Comments

2

Considering Pelosi will soon be 83, I’d cut her some slack on her lunch choices at this point.

3

Thanks for idea Hannah. We're having hot dogs for lunch today to honor Nancy Pelosi!

6

Yes getting rid of the advisory votes is a drop of common sense in a sea of silliness.

8

Advisory votes is critical data voters need to see. Anyone who takes issue with them doesn't love democracy and transparency in government.

9

Sara Nelson won't comment because she has no ideas and no ideology. In other words, a moderate.

11

@9: Getting things done is an ideology, finding common ground is an ideology, being practical is an ideology, not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is an ideology, serving your constituents is an ideology.

The extremists on the ends practice demagoguery, not ideology.

12

@19: They're only "a waste of time" to folks who find the minutia of government boring.

13

Anyone in their 80s should be allowed to eat pretty much anything they desire. Often they don't eat enough food, so even eating pints of ice creams is better than withering away. (Many aren't into drinking Ensure, etc.)

14

@12 Those interested in the "minutia of government" get their information more often than when an election comes up.

15

@14: And for those who didn't you object to them being informed? Weird.

16

@9 Sara Nelson, is a corporate tool and a lawbreaker who set up many Eco-blocks around her Fremont brewery to discourage RV parking. Her ideology is Rich People Uber Alles.

18

The break-ins at Lincoln Towing aren't just to retrieve items from unjustly impounded RVs. They're to "retrieve" items from every vehicle there. I guess the days when Impound Lots kept guard dogs are long gone.

One presumes the encampment in Wallingford is the one between 5th Ave. NE and the Express Lanes. Once again WSDOT is pretending it's not their problem.

19

The “pasedena” encampment should have been swept in September when there was another shooting at that location, which is across the street from an elementary school! Nevermind the fentanyl foils scattered all around there. The gov’t won’t care until a child accidentally ODs from touching one of those or picking up a needle (which are also all around that site). Invite one of those addicts to room with you if they’re so harmless, Hannah, it’s the least you can do for the unhoused.

22

Obviously we need to upzone all of Wallingford to 110 story residential with 6 story commercial optional ground floor.

There.

Problem solved.

25

@11 "Getting things done"

This reminds me of that Seinfeld where Kramer gets a fake job at an office and Jerry asks him what he does there all day.

"TCB. You know. Takin' care of business."

26

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJXruMaWAc

30

@27: Sorry, but that's a fail in conflating it with "unnecessary government waste". The cost of surfacing existing data is minimal. Legislative staffs can continue to easily copy and aggregate content for reporting. It's part of their job.

@17: I agree that "advisory vote" is a bad name for it.

33

@31: Is the list of ingredients on your Cheetos a waste?

34

It honestly doesn’t matter how the council voted on the social housing project. Facing decking revenues and budget gaps they aren’t going to divert funding from their other special projects and doners to stand up something new. The next phase of this, if it passes, will be a prop tax levy on the ballet to support it.

37

@25: I like old sitcoms but this comes to my mind:

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/01/05/biden-mcconnell-governors-trumpet-bipartisan-funding-for-ohio-river-bridge/

@26: You could have had the decency to post Bert Bacharach, he died today.

39

@38: Wow. Such elitism. Maybe you have actually not even read one of them. Here's a refresher:

https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Advisory_Vote_40,TransportationNetwork_Companies_Tax_Nonbinding_Question_(2022)

40

@35 I suspect the advocates and activists will respond to this problematic encampment by urging zoning changes and additional burdens on landlords. That won't do anything to address the substance abuse and mental health issues that underlie many encampment problems, but it is way easier than actually doing something likely to result in meaningful change.

@38 "It is all personality and tribalism. There is no room for policy just buzzwords, dog whistles, and virtue signaling." Well said. Policy positions don't matter anymore. Want proof? Look at the 2020 Republican platform: https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Resolution_Platform_2020.pdf

44

Jesus wept. Let Nancy Pelosi enjoy her hot dog, for chrissakes! If she wants a gallon of Haggen-Dazs smothered in a sea of whipped cream, Hershey's Syrup, nuts, M&Ms, and maraschino cherries, washed down with a mimosa for breakfast at age 83, I'll certainly let her.
Let's have an Oscar-Meyer (or your favorite hot dog brand name here) Day in honor of Nancy Pelosi.
I wouldn't be surprised if hot dog sales at stands, in eateries, and in grocery stores go through the roof because of this ridiculously paranoid whistleblowing stunt.

