Good morning everyone. Wear your raincoats today because the National Weather Service says to expect rain from 11 am to 5 pm. Sunrise today comes at 7:54 am (your past, my future) and sunset is at 4:19 pm. Two more days until the Winter Solstice and honestly I’m looking forward to it more than Christmas.
For Seattleites who crave snow (🙋)…
It’s worth noting that five years ago, the El Niño winter of 2018-19 was on pace to be Seattle’s first ever without a single snowflake … until February arrived.
And 20 inches fell in a week. ❄️
— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) December 18, 2023
Charles sits down with AI expert Blaise Agüera y Arcas: If you haven’t watched Charles’s interview with Agüera y Arcas yet, do yourself a favor and go watch Charles talk about wild stuff like “social biology” and who gets credit for scientific discoveries when an AI proposes the scientific experiment. People can also read about some of Charles’s conversation with Agüera y Arcas.
HUD’s 2023 Annual Homeless Assessment Report: The US Department of Housing and Urban Development released its report on the state of homelessness in the US, and damn it’s a doozy. The Seattle Times reported on some of the more Washington-centric parts of the report, such as how our state’s homeless population grew “at an unprecedented rate — about 11%.” Nationally, homelessness rose across multiple age groups and demographics as people face the end of American Rescue Plan benefits, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of people who became newly homeless rose by 25%, meaning they hadn’t experienced homelessness before that year. The report draws a straight line between lack of affordable housing and homelessness.
Echo Glen escape video: KIRO 7 got ahold of the video of some kids escaping from the Echo Glen’s Children’s Center last spring. Law enforcement agencies eventually captured all seven of the kids who escaped the youth prison. At one point the KIRO reporter starts talking about some of the security issues at the facility, and then says that residents nearby “are hopeful things will change,” but then the woman says how the state needs to keep working with the kids and she hopes for rehabilitation. We love a reasonable member of the public.
Seattle Public Schools wins vaping lawsuit: JUUL Labs and other vaping companies must pay the school district $1.75 million after the district joined a lawsuit alleging the vaping companies had deliberately marketed these nicotine products to kids, according to KUOW. The district plans to use the money to start vaping cessation programs.
Molbak’s Garden and Homes to close: On Monday, Woodinville-based Molbak’s announced its impending closure, though the owners haven’t yet set a final date, according to KOMO. Pour one out to the store that can best be described as an upscale cross between Home Depot and a hospital gift shop. Genuinely a little sad. I remember seeing a fairly solid production of Hansel and Gretel at that store as a kid, and munching on those pasty pink frosting cookies. RIP.
Volcano erupts in Iceland: After months of bracing for volcanic activity, an eruption happened on the Icelandic Reykjanes peninsula. In 2010, a volcanic eruption in Iceland disrupted European air travel, but this one doesn’t seem as bad, according to the BBC.
Earthquake in China kills more than 100 people: A 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit the Gansu province of China Monday, near the Tibetan Plateau, according to NBC News. The number of casualties may rise as rescue workers attempt to reach people buried under rubble. The temperature in the area is below freezing.
Sandra Day O’Connor’s funeral today: The first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, O’Connor died on December 1. People plan to gather in D.C. today to honor her, and members of the public can watch a livestream of the event starting at 9 am PST.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott makes entering the state illegally a misdemeanor: Abbott signed a bill Monday creating a state law that allows local cops to arrest people who cross into Texas illegally. While federal law already makes it illegal to enter the US without permission, Abbott thinks the Biden Administration hasn’t done enough to secure the southern border, according to NBC News. The number of illegal border crossings did surpass 2 million in 2022 and 2023, and Biden tried to crack down in the spring with harsher immigration policies. However, the mass number of people migrating to the US border is making it difficult for him to implement his plan for stricter enforcement of US immigration law, according to Reuters.
