate circumstances to another sidewalk, another empty lot, another greenway or park. It's theater.

The right approach would be for the responders who are doing sweeps to know how many people will be affected by any given sweep. Nobody can be forced into this system or compelled to take the resources they're being offered. Coordination between the agencies should have an effect of gradually reducing the population of the most desperate people on the streets without overburdening the crisis center. And frankly, if the narrative becomes that the crisis center is overburdened because more people than anticipated are ready to accept help to turn the corner, then that is a net gain politically, socially and economically.

There's a narrative going around that people are showing up from some magical place called "elsewhere" to Seattle because of all the "free stuff." Seattle's taken as much of a housing first approach as it can, through partnerships between NGO's and city and county government, to at least try to get people off the streets. That only works as long as there are places for people to go. And it doesn't always work out in the end. People still need access to healthcare, and mental health is fundamental to this equation. I am trying to imagine a new narrative where the frankly bogus idea of "free stuff" is replaced by a provable, measurable, system of providing pathways to "fresh starts" If we have to suck it up and become known as a place where people who fall on hard times are offered help getting their heads and lives together, then maybe there's a chance.

I've got 30+ years as a Capitol Hill lifer, and don't care much for anything other than solutions that help us build a culture that gets us out of this mess. Fucking with people who are in fucked up situations does nothing more than exacerbate the problem.

@17 Sweeping after services are set up also doesn't solve the problem because, (as you noted): "Nobody can be forced into this system or compelled to take the resources they're being offered."

And therein lies the ultimate problem: as long we continue to say, "hey, it's your choice to live in this tent in the park and get baked out of your mind every day and we'll just let you do it forever!!" the cycle will continue... forever.

And of course people don't want treatment centers in their neighborhood... it should tell us something that the most liberal area of the entire city, Capitol Hill, has resistance to this. Like all neighborhoods, Capitol Hill residents are tired of this crap just as much as the Ballard residents, and Lake City, and Georgetown.... and on and on and on.

@17 - if you think it's stoners living in tents, then you're about as naive as you think I am. We've got a way bigger problem than that. Meth and fentanyl are the AIDS crisis of our time, and they demand a commensurate response. We can have a policy discussion about whether it's moral, ethical or even constitutional to change our laws to compel people into treatment. But absent the social and political will to even broach that subject, it's worth acknowledging what one of the folks quoted in the article says: when folks are ready to accept help, we need to be able to strike while the iron is hot.

It's funny how people don't want treatment centers. They don't want homeless, they don't want addicts. Yet they invest a considerable amount of capital transforming a once quiet section of the city into Party Mountain and then look dumbfounded when the negative externalities of that culture start to make them feel uncomfortable.

So, what's the solution then? Gas chambers?

@17 "it should tell us something that the most liberal area of the entire city, Capitol Hill, has resistance to this"

It should tell us that even the most liberal neighborhoods have some reactionaries living in them. For example tensorna, who is roughly as liberal as Mitt Romney, apparently lived there for decades. Rachel Savage is another example.

My God, who edited this article?

I think the trouble is that people hear “crisis center”, and they think of the DESC center on third across from the courthouse, or the “shelter” that operated out of the former Indian Health Center on 12th Ave S, or the Lazarus Center on Rainier, or the methadone clinic on Airport Way (to name just a few). All of those centers have become locus for petty crime, overdoses, and the sort of people who prey on addicts and other homeless.

Keep the area around the facility clean and safe, and the concerns will wane and the problems in the neighborhood (like the sad state of the QFC) may very well improve.

"Our neighborhood is in chronic crisis, and I don't want to do a damned thing about it. "
Wash.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Seattle on every day of the week.

The problem with crisis centers is that they become the center of crisis, and nobody wants to be around that concentrated area of crisis.
Safety around crisis centers is like clean coal - a fundamental misrepresentation of what’s going on.
Or what, do you think the patients will magically pick up the skills and discipline that it takes to hold a job in today’s world and get one? I don’t. Not on the timeline of a crisis center patient. Which means they’ll still commit property crime for resources. And again, nobody wants to be around that.
Holistic treatment, where people lose rights and have to go through a process to come out a changed person in the end is the only thing that isn’t enabling.

The inmates will eventually burn the building down with their makeshift meth labs. There will be at least 3-5 fires within the facilities first 6 months of operation. Prove me wrong Freeattle.