@3 Phoebe in Wallingford: What a great idea! Hear, hear! I'm adding hot dogs and gluten free buns on my grocery shopping list.

@13 stinkbug and @24 Yeshua: +2 Agreed.

45

Rest in peace, Bert Bacharach. Thank you for the memorable songs.

46

@28 seventiesrockhead: Would you be just as ecstatic over having a government microchip installed in your pointed little head, monitoring every calorie you take in "for public health's sake", too? Put down the bong and get help. It's just a hot dog, for chrissakes! At age 83, Nancy Pelosi should be able to eat whatever the fuck she wants.

47

@41 LSDabuser: Kevin McKKKarthy is evil, not Nancy Pelosi. Don't get the two confused.

48

Re: sweeps

"10% said when there’s enough shelter for everyone at the site. " is exactly the problem with sweeps. They're not a solution to a problem, they're a mechanism to make sure that somebody else has to deal with the problem. If you don't like a problem, actually find a solution. Complaining about it and kicking over to someone else is lazy and irresponsible.

Re: advisory votes

I'll be glad to have them off the ballot, they seem to be more about inflaming people than anything else. If they're setting up something that's actually educational, even better! One of my favorite things about Seattle is the interactive dashboards hosted on some of the government websites to explore public data. In general, more transparency is better.

50

I'll be thrilled if they end the advisory vote. Dumbest thing ever.

And Nancy Pelosi is 82. Let her eat what she wants. Unlike Our Dear Hannah, I'll defend her until the cows come home. Talk about a woman who blazed a trail.

52

Relish? Is Nancy a barbarian?

Also, a billion dollars for homelessness in Seattle (as McKinsey put in the report for the homeless-industrial coplex) is insane and will never happen. Even if we assume that there are 5000 people in Seattle who for whatever reason are unable to support themselves (By which I mean cannot work full-time and have no other resources), a billion a year is $200,000 per homeless person. Think about that for a minute.

Far better to let the market build more housing (i.e., kill single family zoning), so that affordable housing finally starts coming on the market, and offer serious drug treatment to those on the streets because of addiction.

53

@49 70s: Okay. I guess I misunderstood your comment @28. My apologies. It sounds like we're more in agreement than I thought. Like you, I too have had my vaccines: most recently my third Pfizer booster against the Omicron strain, and annual flu shot last September promptly before flying to Los Angeles for a convention. I have repeatedly tested negative for COVID with no problems.

@50 Catalina Vel-DuRay: +1 Amen.

54

@52 dvs99: $200,000.00 per homeless person? Holy shit, if that were to pass every panhandling bum and freebie seeking opportunist across the U.S. would be here in two seconds! The growth rate in Washington state is already at an insanely unregulated level, at the benefit of the home seller and profiteering developer.
I'm with you on establishing more affordable housing to a point. I think killing single family housing and razing established neighborhoods is a bit extreme. And what to do about offering serious drug treatment to addicts on the street who refuse to get help? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him or her drink.
I wish I had viable solutions to offer.

55

The sweeps do more harm than good. They make for more unsafe situations and people.

Compassion is not the strong point here by those that want sweeps without positive solutions.

I am over 80 and remember when homelessness was rare. But that was when housing was affordable and one paycheck could support a whole family.

Cruelty towards the disadvantaged is rampant on this thread and some of these comments sound like they are coming out of the third reich. We need more antifascists because it looks like a lot of these responders want a total police state because their answer to everything is more police violence against people with nothing and who cannot defend themselves. Check out Cop City in Atlanta.

Addiction is an illness which needs medical attention and treatment resolutions. If any of you were thrown out into the street without any real resources and all the stigma attached you would experience total shock to begin with. Many do not survive.