WNDR Museum’s Seattle location is closed. According to GeekWire, the 13,000-square-foot interactive tech and art museum posted the news on Instagram a few days ago. A statement on the website says, “While we’ve enjoyed welcoming Seattle to experience the joy of WNDR Museum this year, we’ve made the difficult decision to close the doors of our Seattle location effective immediately.”
Best albums of 2023: The Line of Best Fit released its list of the best 50 albums of the year. Worth a perusal if you’re looking for new music or creating your 2023 playlist for your New Year’s Eve party. I didn’t realize Amaarae basically wrote a theme song for Co-Star, and I’m really into it.
@2 Housing is cheap in Texas, and there’s no regulation on building more (no water breaks for you in the Texas heat). Also, the minimum wage in Texas is $7.25/hour–you think white people are gonna work for that? I’m guessing it will cost taxpayers far more to lock up immigrants, especially when Gov. Wheels starts awarding private prison contracts to his buddies.
“The
report
draws a
straight line be-
tween lack of affordable
housing and homelessness.”
when
Housing
as Commodity
rules your Roost
and ‘Private Equity’
is allowed to purchase
entire Neighborhoods*
who
Ever couldda
Predicted such
an Outcome?! Whoa
*if not Now
then Soon enough
@1 — ‘Doesn’t
the Puget Sound region
have enough people already?’
oh Lordy, No.
when the Climate
Refugees claw their
ways into Habitable lands
“What surprise
will Hamas drop next,
and how devastating will it be?”
why don’t we
Ask the Gazans
who’ve had 23,000
Bombs dropped on them
about ‘Surprises’? are you surprised
there are only 20,000 Dead? remind me:
how may ‘Surprises’
has Hamas committed
(granted: even 1 is Too many)?
@2 & 4
Seattle is a Sanctuary City and King County promotes its status and an immigration sanctuary as well, so it’s odd that they aren’t reaching out to bring more of the migrants in.
Please don’t tell me it was all just performative and empty of any real intent to help the people coming into the US.
@3 — thank you! I bet a friend that someone would bring up the Israelis and Hamas in less than five posts, despite the fact there is no mention of either in today’s Slog.
“The report draws a straight line between lack of affordable housing and homelessness.”
Which is the only reason why the Stranger trumpets it here. Housing-affordability is the sole explanation the Stranger has ever accepted for homelessness in Seattle. Even as homeless persons in Seattle and the rest of King County die of overdoses at ever-increasing rates, the Stranger remains in stone-cold denial as to why this happens.
The Stranger would rather watch human beings suffer and die on the streets of Seattle than admit it has been wrong.
@10: lol, what’s your timetable for these things that are never going to happen?
Sad about Molbaks, though I rarely went there – it was the heart of Woodinville.
FYI, Eduardo Jordan’s June Baby is closing, too, on 12/31.
@9 As I am sure you know, the homeless population is consistently disproportionately impacted by overdose deaths. It’s such a well-established problem that the King County Fatal Overdose Dashboard* has a dedicated page detailing the housing status of decedents. The trend is obvious: more and more people in our homeless community die from accidental fatal overdose every year. This includes hundreds of people living in encampments and homeless shelters (24% of fatal overdose deaths to date in 2023) as well as those living in subsidized housing and supportive housing (18%). The increase of deaths in this sector over the past 5 years is shocking.
Meanwhile, the percentage of overdose deaths amount those living in privately owned housing not connected to government or social service programs is unchanged from 2022 to 2023, making up just over half (51%) of all overdose deaths.
I know it’s fun to blame landlords and Amazon, but our homeless problem is in large part a substance abuse problem.
*https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/health-safety/safety-injury-prevention/overdose-prevention-response/data-dashboards
@12 — “If genocide
is the goal, than the
IDF is highly in-
competent.”
not to Worry cap’n!
the GENOCIDAL* methods
Nutyahoo’s employing against
Palestinians’ll ensure Israel’s gonna
have all the LAND they can Steal whilst
Most Of the Planet recoils in sheer Horror.
*as an Adjective
its Use is con-
doned even
by Israel.
go
Figure!