This really is such a simple problem. Everyone agrees that facilities like this are needed not just in Capitol Hill but throughout the state. The primary question is will activists and the state put up guardrails to ensure the patients at these centers do not have a negative impact to their surroundings. People like 1312 and other activists groups simply say so what if they do? People should just endure but as many have pointed out our empathy is on empty. This facility is coming whether neighbors like it or not. The question is does it become a beacon or a warning to other communities?

Please, someone explain:
A) how anyone could think Capital Hill isn’t much better now than it was 2, 3, 4 years ago?!!! Money wasn’t just wasted but only the surface of the issues have been addressed.
B) why we should not boycott Molly Moon’s Ice Cream, Stoup Brewing, Neumo’s and all of the businesses who’ve owners who lack compassion, logic and any real desire to truly find ways to tackle this crisis once and for all and, instead, have the gall to suggest we simply dump it all on downtown or the Chinatown/International District?! By their logic: “ruin everything for our Asian neighbors or fellow Seattleites a mile west of here!”).

Molly Neitzel, Steve Severin and others have done so much for Seattle over the years but their stance here is heartbreaking and mind-numbing in its shortsighted callousness. Instead of white liberal NIMBY BS, maybe they can do what they’ve done in the past: get their “hands dirty” and help form the plan to mitigate any larger possible post patient fallout in the district from patient dumping, premature release, etc.

Dumping this on another area is rotten and suggesting as much seems soulless, pointless, X immoral and profoundly stupid.

Steve Severin says he didn't sign the letter. https://www.facebook.com/lifeonmarsseattle/posts/pfbid0sVpFuqejJBzrdrULzErKYZW6XYcxwMwQrbjGGEZYsoCy9U8aJqeRnyMTLPhQbuhwl

@27 - It is clear that Steve didn't sign the letter, but it is also clear that his name was in fact included in the letter as it was delivered to CM Hollingsworth. It is unfortunate that the letter included some people without their consent, and sure, perhaps the Stranger should have checked with each signator, but Hollingsworth has apparently had this letter for almost a month. The fault here is squarely on the people who composed and sent the letter... not the media outlets that reported on the existance of the letter and it's contents.

@25 "The primary question is will activists and the state put up guardrails to ensure the patients at these centers do not have a negative impact to their surroundings."

Well, as the article mentions, a crisis center has been open in Kirkland for close to a year. Has the Juanita area been negatively impacted? Anyone for whom this is the "primary question" could easily answer it for themselves by investigating that or other similar facilities around the country.

It's also pretty absurd for First Hill residents to oppose this since almost anyone in crisis in the city currently goes or is brought to the Harborview ER. A main point of the crisis center is to divert a lot of that, so for First Hill this should be zero sum or close to it.

Overall the people expressing concerns about this center largely come across as low-info and susceptible to fearmongering.

First, shame on The Stranger for sloppy reporting. Steve Severin (Beumo’s,etc) did NOT sign that letter and is not opposed to the proposed crisis center. Get it together Stranger!

Now…

Please, someone explain:
A) how anyone could think Capital Hill isn’t much better now than it was 2, 3, 4 years ago?!!! Money wasn’t just wasted but only the surface of the issues have been addressed.
B) why we should not boycott Molly Moon’s Ice Cream, Stoup Brewing and all of the businesses who’ve owners who apparently lack compassion, logic and any real desire to truly find ways to tackle this crisis once and for all and, instead, have the gall to suggest we simply dump it all on downtown or the Chinatown/International District?! By their logic: “ruin everything for our Asian neighbors or fellow Seattleites a mile west of here!”).

Molly Neitzel and some others in that letter and moaning against this crisis center proposal have done so much for Seattle over the years but their stance here is heartbreaking and mind-numbing in its shortsighted callousness. Instead of white liberal NIMBY BS, maybe they can do what they’ve done in the past: get their “hands dirty” and help form the plan to mitigate any larger possible post patient fallout in the district from patient dumping, premature release, etc.

Dumping this on another area is rotten and suggesting as much seems soulless, pointless, X immoral and profoundly stupid.

People in crisis scare away paying customers from the local businesses, which are themselves in crisis from the economic devastation of Donald Herbert Hoover Trump. Put the crisis center in Broadmoor.