The labor unions were gutted by corrupt politicians and corporate allies. This is a huge reason why we are experiencing high prices with many barely making it and others unable to. Half the population are POOR. Let that sink in. Its not because people are not working hard. There are homeless people working.

We have the largest population of people imprisoned in the world. We have the hugest military budget yet we do not have Universal Health Care and we have to fight for it.

I have said this a number of times here but I will repeat it so that just maybe someone will read it. To solve the homeless crisis we need to build decent humane emergency centers and install Social Housing. This does include social services. How to pay for it?
TAX THE RICH. Without positive solutions the misery will continue.

If you insist on police sweeps then you are a cruel misguided fool with no real answers to a extreme humanitarian emergency and are helping all of us to be unsafe.

56

There are around 40% homeless people with jobs. Many are sober and some are mentally ill and others that need medical attention badly. Most are not in camps. The most desperate are in camps and need positive help now. Thank you.

57

Exactly. Could not have said it better my friend.

58

Exactly. Could not have said it better my friend.

59

Exactly. Could not have said it better my friend.

60

Sorry for the repeating comments.
54. The top super rich are robbing the rest of us big time, Aunt Grizelda and getting us to suffer for it. Trumpy of example gave them the the biggest tax cuts in history. We have to make sure that the rich are taxed so we can all benefit from society.

Poverty is violence and it can be ended. From your beat poet correspondent.

62

@ivy <3

63

@61,

"The encampments absolutely need to be swept as soon as the first blue tarp appears. Keep doing it and our imported vagrants will eventually return to the rust belt states they came from."

Is there any data or source to back this up? Asking without a hint of snark or antagonism. Have never seen any, but also have never really looked.

But it does feel counterintuitive, to be honest. These people generally seem to lack the resources, skillset, or motivational will to do much more than survive day-to-day. And then factoring in that a good number of them realistically don't have much of anything/anyone to return to, regardless of where they're from, and I'm pretty skeptical. Open to being proven wrong though.

64

Think I'm with AG in wishing I had viable solutions to offer.

65

I have been homeless and I know some people on the streets and I have felt more unsafe from some people that have a place to live.

Its the economy mostly. There are more and more people at food banks and that need food stamps than ever before. More and more people living outside and in their cars.

That is the reality. Sorry to have to tell you that.

66

Vote Yes for social housing that would really help. Thank you.

67

Ordinary people are helping the homeless now with hot meals etc. The shame of this city is corporate greed and desperation not the unhoused that only cowards would blame. This mayor is beyond disgust and if we had any justice he should face consequences for the brutality and deaths he has enforced.

68

a Hero you are to me
Ivy R. kudos and
Danke!

69

Sweeps prevent encampment fires.

70

@49 70s: I do believe in scientistic research, however. The Pfizer vaccines and boosters I've had might not have guaranteed my 100% immunity from COVID-19, however much I have been exposed to it. But such precautions have definitely reduced my likelihood of becoming infected and spreading the virus, whether I tested positive or am asymptomatic. That is the purpose of vaccines, whether they're Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson.

71

@55 & @60 Ivy R. Nightscales: BINGO. Tax the rich already. I could not agree more. That would completely end the insurmountable problems of homelessness, crime, and drug abuse. I am almost 60 and remember when a paycheck could support a family and buy a home. And yes--the insanely wealthy have and still are robbing the rest of us blind. I wish I could could offer more viable solutions other than the obvious--taxing the rich.

@64 mike blob: Bless you.

72

nyt:
A Republican
Makes Jokes About an
Unlikely Subject: Her Own Party

In frequently bawdy terms at a press club dinner, Representative Nancy Mace brought down the house with her barbs at fellow House members and other Republicans.

Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina has worked hard to cultivate an image as a different sort of Republican — one willing to publicly criticize former President Donald J. Trump and the party’s embrace of the far right, even as she usually votes the party line and has come to adopt some of the same rhetoric.

In a jab at Mr. McCarthy, she said: “I haven’t seen someone assume that many positions to appease the crazy Republicans since Stormy Daniels,” referring to the pornographic film actress who said Mr. Trump had paid her $130,000 not to talk publicly about an affair she said they had.

more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/us/politics/nancy-mace-jokes-republicans.html

73

more nyt
(no joke):

In Post-Roe World,
These Conservatives
Embrace a New Kind of Welfare

Some conservative thinkers are pushing Republicans to move on from Reagan-era family policy and send cash to families. A few lawmakers are listening.

