"With 200 million black souls, that country counts as the biggest and most populace African economy."

"Populous" is the correct word to use here, Charles. You look dumb when you make mistakes like this.

It comes down to measuring our intent vs our impact, doesn’t it? We can’t explain away our failures with statements of intent. I want the schools that reopen their doors to children, I want housed citizens, police that do not violate constitutional rights of citizens. Perhaps instead of getting so defensive, we could, you know, take notes?

We all know that Bellevue is a multi-ethnic city surrounded by multi-ethnic suburbs, whereas Seattle is increasingly growing Whiter and more Latino every year.

Obviously, Seattle is doomed.

Either that or we need to restore our zoning to the original 1930s 6 story multi-family housing.

@4 Regarding "Seattle is increasingly growing Whiter and more Latino every year." No, it's not. In fact, the opposite is true:

https://population-and-demographics-seattlecitygis.hub.arcgis.com/pages/neighborhood-change

"One reading is: Yes, Seattle has lost its head (gone too far to the left) and, as a consequence, is losing its business edge; the other is, this is a racist article dressed up as common sense and pushed by one of the largest news institutions in the region"

Since Talton makes zero mention of race in his article and instead focuses on the inability of the city government to you know actually run the city I'd say the answer is obviously the first choice. As usual when it doesn't fit the narrative that is being pushed here the Asian community is completely left out of the conversation. Last week they were part of the BIPOC community but I guess they are out again this week.

This is the second time today I'm going to comment on Talton's article, and I haven't even commented on the Seattle Times. Jeesh, you write dozens of great articles, and people want to focus on the really shitty one.

But it is shitty. It is lazy, and contradicts much of what Jon Talton has written about, while dealing with subjects he obviously doesn't know shit about (something both he and Charles are guilty of at times). The idea that we need to please our corporate overlords is bullshit. That isn't going well for Everett, which has bent over backwards for Boeing, only to see them slowly, painfully skip town. It doesn't matter that the skilled workers and skilled contractors are here. It doesn't matter that the state has given them millions. They are going. Tough shit.

Which is why, at the end of the day, it is nuts to bend over for Amazon. Amazon isn't going to cut off too much of their nose just because of a tiny tax. Oh, they are capable of pulling a Seattle SuperSonics, and fucking up their bottom line to send a message. But they won't, because most of the people who actually build the things that make them money would rather live in Seattle than Bellevue. Even if they do leave, someone else will take their place, because Seattle is home to the UW, and way more colleges than Bellevue. That, as Jon Talton knows very well, is why Seattle is doing well economically.

Then, of course, we get into the subject that Talton doesn't know shit about: housing. The reason there are so many homeless in Seattle is because we ignored the boom, and didn't change our zoning. As a result of our antiquated and yes, racist zoning rules, housing prices have skyrocketed. We have a shitload more jobs, but not that many more homes. Is Bellevue going to learn from our mistakes, and build enough housing? Of course not. They are worse than us. Housing prices will be high, which will lead to a lot more homeless.

It really isn't that complicated, and I'm sure Talton would agree if he only spent a little time on the subject. Zoning acts as a cartel. It benefits the owners, but not the buyers (or renters). More jobs and the cartel pushes costs upward. Higher housing costs lead to more homeless. This leaves municipalities scrambling to fix a problem they more or less had under control when housing prices were cheaper. Adding public housing is more expensive and there are more homeless -- there simply isn't enough money to solve the problem, despite several levies.

The only solution is to dramatically change the zoning, which really wouldn't be that hard. Simply allow more low-height density in the vast majority of housing within the city. Instead of houses on big lots, build row houses and small apartment buildings. Everywhere.

@6 The fact that Talton avoids mentioning race in his lock-up-the-hobos column is exactly what Mudede is addressing in his rambling response here. Good gravy does he ever need an editor though.