@29 yes so Kirkland does not tolerate the poor behavior that is often associated with service agencies in Seattle. I think people, rightfully so, are doubtful that Seattle one for the same standards that Kirkland does. If Seattle acts like Kirkland and the center becomes a part of the community without the downside, you’ll see other neighborhoods, be more accepting of them coming into their area.

@32 "Kirkland does not tolerate the poor behavior that is often associated with service agencies in Seattle"

What does this even mean? Can you give any sort of concrete example of what you're talking about?

@33 It’s really not hard to find if you care to look

https://komonews.com/news/local/some-neighbors-blame-homeless-treatment-center-for-street-disorder?fbclid=IwAR3Iw7rYCb7AMK3GjM06ZtukkA3FufjQEaA3R5xMWdiGgljsInA7RvVmcJY

I think the solution to making a crisis center safe for residents and neighbors alike is to conduct patient assessments at another location. Go to where the addicts hang out (12th and Jackson, for instance). If a person is deemed appropriate for admission, transport them to the center. No walk-ins allowed, and no loitering on the premises.

@35 Good idea, Ms. Vel-DuRay.

@35 "No walk-ins allowed"

That completely defeats the purpose of a crisis center, which is like a mental health ER. There are already numerous facilities in this county that do what you describe.

@34 that story is not about a crisis center and has nothing to do with Kirkland. What exactly does Kirkland "not tolerate" that Seattle does, and how? I'm pretty sure you're talking out your ass but I'm trying to give you a chance.

@16: "And frankly, if the narrative becomes that the crisis center is overburdened because more people than anticipated are ready to accept help to turn the corner, then that is a net gain politically, socially and economically."

And frankly, if the narrative becomes that the crisis center is overburdened because the same persons keep constantly cycling through the center, never achieving permanent stability, then that is a net loss politically, socially, and economically.

"Sweeping before the services are setup will do nothing to prevent the inevitable reset of these desperate circumstances to another sidewalk, another empty lot, another greenway or park. It's theater."

As @17 noted, Seattle currently offers campers a choice: accept the assistance offered, or, stay in your tents. Under that regime, we can expect sweeps to be just theatre.

@18: "So, what's the solution then? Gas chambers?"

Um, no. Seattle should simply enforce Seattle's existing laws against camping. Instead of the choice being between accepting aid and status quo, choice would be accept aid, or receive a citation for illegal camping. Second offense, if fine is not paid, is a court summons. Third offense gets jail time (and no, we won't store your stuff). Enforce that choice enough times and publicly, and the post-sweep practice of simply setting up camp somewhere else in Seattle should rapidly diminish.

Meanwhile, both headline post and some commenters nicely showcase the "progressive" attitude towards Capitol Hill and First Hill, as they do Seattle generally: that Seattle created a homelessness crisis, and Seattle deserves to suffer until Seattle pays to resolve it. Examples of this victim-blaming mentality include:

@16: 'There's a narrative going around that people are showing up from some magical place called "elsewhere" to Seattle because of all the "free stuff."'

That's because from the start of the homelessness crisis, the homeless themselves have been telling us they have arrived in Seattle already homeless, and wanting aid. Seattle's Homeless Needs Survey collected data from homeless persons in 2016, the year after Mayor Murray declared a homelessness crisis. It found that a majority of homeless had arrived in Seattle already homeless, unemployed, and using drugs. When asked how much they could afford in rent, over two-thirds answered $500/month or less, nicely demonstrating they had not been stably housed in Seattle for a very long time, if ever. (https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/CDBG/CityOfSeattle2016-HomelessNeedsAssessment.pdf)

And, the main item of "free stuff" they receive is in formerly-shared public spaces, now illegally occupied for private use.

@18: "It's funny how people don't want treatment centers. They don't want homeless, they don't want addicts. Yet they invest a considerable amount of capital transforming a once quiet section of the city into Party Mountain and then look dumbfounded when the negative externalities of that culture start to make them feel uncomfortable."

If you seriously believe the tents are filled mostly with members from the cohorts of party kids from the past several decades, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Overpriced alcohol and cannabis servings are not "gateway drugs" to meth' and fentanyl. (And how, exactly, did Capitol Hill being a party place from the early '90s onwards lead to a city-wide crisis? How do you propose blaming Ballard, Woodland Park, etc. for their campers?)