Sending cash to parents, with few strings attached. Expanding Medicaid. Providing child care subsidies to families earning six figures.

The ideas may sound like part of a progressive platform. But they are from an influential group of conservative intellectuals with a direct line to elected politicians. They hope to represent the future of a post-Trump Republican Party — if only, they say, their fellow travelers would abandon Reaganomics once and for all.

These conservatives generally oppose abortion rights. They’re eager to promote marriage, worried about the nation’s declining fertility rate and often resist the trans rights movement.

But they also acknowledge that with abortion now illegal or tightly restricted in half the states, more babies will be born to parents struggling to pay for the basics — rent, health care, groceries and child care — when prices are high and child care slots scarce.

“A full-spectrum family policy has to be about encouraging and supporting people in getting married and starting families,” said Oren Cass, executive director of the American Compass think tank. “It has to be pro-life, but also supportive of those families as they are trying to raise kids in an economic environment where that has become a lot harder to do.”

--by Dana Goldstein
Feb. 10, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

more Radicalism
(the Good kind):

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/conservatives-child-care-benefits-roe-wade.html

74

the Moral Arc of the Universe
bends -- IF We bend
the Motherfucker.

77

"Lincoln Towing is the City’s go-to company for impounding RVs during sweeps"

Right. They tow and store what the city (or state) tells them to. Make trouble for them and they might just store them at their Kent or Marysville yards. At $6.00 per mile, that comes to ...

May as well forget getting your rig and possessions back and start over.

78

For those of the anti-sweep mindset, this should help change your mind:

https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2023/02/10/encampment-fire-unveils-several-guns-bundles-of-cash-and-narcotics/

79

@63, @64: After Seattle’s Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness collapsed into a Homelessness Crisis, the city commissioned a study of what this population needed. The results included:

A majority of homeless persons in Seattle had arrived in Seattle already homeless;

A majority claimed to use alcohol and/or other drugs;

A supermajority said they could afford no more than $500/month in rent.

(http://humaninterests.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/City-of-Seattle-Report-FINAL-with-4.11.17-additions.pdf)

Putting that last point in context, I’d had an apartment in Seattle for (just) less than $500/month — twenty years before this survey was taken. Clearly, this homeless population had not been stably housed in Seattle for years, for decades, or for ever.

The solution is a national healthcare system, so these persons don’t wind up on the streets in the first place. Seattle can’t and won’t pick up the tab for persons with mental disorders, including drug addictions, who arrive here from across the country without homes or jobs.

80

@75: Dear LSD-addled MAGAturd, Sick, spineless RepubliKKKan-joke-at--the-expense-of-the-99%-of-us, KKKevin McKKKarthy makes long established Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, by comparison an apt appointee to the sainthood. Put down the bong, get immediate medical assistance, MAGA doofus, and leave the conversation to the adults in the room. I already hear your mom calling you in for weenies and tater tots.

81

@79 tensorna: "A majority of homeless persons in Seattle had arrived in Seattle already homeless;
A majority claimed to use alcohol and / or other drugs;
A supermajority said they could afford no more than $500 / month in rent."

Wow--so I really wasn't far off about the homeless situation in Seattle. I wish I had viable solutions to offer.
I remember back when I was living in Ballard my rent went up to $560.00 a month back in the '90s. This was for a one bedroom unit with a kitchenette, dining room, livingroom, bathroom, and a single parking garage space. Rent covered water, sewer, and garbage pickup. Phone, electricity, and heat were separate.
What is the average rent in Seattle now--$3,200.00 a month? That is ~ 1/6 of what I paid for the cost of living way back when, 26 years ago. It makes one think.

82

@81: Correction: Today's cost of living in Seattle is a whopping 600% of what I paid for the cost of living way back when (!!!). I was never all that great at Math.
I wonder how many transplants new to Seattle and the PNW from other U.S. states, provinces, or countries where the cost of living is much cheaper have experienced or are now experiencing serious sticker shock here? How many of these people surveyed after selling a house for, say, $250,000.00 where they lived and were fully employed, thinking they got a real deal with money left over back there before making the relocation are among the homeless now?