Bellevue owes Seattle a lot. Where do the homeless go when they’re kicked out of Bellevue? Bellevue is chronically immature like Seattle’s libertarian little brother who hasn’t figured out that you can’t be a self made man while mooching off your big brother. Seattle has its problems and Charles Mudede has a genius way of identifying them. But Bellevue is so imbecilic it manages to make one feel good about Seattle again.

Bellevue is better, Charles? Really? Swifty must be clinking glasses in his prized private reserve gun arsenal and Archie Bunker hole, laughing his NRA-worshipping ass off. I'm surprised he isn't already here, gloating like the loudmouthed Eastside trolling fool he so typically is.

@10 armchair: Thank you. Maybe it's because I'm Seattle-born. Despite its ups and downs, strengths, and failures, Seattle is the city of my roots. If I had to choose between Seattle and Bellevue, I'd choose Seattle any day. My parents threatened to disown me if I messed up on the city streets.

Why the obsession to compare the two in the first place?

lol Zimbabwenomics sure have worked out

@Sir Toby II - very true, most of them are scrambled eggs in the head. As I type this, I'm seeing two homeless just sleeping on the sidewalk of 45th with their booze. U-District is beyond repulsive now. It used to be just sketchy, but there's junkies everywhere. Last time I went over there was an angry mentally unstable black guy banging a cane on a water meter on the sidewalk, yelling about Babylon.

You nailed it Sir Toby ii. For the record I'd enjoy having an income of $100,000 per year. Any proposals out there to spend that on the semi-hard working, tax-paying individuals that support Seattle city council idiocy? Guess not. The junkies, drunks and unemployable that dominate Seattle are its growth industry. Can't bite the hand that feeds the army of therapists, aid workers and homeless 'experts' paid handsomely to not deal with the problem.

2) I didn't know the word populace existed.

Charles making it all about race while ignoring the many very successful Asian-descended persons who make up nearly 40% of Bellevue. And during the height of all this anti-Asian hate, no less!

@7 "The reason there are so many homeless in Seattle is because we ignored the boom, and didn't change our zoning." Study in 2014 estimated that current zoning would allow 223,717 housing units http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/OPCD/OngoingInitiatives/SeattlesComprehensivePlan/DevelopmentCapacityReport.pdf. The private sector didn't build 200,000+ units because they would not make enough profit to satisfy their investors by doing so. And there isn't enough money for nonprofits to build very low income housing for everyone without shelter.

@1: Ah yes- who better to defend the Bellvue mindset than a sitcom Tory vampire.

@13 -- Bullshit. Around 44% of the homeless in this country are employed. How the fuck can you be unemployable while you are also holding down a job? You have no idea how most homeless live. You see people living on the street and think "That dude is homeless". Yeah, sure, but he is only the tip of the iceberg, dumbshit. (While you, in contrast, are merely the tip of the dumbshit iceberg.) For every person living on the street, there are two living in their cars, and a dozen couch surfing. Then you have people in jail, or otherwise institutionalized. Over 4,000 students in Seattle Public Schools are homeless. Wrap your tiny little head around that. All those kids are unemployable? Fuck off.

Look, some homeless have mental problems. Some are addicts. A lot are disabled.

What they all have in common is that they can't afford a place to live. Do you really think rich people aren't crazy, or drug addicts? Give me a fucking break. Of course they are. The difference is they have money.

Homelessness goes up when the economy gets worse, or housing prices go up. Seattle had the latter, big time. Why the fuck do you think Seattle saw such a huge rise in homelessness? Holy shit, asshole, get a clue.

@18: "Allowing that sort of thing is a public policy choice."

Yes. But at a higher level than Seattle, Bellevue and even Washington State is prepared to deal with. We don't institutionalize people for being crazy and on the street. Mainly because we have few places left to do so. We don't force them into treatment. Thank the anti-psychiatry movement for that. I guess if we find a crazy person on the street, we can drop them off at the Scientologists and see if they can help out.