@14: I wager TS would say that homelessness often leads to substance abuse (and ODs), but many (most?) others would say the substance abuse leads to homelessness. I honestly don’t know which is correct. Maybe both are.
Chicken &/or The Egg.
“I know it’s fun to blame landlords and Amazon, but our homeless problem is in large part a substance abuse problem.”
well. NO. it’s a
lack of Supply and
OVERly-Priced Housing
problem. Diseases of Despair
(like Homelessness) are but Symptoms:
late-stage
Capitalism
unbridled thru
the Wealthy’s Mach-
iavellianistic Mechanations
have gotten US here and will
continue to make Certain it Only
Gets Worse.
buckle up
buttercups.
@3 Anyone who’s surprised at the ability of cheap drones to destroy expensive armor hasn’t been paying attention to the war in Ukraine for the last year and a half.
@17 For reasons that are unclear, local government elected to stop collecting detailed survey data from the homeless population, so trends in recent years are very much unclear. But, if you look back to the 2020 Count Us In survey* substance abuse and mental health issues accounted for a larger share of self-reported causes of homelessness than eviction or the inability to afford rent increases.
As for the chicken/egg of substance abuse and mental health, an astounding 67% of the homeless population reported mental health issues that keep them from holding a job, living in stable housing, or taking care of themselves. And a remarkable 44% of the homeless population report substance abuse problems.
It’s clear addressing substance abuse problems and mental health issues would keep more people out of homelessness than limiting eviction proceedings or rent increases. And it’s just as clear that substance abuse and mental health problems are biggest obstacle to getting people back in to stable housing. But, that’s an unpopular viewpoint and requires expensive solutions, so that’s not what we do. It’s way easier to blame landlords, developers, zoning regulations, the tech industry, and so on. As a result, that’s been the primary focus of city leadership. There’s no question this approach has been ineffective: the homeless population is experiencing exponential growth.
*https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Count-Us-In-2020-Final.pdf
@12 Not very “efficient,” no. But a methodical, block-by-block carpet bombing campaign would be so obvious even Biden would demand that it stop immediately (the widespread use of banned weapons like napalm even more so). It’s much smarter to make the destruction appear haphazard and collateral.
But Israel according to many of its own leaders (see link below for quotes) is deliberately rendering Gaza uninhabitable, meaning the Palestinian civil society and culture that has developed there is being systematically erased. While that may not constitute genocide per se, it’s at least genocide-adjacent ethnic cleansing. If you have NY Times access, you might want to read this piece by a historian of genocide who is horrified by what Israel is doing: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html
@21: As I commented in yesterday’s Slog AM thread, the international community has not recognized Hamas for the ongoing violent international criminal conspiracy that it clearly is. Until we do, and begin taking effective actions to shut it down, Israel will continue to defend itself and its citizens from Hamas, with the results we have already seen.
@14:
Also, we have to consider how much WORSE the housing situation, both here and nationally, has become in the past three years, especially with the COVID support funds and anti-eviction laws going away. An 11% increase of homelessness in a single calendar year is both shocking and intolerable, regardless of the cause. Here we are, the richest, most powerful nation in the history of Human Civilization, and we allow people to be thrown out into the streets for no other reason except someone, somewhere isn’t making enough money off of them.
As for @17’s “chicken and/or egg” dilemma; as you say, a slim majority of abusers are housed individuals, presumably ones who still have enough functionality to continue to pay rents or mortgages. Some of them will no doubt descend into homelessness, just as some otherwise unhoused will descend into substance abuse, because being homeless is a veritable living nightmare, and NOT some “Big Rock Candy Mountain” utopia as many on the Right prefer to frame it.
@20: Unfortunately, incarceration is the “solution” supported by far too many people instead of treatment and providing safe, stable, basic housing. Oh, they’ll bitch and moan about it either way, because BOTH options are exorbitantly expensive, but they seem to prefer to punish the poor, the mentally challenged or those who succumb to the horrors of addiction, because apparently that feels better to them than, you know, actually helping people escape from these otherwise preventable conditions.