@30: "why we should not boycott Molly Moon’s Ice Cream, Stoup Brewing and all of the businesses who’ve owners who apparently lack compassion..."

Yeah, driving out businesses which provide higher quality of life will be a net gain for everyone.

It may defeat what you think is the purpose of a crisis center, thirteen12 dear, but your way of thinking has put us in the situation we’re in. Time to try something new.

@39 it's not "what I think" that's what a crisis center is by definition. What you're talking about is an involuntary treatment facility. Your stance, properly understood, is just opposition to crisis centers on principal. So, thanks for your contribution to the discussion, but the voters have chosen differently.

https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/dchs/crisis-care-centers/ccc-flyer-for-seattle.png

Oh my, thirteen12 dear, I hope you did some stretches before attempting that leap.

In an earlier public health crisis here in Seattle, when Tuberculosis was as prevalent as homelessness and addiction is now, there was a large Tuberculosis "sanitarium" established in what is now Shoreline. Screening for the facility was done downtown, and was entirely voluntary. Treatment was free. People could choose to leave the sanitarium at any time if it didn't suit them, despite the contagious nature of TB, but they couldn't just show up and say they wanted in.

Why not have a "crisis center" with representatives who work in high-traffic drug areas to screen people and transport them to a secure and clean facility? Why not have social workers visit the homes of individuals who self-identify as being in crisis? Why do you insist on having facilities that are essentially ineffectual and blights on neighborhoods? Places that also attract dealers because they know people are milling about?

Is it that you like the optics of misery?

@Tensora I am sorry you fail to comprehend what Boycott’s are for: not to drive anyone out but to get to behavioral change. And, I guarantee that if any of the disgruntled NIMBY’s did indeed roll up and leave, they would be replaced by better-fit neighbors to the rest of us who are trying to ensure Capitol Hill remains vibrant, safe AND accepting/accountable. We lost ton o’businesses to COVID and the GFloyd upheaval. The Hill is beginning to thrive again with new businesses opening all the time. Give us a break with your unrelenting fearmongering. Capitol Hill is a community, a gathering and living place, not only a collection of for-profit businesses.

PS: The Stranger, I asked you to take down my #26 post over 24 hours ago for reference to your false implication of Steve Severing. Why is it still there??!!!

Xtiangunther dear, once you put something on Slog, it is there forever. No take backs.

@43: "@Tensora I am sorry you fail to comprehend what Boycott’s are for: not to drive anyone out but to get to behavioral change."

Hmmm... where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah: the purpose of Uncommitted and Abandon Harris is not to get Trump re-elected, but force Harris to change her behavior on Gaza. (How'd that work out, again?)

"And, I guarantee that if any of the disgruntled NIMBY’s did indeed roll up and leave, they would be replaced by better-fit neighbors to the rest of us who are trying to ensure Capitol Hill remains vibrant, safe AND accepting/accountable."

Of course! If we relentlessly drive long-standing, beloved local businesses out of Capitol Hill, because their owners DARE to express dissenting opinions, then persons who would be willing to risk life savings and years of their lives building businesses would move right in behind them! No one would decide we were not worth the risk and go elsewhere, just because we put our rigid ideological purity ahead of our quality of life. Because that's just what healthy people do!

But at least you've learned it's "Capitol Hill," not "Capital Hill." Baby steps.

Wow Tensora. You are a low-blow pettinessmeiser, eh?

And, bravo with your totally-irrelevant, false-equivalent Harris reference. Boycott: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott

Get a clue. Please. Capitol Hill (yes, I know it is with an “ol”, you deflector-from-the-point-novice-debator”. I am glad you have never battled autocorrect nor made a simple error. FFS) is vibrant and dense. All I am saying is your sky-will-fall if those with morals who back their beliefs with action that includes being non-hypocrites and avoiding businesses that are NIMBY paranoids is folly. You invoke hysterics and jump to unfounded accusations and assumptions.

It all makes you look foolish and, yes, petty, as well as manipulative and unkind.

@42 "Why not have a "crisis center" with representatives who work in high-traffic drug areas to screen people and transport them to a secure and clean facility? Why not have social workers visit the homes of individuals who self-identify as being in crisis?"

Like I wrote in 37: "There are already numerous facilities in this county that do what you describe." There's an entire profession created by law, who does exactly what you just wrote, called a "Designated Crisis Responder." It kinda seems like you might not know anything at all about this topic.