Seattle has lost the plot.....completely. I grew up here and love this city. It’s like selling a beautiful house you took care of that had a beautiful yard and you sold it to a buyer who wrote you a love letter about your home so you picked them only to drive by a few years later to see that once jewel of the neighborhood completely unrecognizable and completely neglected and trashed..... we need to do something..... we need to seriously think about taking it to the streets protest style.... we need to let our city heads know that they are on notice. This city is in a gross state of neglect and it will only get worse if we just stand by and let it. We can save our city. A serious investigation needs to be looked into as to where they are allocating a $100,000,000.00 a year on 11,500- 18,000 people a year..... the gig is up. Enough is enough.

@23: Seattle's homeless survey in late 2016 produced the following results:

-- 39% reported themselves as "unemployed," with another 20% reporting themselves as "unable to work."

-- 55% reported drug use, including alcohol, with ~35% reporting either heroin, meth', or crack as the drug used.

(http://coshumaninterests-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/City-of-Seattle-Report-FINAL-with-4.11.17-additions.pdf

That population cannot afford housing at any price. We should stop pretending they can. When we pretend they can, we are being cruel to them, and we cannot solve a problem unless we can describe it properly.

"Homelessness goes up when the economy gets worse,"

Our homeless population grew during a decade (start of 2010 through start of 2020) when Seattle's unemployment rate dropped linearly from 10% to 3%. In that same survey, a minority reported they most recently became homeless in Seattle, and a smaller minority reported having grown up here. "Our" homeless problem was created by an influx of already-homeless drug users, not locals down on their luck. That is the reality we must address, or else we can continue spending $100,000,000 annually -- whilst watching homeless persons die needlessly in our parks and on our sidewalks.

28: Look, ok, substance abuse plays a role in this- and society needs to devote far more resources to helping those who are trying to "get clean".

But your preferred approach- throwing people with substance abuse issues into mental institutions, jails, or prisons- is not an answer to that.

Giving people a criminal record and then sending them back out into the world after a period of incarceration is just going to guarantee that they can't get jobs- and thus will not be able to start paying for even the lowest-income forms of housing, and that they will, almost certainly begin abusing substances again.

Coercion doesn't work and incarceration/institutionalization doesn't work.

And in a state where we one our largest inpatient institutions for people with mental wellness issues was closed several years ago due to the disgraceful conditions inside, where the hell would they be institutionalized anyway in this state? We don't have enough existing state institutions, and privately-owned institutions run for profit are almost always scandalously unacceptable?

Knowing all that, why are you still all-in on coercive, punitive, institutional approaches that never really do anything but hide those people like you see as imperfect from the site of those of you who see yourselves as inherently superior and inherently entitled to judge?

Stocks and bonds are not unproductive assest you commie, they represent a redirection of consumption into business or government endevours to spur growth, that growth and innovation is what allows a return on investment. You obviously have never touched a non-Marxist economics book.

@29: "Look, ok, substance abuse plays a role in this..."

You have done what neither the entire Seattle City Council, nor the entire staff of The Stranger, have managed: you have admitted to one obvious reality at the root of Seattle's homelessness crisis. We adults cannot call this an accomplishment, nor will we lavish praise upon it, but it does represent a welcome, albeit small, step forward. (It does make you severely overqualified to work at either our Council or The Stranger, though.)

'...and society needs to devote far more resources to helping those who are trying to "get clean".'

Absolutely we should. Addiction is a disease, and blaming a victim of a disease for having a disease is cruel, immoral, and counterproductive. The question is, how best do we assist our fellow humans who suffer from the disease of addiction?

"Coercion doesn't work and incarceration/institutionalization doesn't work."

Wow -- you wrote that as if it was a fact, as if it was something other than a woefully ignorant opinion, as if it was a statement to be considered seriously in a dialog about addiction and treatment. I envy your privilege.