@25: ‘Unfortunately, incarceration is the “solution” supported by far too many people instead of treatment and providing safe, stable, basic housing.’
It’s hard to support treatment when the Stranger, and the politicians it supports, absolutely and chronically refuse even to admit addiction has a role in prolonging or creating homelessness.
Totally absent from your comment is the slightest expression of concern for the other victims of addiction: the persons who suffer thefts and assaults by addicts who want drugs or drug money. Thefts and assaults are crimes, even when committed by addicts who crave drugs. It is completely unfair to ask all current and future victims to suffer more thefts and assaults, especially when such suffering merely prolongs addictions, and leads to overdose deaths.
@16 “Gen Z is already proving to be probably the most infertile generation in America’s history. Too self-centered to have kids or too apoplectic over climate change to have kids, so we need immigrants and their kids.”
While I agree with the conclusion, the starting premise is pretty wild. What exactly do you mean by “too self-centered to have kids?” Are you concerned that Gen Z might not define themselves by their ability to procreate? Do you measure a woman’s worth by how many children she has? How adorably 1940’s of you.
The Gen Z people I know who are thinking about kids either don’t want to have them for a variety of other reasons or are concerned about whether they could provide for them because of their precarious financial situation. Which isn’t entirely about student debt. It’s also (for example) that home ownership is out of reach for large swathes of Gen Z. Climate change is way down the list.
I also appreciate the dog whistles in there. Gen Z is either self-centered, apoplectic, or organizes their life according to your world view. Way to be an empathetic human being! I thought you believed in civility and listening instead of judging people based on their demographics?
@14, @18- the points you’re trying to make are not contradictory. Homelessness is not a single monolith. My understanding is that the majority of homeless people are not living on the street but are doubling up with friends, living in their cars on the DL, or in some other tenuous situation. A lot are employed. But they can’t afford housing because scarcity makes it expensive. And more cheap housing on the market would surely help them.
There is also the population living on the street or camping in the parks. It’s clear just walking past them that there is a very high prevalence of mental illness, and these appear to be the same people who are smoking Fenty on the corner. They really do need addiction and mental health treatment. If we don’t take care of both sides of the problem we won’t solve it. If anyone has numbers that say otherwise I’m all ears.
Now, if the city council would stop adopting ordinances that disincentivize providing cheap housing, it might make a dent in the first part. That means on the one hand relaxing some zoning and on the other being willing to set the expectation that people will actually pay their rent. Otherwise renting to the low end of the market is just way too risky.
On the second point, it may be time to insist that people with drug problems get treatment. Maybe a role for the courts, maybe something else. Same with those who are so mentally ill that they can’t take care of themselves. Letting them roam the streets is helping no one.
Greg Abbott doesn’t have to worry about my ever setting foot in the oil soaked, blood red neofascist Lone Star State of MAGAt Confusion. I feel truly sorry for all the unfortunate women and girls held captive in Texas who are forced to give birth like farm animals, with no consideration to rape, incest, or life threatening situations to the mother, like ectopic pregnancy.
The severity of this unwarranted misogyny at its cruelest reminds me of a scene from Thelma & Louise (1991), as Louise Sawyer (Susan Sarandon) and Thelma Dickinson (Geena Davis) speed off in Louise’s ’66 Thunderbird convertible, after blowing up a lecherous truck driver’s rig:
Louise (impressed, to Thelma): Where’d you learn to shoot like that?
Thelma (laughing): Oh, off the TV! Where’d you learn to shoot like that?
Louise: Texas!
I have a feeling that, in its current state of lawlessness, RepubliKKKan legislators in Texas–especially those who love their guns and worship the NRA— might soon see a sharp increase of women shooting to kill their male oppressors. And it’s going to get bloody.
@18 kristofarian, @25 COMTE, and @31 dvs99 for the WIN!
Bravo and well said regarding our national, statewide, and local homelessness problems.