Unlike you, I don't pretend to be any sort of expert, thirteen12 dear. But I see what's going on as I walk around the city. What we are doing now isn't working. Take a stroll down Third Avenue or up at 12th and Jackson, or hang out by the QFC on Broadway, or walk along the Ave. When we allow the addicts to congregate, crime and filth follow. It's as simple as that.

I'm not blaming them - addiction is a horrible disease, that drives people to do horrible things. Mental illness is particularly cruel. But all we're doing is throwing money at the problem, and people like you blithely assure us that someday it's going to work, we just need to spend another ten million dollars or so.

I have what is a perfectly reasonable proposal. Something that would cost nothing to try, and you respond with how it won't work. The only thing you haven't done is thrown "Housing First" out there.

You, my dear, are part of the problem.

@46: “And, bravo with your totally-irrelevant, false-equivalent Harris reference.”

Last year, the Uncommitted and Abandon Harris folks told us they could use threats of removing political support from Harris, to pressure her into changing her behavior, without electing Trump. Now you’re claiming you can reduce financial support to already-struggling businesses, to pressure them into changing their behaviors, without driving them out of business. You might therefore try to understand how your liberal readers on Capitol Hill might justly retain a certain skepticism.

“I am glad you have never battled autocorrect nor made a simple error.”

As “Capitol Hill” is long-recognized American political shorthand for the legislative branch of our federal government, I doubt very much autocorrect gave you much of a fight. (But getting revealed as a novice, whilst in the very act of claiming expertise, still hurts, doesn’t it?)

“All I am saying is your sky-will-fall if those with morals who back their beliefs with action that includes being non-hypocrites and avoiding businesses that are NIMBY paranoids is folly.”

All I am saying is, if your ability to organize effective boycotts in any way resembles your ability to write cogent sentences, then no business has anything to fear from your efforts at either.

Best of luck with your boycott threats. Somehow I doubt residents of Capitol Hill will want to lose Molly Moon’s, Stoup, etc. just to get more homeless addicts. (But please do keep the Stranger posted, as we all want a permanent record of your efforts — and, more importantly, of your results.)

@48 "I have what is a perfectly reasonable proposal. Something that would cost nothing to try, and you respond with how it won't work"

I didn't say it won't work I said the county is already doing what you propose and has been for some time. I'm sorry if me explaining this made you feel stupid.

I literally have to step over like 20 people that look like they're dead on the way to work every day so it'd be dope if we could try SOMETHING. Will it draw more drug users to the area? I don't know. But... there are already a fuck ton here that need the help.

Now you’re changing your tune, thirteen12. My core idea is that the Polyclinic Broadway building be made into a crisis center, but that it be a secure facility with no walk-ins and no loitering allowed. That hurt your feelings, so you got tense and brusque, which is silly. It’s just Slog. And Slog is not a competition.

You must strive to not be so rigid and defensive, dear. An open mind is a sign of maturity. Don’t you want to be thought of as mature?

@52 your core idea was that, instead of trying something new, they build more of what they already have but call it something new. Maybe it's time for you to log off and watch your stories dear. I promise everyone only thinks of you as "mature" not any condescending synonyms.

Thirteen12 dear, you're just cross because I went against your idea of letting the old Polyclinic building become like the DESC facility at the Morrison Hotel, because you took a course on Sociology at the Experimental College, and they told you that everything needs to be squalor when it comes to dealing with "Our Unhoused Neighbors"

Residents of First Hill and Capitol Hill don't want that area to become like Prefontaine Place or 12th and Jackson. That's a reasonable expectation. It may not fit into your idea of misery theatre, but you're your own special creation and not everyone shares your ideas when it comes to society.

Thirteen12 dear, you're just cross because I went against your idea of letting the old Polyclinic building become like the DESC facility at the Morrison Hotel, because you took a course on Sociology at the Experimental College, and they told you that everything needs to be squalor when it comes to dealing with "Our Unhoused Neighbors"

Residents of First Hill and Capitol Hill don't want that area to become like Prefontaine Place or 12th and Jackson. That's a reasonable expectation. It may not fit into your idea of misery theatre, but you're your own special creation and not everyone shares your ideas when it comes to society.

@53/54 -- You tell him, Catalina! Twice even, if need be.

@54 "you're just cross"

Not me, you're thinking of Thomas the Tank Engine