Now, in reality, mandated treatment for addiction has been studied, and the results do not agree with your ignorant opinion (no matter how forcefully you state your ignorant opinion as if it was indeed a fact). For one of many examples:

"Interestingly, those who were mandated demonstrated less motivation at treatment entry, yet were more likely to complete treatment compared to those who were not court-ordered to treatment. While controlling for covariates known to be related to treatment completion, the logistic regression analyses demonstrated that court-ordered offenders were over 10 times more likely to complete treatment compared to those who entered treatment voluntarily (OR=10.9, CI=2.0-59.1, p=.006). These findings demonstrate that stipulated treatment for offenders may be an effective way to increase treatment compliance."

(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23192219/)

So for persons suffering from the disease of addiction who do not volunteer for treatment, a mandated treatment program may work. If persons steal to support addiction, arrest for theft and sentencing which includes mandated treatment may provide a path for cure of the addiction. Why, then, should we not avail ourselves of this option if we find it to be necessary? Why should we leave a person suffering from serious disease to his suffering, if we can help him to cure it?

(And no, no one needs any more of your risibly ignorant opinions, amusing though they might be. Please answer the question, and show your work, as I have here.)

Give me Seattle any day, Bellevue is rather antiseptic and lacking in personality. Like Federal Way, they don't have an Old Towne any longer, or in the case of Federal Way never really did--only a widening in the road--having obliterated it in the name of mindless, zealous real estate development in the name of the almighty dollar. Seattle has become a great melting pot, like Vancouver B.C., and is the superior city in many ways, not only in terms of ethnic diversity but also entertainment and real feel, whereas Bellevue rolls up the carpet and turns out the lights at 6:00 pm. Bellevue is a good place to experiment with drugs due to the lack of stimulation, allowing the user to enter the realm of the senses unimpeded, whereas Seattle is where you would go to obtain the drugs, along with a nice meal, decent cup of espresso and perhaps grab a Chastity Belt or Rolling Stones CD at Vinyl Scream or whatever that place is called. Bellevue is the domain of country club tools and squares pissing away mommy and daddy's estate while they ogle designer jeans at Nordstrom and finger-diddle themselves. For example, you would never see a defund the police movement in Bellevue, or a push for more progressive leadership like Lorena González or Colleen Echohawk, with all the scared whiteys looking for hobos in the garden and peering from behind their designer curtains and clutching their Montrachet Grand Cru Chardonnay. Bellevue Squares think an Indian is the guy or gal who gives them software support over the phone from Chennai when their computerized bun-warmer is on the fritz. Seattle rules with our progressive world view and collective desire to make the world a better place and treat our friends and neighbors honestly, including the Duwamish Indians--our original people, to paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel.

@31: The Stranger's writers enjoy having Cal Anderson Park and Bobby Morris Playfield turned into disease-ridden, needle-strewn wastelands of suffering and despair. They can look down, literally -- and more important, figuratively -- from their office, and watch real-time poverty porn, all day, every day. At any moment, their own low-paying jobs may wink out of existence, individually or en masse, but at least they're not living in unsanitary conditions with thieves and addicts.

35: None of what exists in Cal Anderson Park, oh, and btw, nobody was ever denying that substance abuse isn't an issue in Seattle; they were just saying, and history proves this- that you can't solve homelessness by arresting people for possessing drugs for personal use; We'd still have large-scale homelessness even if the city was completely drug-free- all major cities on the planet, including those cities with discredited Eighties/Nineties-style "zero tolerance" policies on substance-"Just Say No" failed everywhere it was tried- still have massive issues with homelessness.

Face it, the SIngapore/Ed Koch/Rudy Giuliani/ Bill Clinton in the Nineties approach was a total failure then, and all it did was stigmatize a generation for the sake of stigmatizing a generation

The most important thing in moving people away from substance abuse is not arresting people- throwing people in jail for substance abuse never works; at most it means that if they get out of jail and are off drugs, they switch to alcoholism instead and the effects of that are just as bad on a city as the effects of substance abuse- the most important thing is to offer community drug treatment centers people can go to and get help without having to risk arrest- people who are given a criminal record simply don't recover from getting a criminal record and are usually blacklisted from any employment that plays anything close to a living wage for the rest of their lives. When the system stigmatizes people in situations like this, it simply destroys hope.