83

In honor of exemplary Former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and at Phoebe in Wallingford's excellent suggestion (@3), I just enjoyed two hot dogs with mustard and shredded cheese on gluten free millet and chia buns, and a green salad for lunch. Good call, Phoebe!

84

@72 kristofarian: So RepubliKKKans really ARE eating each other up to death. May the mass extinction of the GOP begin, and soon. Marjorie Taylor Greene's mouth and butt are more than big enough already.
and
@73 kristofarian: If only conservatives were also against Trumponomics, as well as Reaganomics. If they vote RepubliKKKan, they're still far too extremist for my liking. Did you notice in your cited NYT article that these conservatives only want to fund wealthy people---not those of the poor working class---for childcare?
Methinks this is a plot to breed more white right wing extremists, similar to Hitler's pursuit of blonde haired, blue eyed Caucasians for breeding what he horrifically considered a "superior race".

85

@61 Tobe in a Robe: "The encampments need to be swept as soon as the first blue tarp appears.
Keep doing it and eventually our imported vagrants will return to the rust belt states they came from."
I am in agreement but at the same time, somewhat puzzled.
If I recall, I made a similar comment regarding nomadic homeless people--SOME, but not ALL---from outside Washington state, in another comment thread and you jumped all over me. Why the flipflop of opinion all of a sudden? Is some homicidal knife wielding meth head outside puking on your doorstep?

86

@84, re @73 kristofarian: Just because this conservative group acknowledges that because post-Roe abortions are now illegal or restricted in the U.S. doesn't necessarily mean they're willing to fund the cost of living for poor working class families---especially non-whites. That they're pro-life--period--is still a bit extreme for me not to be skeptical of their overall mission.

87

@55 and @60 Ivy R. Nightscales: I basically agree with you and Toby each in part, to a point. Compassion is indeed, needed in resolving our region's insurmountable homeless problem, especially in the cold, often stormy fall and winter months when the most vulnerable among us, the homeless, can die from inclement weather exposure and no immediate shelter.
What to do, though, for those who stubbornly refuse to get help, let alone seek shelter whether they're unemployed, alcoholic, and / or addicted? How to show compassion for those only there to trash neighborhoods, break in and rob homes and businesses, often loudly and violently threaten others, and / or cause trouble? Our local bus transfer station downtown shut down its public restrooms due to loitering transients, many begging and abusing drugs. This has been a major health concern during the COVID pandemic. Our public transit authority still has yet to find restroom attendants willing to maintain public restrooms at the bus stations. What to do when drug abusers and convicted drug dealers only get wrist slaps to go back out to the streets?
At the risk of sounding like a skipping, broken record, I have no viable suggestions except to tax the rich already.
Sadly, I have nothing further at this point to offer to the comment thread that either I or someone else hasn't already said.

Okay--Griz is off her soapbox.

88

@82: “How many of these people surveyed after selling a house for, say, $250,000.00 where they lived and were fully employed, thinking they got a real deal with money left over back there before making the relocation are among the homeless now?”

I’m guessing zero. Anyone with a quarter of a million dollars in pocket wouldn’t be looking to rent, but to buy, and they would’ve seen the prices for homes. As I noted, the homeless population in Seattle hasn’t been able to afford rent here for a very long time, if ever, and you confirmed that. Compare your rent in Ballard in the ‘90s with what homeless persons said they could afford twenty years later:

“The highest percent (71%) of respondents reported that they could afford a monthly rent of less than five hundred dollars, followed by 24% who reported they could afford between $500 and $1,000 monthly.” (Same link as @79.)

That’s right, 95% of homeless persons surveyed could not afford anything over $1,000/month in 2016. My last bachelor apartment was renting for $1000/month in 2014. That population simply hadn’t been stably housed in Seattle when they became homeless — not even the minority who said Seattle was the place where they most recently became homeless. They arrived here already homeless, and have remained that way ever since.

