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Comments
The problem isn't a money one. Nor is it one of clompassion. It's a useless compassion though enabling people literally to take over sidewalks with tents and tables and carts. That does no good for the homeless person and it harms to taxpayers who want to do business or just have fun in Seattle.
But hey, Keep adding taxes and refusing to enforce reasonable laws on grounds of false compassion.. In a few years all you'll have downtown is massive corporations, wealthy tech workers and homeless camps.
I think I'm going to start calling you "Chicken Little"...
Until the City Council can tell us why all of our previous spending has failed, they should not propose any new taxes or spending on homelessness. I hope Mayor Durkan vetoes this bill if it passes.
what an utterly stupid assertion. we spend pennies on homelessness here, compared to other major cities, and our homelessness problem is larger
https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news…
compared to 2.3 Billion in NYC
https://nypost.com/2017/02/15/city-spend…
a city with seven times the homeless population
https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/citie…
https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-…
If you did the same sort of analysis for NYC, you would get a much larger number.
But anyway, it's not a mystery why we have such a big problem. The median rent is rising, and the amount of homes is falling relative to the number of people here.
There 2017 Point-inTime Count revealed 11,643 people experiencing homelessness in King County. http://allhomekc.org/wp-content/uploads/…
That works out to $16,798 per homeless person, per year. That's a lot of pennies.
Every consultant the city has retained--and taxpayers have paid for--has essentially concluded that we are throwing away money on programs that don't work, and could house our entire homeless population within existing expenditure levels. https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/09…
As a result, there are a lot of people that think what @3 is suggesting makes an awful lot of sense. What we've been doing hasn't been working. Anyone can see that.
But don't let truth interrupt your false narrative.
You first.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re72di5p…
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That's what we thought......
Why "house" them?
If they can't work, get SSI.
If they don't qualify for a "Disability".
Then they shouldn't get "Housing".
If I sign up as homeless do I get a free place to stay?
Once you give a "homeless" person a house, then what?
simply enforce the laws, equally, and we will see a major improvement of the quality of life for normal, tax paying, hard working citizens. then, offer serious help to those who truly wish to be self sufficient one day (which is quite a stretch for someone that has been living in a tent shooting drugs for years)
Article says 5 year revenue for this specific tax will give us over 2,000 low income housing units. TOPS it will be 930 homes, if the full $75 Million is collected, minus roughly 25%that will go to other things relating to homelessness.
I suspect it will offer less low income housing that 930. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 775-825 units, taking into account increase in land costs over the next 5 years.
What a fucking joke. Can't believe people are falling for this nonsense.
You should try it yourself sometime.
We constantly refer to ourselves as the greatest nation on earth when we are no such thing, not even close. We allow people to live and die on the streets. We allow people to starve. We allow people to spent their lives incarcerated. We refuse to pay people living wages, provide affordable education, housing, health care, etc. We degrade, denigrate, violate, and vilify PEOPLE - treat them like garbage and allow them to be thrown away like trash. Nearly half of the people being treated this way are CHILDREN.
The ONLY measure of as society is how it treats its most vulnerable. Being poor is not a crime. How we treat the poor IS a crime. Want to end homelessness and never have to hear about it again? HOUSE THE HOMELESS. FEED THE HUNGRY. TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY WHO NEED TO BE TAKEN CARE OF - INSTEAD OF PROSTRATING OURSELVES ENDLESSLY TO THE WEALTHY, TO BILLION DOLLAR PROFITS, TO CORPORATIONS, TO THE WEALTHY, TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE DEEMED "WORTHY" - WORTHY OF ASSISTANCE, OF HELP, OF WHATEVER.
If you are an able bodied productive member of society who contributes positively to your community and the society at large, this should not be a difficult concept to understand and wholeheartedly support. Instead the same tired tropes are dragged out again and again about how no one deserves a free ride. Everyone in this country who is wealthy got a free ride in one way or another. Everyone in this country, the wealthiest country in the world, the so-called greatest nation on earth, deserves to have not just basic needs met, but to be cared for and brought into the fold of community and society by any and all means necessary.
I fully expect humanity will destroy itself and the earth will finally be free before this happens. And we believe we are the most intelligent beings on the planet. We are purposely destroying the planet and don't care about anything except money. Humanity deserves to end and end violently (which it will) because it is so sick, so depraved, so devoid of actual HUMANITY that it would rather destroy itself and end than do what needs to be done to take care of itself.
Here's a report from this paper:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/03…
But most of the people who believe that everyone is flocking to Seattle for our sweet, sweet free stuff (ignoring our shitty weather) dismisses every study because they don't match their beliefs.