Substance abuse is not something imported from somewhere else- it is PART of the homelessness problem, it is a product of despair as often as anything else, and destroying any hope a person could ever have for the rest of their life by giving them a criminal record is no answer to anything- the criminal justice system simply can't rescue people from drugs by arresting them; at most, it switches them to different drugs, and there is no meaningful difference between the effects of abusing meth or heroin and the effects of abusing alcohol.

Offer people hope. Offer them a path to something better. That's what works.

Punishment doesn't- and the only people who should ever be punished regarding substances are dealers and the those who supply the dealers.

@36 That’s a good question, I do not know. It could be city management, police tactics, private security in combination with the will of the citizenry—who knows? If you look carefully however, the homeless are still there on the wooded perimeter of these suburban areas. For example, I see a pup tent in the woods just west of I-405 and south of Coal Creek Parkway on my nightly commute. I think the homeless folks who are camping for real are still in Bellevue, they’ve just migrated to the wooded green spaces on the outskirts of town. Seattle has a more accommodating, compassionate social policy, so we accept these vagabonds who do not fit into the mainstream. If you had a run of bad luck and lost your health and medical insurance or home, you would live in the woods too.

Which area has more social services available, Seattle or Bellevue?

@36 - perhaps because Bellevue fails to step up and pay its fair share of meeting the needs of the homeless? I grew up over there. People pretty much defined your value by how much money you (or your parents) had to a much much greater degree than they ever did in Seattle. Not a lot of giving a damn about others IIRC.

It can't be the case that Bellevue does not generate a homeless population. Cost of living is not lower in Bellevue. I would guess the incidence of mental illness is not lower. And believe me, there's plenty o' drug use over there.

The difference appears to be that Bellevue (and other cities, and don't even START me on Mercer Island) is happy to disingenuously do nothing and watch the taxpayers of Seattle pick up it's slack. Until those bastards agree to help, Seattle is going to be stuck with the entire problem.

@35: Sorry to read you're not familiar with current events. Seattle has not been jailing drug users for years: "Many people who once would have been locked up are now immediately offered help. It is a profound shift that builds on efforts launched here in recent years to divert low-level drug offenders into treatment and other programs to assist with recovery."

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/no-charges-for-personal-drug-possession-seattles-bold-gamble-to-bring-peace-after-the-war-on-drugs/2019/06/11/69a7bb46-7285-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html)

I wasn't talking about putting addicts in jail, but rather diverting addicts from jail sentences into mandatory treatment programs. (You know, the ones which work over 10 times better than voluntary treatment programs.) That way, the addicts get cured and back into real life, without any of the problems you mentioned.

"and btw, nobody was ever denying that substance abuse isn't an issue in Seattle."

Really? How many times has The Stranger admitted substance abuse was a root cause of homelessness? How many times has anyone on our City Council admitted it? Mike O'Brien lost his job for falsely claiming Seattle's homeless persons were locals who'd lost their jobs, when anyone in downtown Ballard could plainly see this was not true. Official denial of the root causes of homelessness has crippled Seattle's response for years. Try to find quotes from The Stranger or our Council, and you'll see how little interest they have in admitting these obvious points.

43: As we speak, nobody is actually preventing local government from doing what you call for there- it's not as though that approach is being blocked because The Stranger and the left are somehow blocking it all by themselves against the will of the voters- the same voters who keep re-electing the city councillors who don't back your approach, and doing so by solid margins. It it isn't the main approach, it is likely that there is a widespread sense that what you call for is going to solve the problem.

It's not as though we can simply assume that all or even MOST of the homelessness issue is down to substance abuse- some, but that can't account for the majority of it.