89

@88 tensorna: I have recently read a really sad story about some people in Seattle who have been homeless since the 1980s, and have had no choice but to find creative ways in acquiring permanent shelter. They have applied for housing and never seem to be able to get it. Their claim is that too much of the housing assistance currently being offered keeps going to unhoused newcomers to Seattle. Or that the new set of tiny houses is predesignated for a certain group of disadvantaged people. It sounds like Seattle is tangled up in too much bureaucratic red tape to adequately resolve its insurmountable homeless issues. It really sucks when locals down on their luck can't get the help they need, while a nice simple but new apartment goes to someone just in off a bus.

90

@89: “I have recently read a really sad story about some people in Seattle who have been homeless since the 1980s, and have had no choice but to find creative ways in acquiring permanent shelter.”

If they could not afford housing for decades in Seattle — including through multiple periods of stupendous economic growth — then why are they still in Seattle? What could possibly be keeping them in Seattle? Why have they not moved to any of the myriad of places in the US with far lower costs of living?

Those same questions should be asked about all homeless persons in Seattle; the Homelessness Crisis is now fully into year eight. Why are they still in Seattle, even if they were once stably housed in Seattle — and, as we’ve seen, most of them probably never were.

Also, I’d really question most of the aspects of your version of their story. While I know the vast majority of money Seattle has spent on homelessness has been utterly squandered, it still seems odd these persons can’t ever afford to live in Seattle, yet still keep trying after decades of failure. What’s really going on with them?

91

@90,

The impression I get of these people is that they couldn't possibly afford housing anywhere in America in their current state. That $500 figure you cite that they could afford seems highly suspect, IMHO. And I get that the respondents themselves were the ones who provided it, but I just truly don't see it, at least not from the vast majority of people I see on the regular. And so they stay in the PNW where at least the climate and overall experience is somewhat more hospitable to them. To think that they're gonna move to Wichita or Sioux Falls and suddenly get their shit together seems absurd, though again I'd genuinely love to be proven wrong.

92

And I get what you're saying in that continual sweeps might make their experience miserable enough to cause them enough frustration to consider whatever/wherever they came from, though I remain skeptical. I do absolutely think raindrop may have a point in that sweeps could help to lessen the risk of fires, and so for that reason I'm not completely opposed to them. Down here in Portland the Willamette Week just published a harrowing report showing that 50% of our fire departments responses were to encampments, which is utterly infuriating, and should serve as a loud and decisive call that immediate & significant action is needed. But I just don't know that sweeps are a viable long term solution is all I'm saying.

93

@91: “The impression I get of these people is that they couldn't possibly afford housing anywhere in America in their current state.”

I agree, which is why I found the story @89 suspect. There’s something keeping these people from having any chance at stable housing, and that needs to be addressed first.

“That $500 figure you cite that they could afford seems highly suspect, IMHO. And I get that the respondents themselves were the ones who provided it, but I just truly don't see it, at least not from the vast majority of people I see on the regular.”

The survey showed 71% “…could afford a monthly rent of less than five hundred dollars,” so that was the maximum given for more than two-thirds of the homeless who responded at that time. As Seattle rentals for that range had disappeared twenty years prior, we know that the vast majority of Seattle’s homeless population hadn’t been living in Seattle when they became homeless.

The survey was taken in 2016 and reported in early 2017, so every reference to homelessness and housing-affordability after that — essentially, Seattle’s entire attempt to address the homelessness crisis — was either made from ignorance, or was flat-out lying. That’s why Seattle’s homelessness policy failed so spectacularly.

94

@90 & @93: It's possible that a number of these said homeless people, just barely getting by here in the Puget Sound region, and who have either lived here all their lives or since the 1980s know people who will at least let them crash on a couch overnight. It's quite possible that those providing bare minimal shelter are blood relatives, neighbors, or old school friends. Maybe they don't want to see their homeless friend in jail. Maybe they don't want to admit their homeless friend might have a drug and / or alcohol problem. Or if they're aware, providing couch space is at least a temporary solution, but they don't have the heart to kick their homeless friend out into the street. Maybe some of the homeless people surveyed have access to a public building that has a lobby or a break room somewhere, and know exactly when to vacate the building when it opens for business. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Again, with heartfelt feeling, I wish I had answers for solving this problem but I don't. So sue me.
Earlier you credited me with sharing information supporting your statements about the homeless situation, citing the cost of living as compared to the 1990s. Now you're hypercritical, judgmental, and skeptical. I think you're really a sucker for a heated argument, and the more sparks you can get to fly, the better. Which is it, tensy? You can't have it both ways.