And if The Stranger didn't want to talk about substance abuse as a factor to the degree that you do, it is likely that that's because people like you, from the authoritarianism-for-authoritarianism's sake wing of the corporate center-to-center-right, would take that as false vindication of the claim that homelessness is mainly something imported into Seattle from outside the city and that the actions of local corporate power and the local housing-industrial-complex bear no major responsibility.

It is also likely that a lot of substance abuse among the homeless is a byproduct OF homelessness- that it is seen as a means to cope with the utter hopelessness the homeless are endlessly caused to feel like they are irredeemable and subhuman, and that their condition is their own fault. It's the totally-discredited "bad choices" narrative from the Reagan Eighties and the Clinton Nineties, revived by KOMO-4 and the Seattle Times because it gets ratings and sells papers.

Are there homeless people with substance abuse issues? Yes. Does that fact mean that substance abuse is the cause of most homelessness and that most of the homeless are essentially two-legged pseudo-vermin that simply chose to dehumanize themselves for shits and giggles? Not so much.

And if your approached worked, Seattle would have essentially had no homelessness in the Eighties and Nineties, when your approach was backed by everyone in city hall and on the city council. As we both know, that was not the case.

Yes, address substance abuse...but do it without shaming and sanctimony and tie it to real offers of hope.

@44: " As we speak, nobody is actually preventing local government from doing what you call for there..."

King County is already doing it, as the quoted and linked article clearly reports. It's Seattle's City Council which is not making reality-based policy to match.

"...the same voters who keep re-electing the city councillors who don't back your approach..."

Why do you imagine we are getting what we voted for? CM Herbold got re-elected on a promise of adequate funding for SPD. Once safely re-elected, she tried (and failed) to defund SPD by 50%. This set off a panic amongst us in her constituency, especially among persons of color near the new SPD SW Precinct, who feared losing their police protection.

"It's not as though we can simply assume that all or even MOST of the homelessness issue is down to substance abuse..."

I have asked no one to assume that. I have pointed to the City of Seattle's own data, which shows a majority of homeless persons reporting drug use. I request the Seattle City Council make policy which follows data collected by the city. That is all. If you have a problem with a data-driven approach to policy-making, please let us know what it is.

"And if The Stranger didn't want to talk about substance abuse as a factor to the degree that you do, it is likely that that's because people like you,"

While I have little doubt you have no doubt about your ability to read minds at The Stranger, they still do not need my permission to conduct reality-based dialog about our civic problems. Their failure to do so is upon them, not upon anyone else.

"...from the authoritarianism-for-authoritarianism's sake..."

In this very thread, I proposed NOT putting thieves in jail for theft, if drug addiction motivated their thievery. You probably should not throw around big long fancy words you clearly do not understand.

"...the claim that homelessness is mainly something imported into Seattle from outside the city..."

That claim was made by the homeless themselves. When asked where they had most recently become homeless, a minority responded "Seattle." When asked if originally from Seattle, a large majority -- over two-thirds! -- replied "No." So, our homeless themselves claim they were mostly not born in Seattle, and moved to Seattle already homeless. Therefore, homelessness is mostly something imported from outside the city, although that's a weird way of saying people chose to move to Seattle after becoming homeless elsewhere.

"It is also likely that a lot of substance abuse among the homeless is a byproduct OF homelessness-"

That may indeed be possible, but that merely argues for the approach I've given, and that King County, with no help from the Seattle City Council, now pursues.

"Are there homeless people with substance abuse issues? Yes."

Again, thank you for saying what The Stranger and our City Council will not.

"Does that fact mean that substance abuse is the cause of most homelessness..."

Possibly. Given that most of our homeless arrived here already homeless, local factors in Seattle did not cause a majority of them to become homeless. Whether they arrived here already addicts would require more research.

"And if your approached worked,"

Is our current approach working? You never seem to get around to saying, somehow.

"Yes, address substance abuse...but do it without shaming and sanctimony and tie it to real offers of hope."

Like a mandatory drug-treatment program, one that is 10+ more likely to succeed than a voluntary one? I support that. Do you?

@41 - Another way to look at it is that other cities just run the homeless out of town and provide no services, so they come to Seattle. The "public policy" of which you speak seems a little like human decency when you consider the Eastside alternative.

@49 - The homeless issue is a lot more than junkies. Where are the shelters in Bellevue? The social services? Let me guess - they found it more expedient to let Seattle foot the bill for all of this. Same with Mercer Island and Renton. Fuck off all of them.

@51 I work right next to a couple. Agree that they are not a greaat influence on the neighborhood. But that does not mean that every other city has a right to push it's problems onto Seattle. Anyone who thinks that every other city in the county doesn't bear its share of the blame for creating problems, or that they have as much of an obligation to solve it as we do, is, as you would say, "fucking delusional."

The only way this gets solved is if we reduce the need for people to literally live on the streets. There need to be institutions for those who are too mentally ill to take care of themselves. There need to be mandatory treatment programs for those whose drug or alcohol problems have become an issue for everyone else. And (this is the hardest part by far) there needs to be some kind of role in society for those who have no real skills. Half of the problem is that there are no manual labor jobs left for a fair number of people. I don't have the solution for that. I don't think it is Oliver Twist's workhouse, but I don't know what it is.

@52: "There need to be institutions for those who are too mentally ill to take care of themselves. There need to be mandatory treatment programs for those whose drug or alcohol problems have become an issue for everyone else."

Look above in this comment thread (@29) for why we're not doing any of that: "Coercion doesn't work and incarceration/institutionalization doesn't work." Notice how actual facts, supplied by a peer-reviewed paper (i.e., actual scientific knowledge) didn't change his opinion at all. Elsewhere in The Stranger, Colleen Echohawk tells us, again with total certainty and no facts, that the Navigation Team and sweeps don't work. CM Sawant needs homeless people to wear her red T-shirts at her rallies, because actual Seattle residents don't ever attend. Our homeless-industrial complex enjoys spending our $100,000,000/year. On and on we go, with people who moved to Seattle already homeless continuing to die in our streets and parks, and the obvious solutions are all hand-waved away.

"And (this is the hardest part by far) there needs to be some kind of role in society for those who have no real skills. Half of the problem is that there are no manual labor jobs left for a fair number of people. I don't have the solution for that."

Most of the homeless use drugs, and once cured of addictions, could be working at Amazon for $15/hour, but again, that would require our City Council to work with Amazon, not against.

It's not as simple as saying "once cured of addictions". People who work in drug treatment know that there is no such thing as "cure"- it's "recovery". and it's a constant process.

It's not the measles, and it ties in with any number of psychological issues, especially depression.

As to your peer-reviewed study, even you couldn't make any stronger recommendation for the coercion/punishment approach than "it COULD work". It might, it might not.

It's a waste of time to try and pretend homelessness is a scourge from without- the homeless are people from this country, so the problem, even if it started in other cities, is one all communities have an obligation to share.

Nobody is trying to recruit the homeless to come here- they come here-in addition to those who were always here, which were and are a large number- simply becuae desperate people are always attracted to large cities- it's a global phenomenon.

Sawant doesn't recruit them- and she's won two terms on the council so your belief that nobody in Seattle supports her is bullshit- and I think we can assume Colleen Echohawk knows as much about the issue as you do.

And a major reason people start using substances is the range of emotional crises market capitalism inflicts on people- so knock off the Trumpsprache on that issue.

Homelessness has grown since the Eighties in direct proportion to market capitalism's growing nastiness and the "they aren't human/leave them to rot/ it's their own damn fault" mentality the wealthy and people like yourself- who demonize and dehumanize the homeless mainly to absolve yourself of any responsibility to play a constructive role and any need to show empathy- have gone out of your ways to push.

And it's been just as bad in cities where the approach was authoritarian- like Giuliani and Bloomberg's New York, and San Francisco under Gavin Newsom-where camps were destroyed without the homeless even being given the chance to collect their belongings before the destruction began.