@91 mike blob: Bless you. I was just going to say that.

95

@92, @94: Let’s recall the original rationale for ignoring Seattle’s laws against camping was that the campers were all down-on-their-luck locals who just needed a break. Once they’d had a few rent-free months, they would recover and rejoin the rest of us housed persons. That last part has never happened, because it was all a pack of lies. By and large, these persons had never been stably housed in Seattle, had never contributed to life in Seattle, and had no intention and/or ability of ever doing either. So they’ve rotted and died in those camps, stealing and assaulting along the way. There was never any reason to tolerate these camps, and Seattle no longer does so. It was all just a waste, benefiting only some criminals who hid from justice in the camps, Seattle’s parasitical Homeless-Industrial Complex, and some lying politicians who now are leaving office.

@92: I suggest Portland sweep all encampments. Not only will Seattle’s sweeps result in more persons trying to camp in Portland, but it now sounds as if you and everyone else in Portland has become at risk of not having the fire department’s protection.

@94: I questioned the story because, first it seems wild: if these persons couldn’t get stably housed in Seattle during the low-rent ‘80s, why do they persist in continuing to try now, when Seattle has become a very expensive city? Second, you yourself don’t seem to know much about the story, as shown by your speculations about how they’ve gotten by for the past third of a century. (That you didn’t mention camping as a possibility seems odd, as well.)

Seattle has spent seven years, and counting, demonstrating it can not or will not help these people. At the very least, it should stop enabling the addicts and hiding the criminals; both are cruel behaviors, unworthy of a great city.

96

@95: It seems to me that anyone who has been homeless since the 1980s and is still here knows of someone who can a.) provide a couch to crash on, b. ) has an old RV they're not using, and / or c. ) has access to somewhere that can serve as temporary shelter--at least, overnight.
I didn't mention homeless camping because it has been repeatedly listed among contributing factors by a good number of commenters already, citing what is exacerbating Seattle's and Portland's homeless problems. I consider camping being a given, along with some people living in vehicles--usually cars or RVs on their last legs that are about to get impounded by the city.
The story I read about was of a woman who had been homeless for years, who has been living out on Aurora Avenue North since 1986. A friend gave her a used RV to live in. Recent atmospheric flooding from heavy rainfall in her neighborhood forced her out of the RV and in search for new housing. She and others have been camping in nearby outlet mall parking lots. She has had a steady stream of bad luck. Obviously she does not have the means to pack up and go elsewhere. Seattle's Homeless Industrial Complex had offered tiny houses but rejected the woman's application, saying she didn't qualify for tiny housing. This is all I know about the woman's situation.
I do agree that Seattle, Bellingham, Portland, and all other cities up and down the West Coast need to stop enabling the addicts and hiding the criminals. From the recent article I read in RealChange the woman interviewed was neither.

97

I don't live in Seattle, anymore, but one trend I have witnessed in my community is the number of homeless people using wheelchairs (I have actually seen able-bodied people sitting outside stores and restaurants, "setting up shop" with cardboard signs, wheelchairs, umbrellas, and even dogs on loaner to gain public sympathy). This number has gone down recently, mainly because of the colder weather, and I think a lot of local resident and business owners have since caught on to obvious fakers. The city has conducted a lot of sweeps lately. The nomadic homeless numbers are likely to increase again in the coming spring and summer months.
A favorite spot for panhandlers is the downtown core. Often they're seen only once and rarely ever again. Many are merely passing through, likely with just enough to get to the next town.
There is a greasy spoon diner in particular that has been notorious for the number of panhandlers loitering outside. It's a mixed bag of transients, street cons, and bored local college kids simply hustling for free beer money.


Please wait...

and remember to be decent to everyone
all of the time.

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