I know not to expect particular news stories, but I thought Fritz Mondale's passing would get a mention in Slog AM. Anyhow, RIP Fritz.

RE: Voting to make camping illegal when shelters are open.

90 days in jail, eh?

I've got a great plan for them to solve homelessness! Here it is: I take 10% of everyone's income and then burn it in front of their faces. Homelessness solved! You're welcome!

4/20 is like cinco de mayo. Amateur hour for attention whores. Proper stoners just go about their business like any other day.

@7, no, I don't. And your response is ridiculously simplistic.

First, we're still in a pandemic. Cases are on the rise in King Co., and we are on the verge of dropping back to Phase 2 of reopening. If I was homeless right now, I would absolutely refuse to go to a shelter, and would far rather live in a tent.

Second, setting the pandemic aside, criminalizing homelessness is the worst solution to a very real problem. Yes, it would be great to get homeless people out of public parks. But subjecting them to arrest, tossing all their belongings, and throwing them in jail is just about the least effective and most expensive way to accomplish that goal. Imprisoning homeless people is ridiculously expensive, and makes just about everything else worse. Addicts need treatment. People with mental health problems need counseling. Sometimes poor people just need a little help getting some training and a job to get back on their feet after a massive wave of unemployment. None of that is helped by throwing homeless people in jail.

@7,

All depends on the shelter. Is it a big open room full of sick people coughing and snoring all night? Do people steal your stuff? Are there roaches and bedbugs everywhere? Do religious people pester you? Does it smell like piss, shit, and vomit? If the shelters are made too unpleasant, camping in the park sounds like a great alternative.

I can say that throwing them in jail for 90 days does jack shit. Oh wait, it does do one thing, it wastes money.

It is the most expensive way to handle the homeless problem. Instead of shelters they will have jails. Instead of public health experts to deal with the issues of the homeless (sorry, the inmates) they will have prison guards. Instead of case workers overseeing it they will have lawyers and judges. It will be a shitload more expensive, and a shitload less effective.

@10,

And the majority of homeless who are NOT drug addicts? Why aren't they staying in the shelters?

Yeah, these self-appointed (white, male) contrarians are pretty tiresome. It's the same stunt across different media markets. - "I have the right to say whatever I want"!
Saying stupid shit is still stupid, not courageous.

Oh, wait everyone - Duck Fart once knew a lady (probably lived in Niagara, you wouldn't know her) who was abusing the system in a way that conveniently supports his overly simplistic position but was able to "kick the pipe" when given the proper financial motivations to do so - so there you have it! Let's just threaten to withhold those fictitious government child support payments. It worked on Niagara Lady, it'll work in Seattle. Problem solved!

@9/12 so what is the solution then? Letting people continue to camp out in the parks indefinitely is not going to work and there will never be enough resources/funding to permanently house them in the city. Many of the homeless are unable to make rational decisions due to addiction/mental illness and whether you want to admit or not there are others who are completely comfortable with their no rules lifestyle.

There needs to a prod to either get them to accept treatment/resources or move along and go back to whence they came. It's no secret that Seattle attracts homeless individuals from outside the city due to the availability of resources and permissive attitude. Some level of accountability would certainly lead to a percentage of the homeless community leaving for greener pastures making it easier to care for those that truly want and need help. For those that remain we all know there is no way they will actually serve jail time but this type of regulation can get them into the system and allow case managers a chance to interact with them. Hopefully at some point they get tired of the rinse and repeat and actually accept the help that's being offered them.

Yet another example of a King County city shirking its responsibilities. I'd be willing to bet that a good number of Auburn's homeless are already on the bus to Woodland Park.

"Dr. Drew . . . argued homelessness is "primarily driven by a significant need for mental health and addiction treatment" rather than a lack of housing . . ."

I don't know who this guy is, but his assessment is correct. The majority of persons in King County experiencing chronic homelessness report they lost stable housing due to substance abuse and/or mental health issues. See https://regionalhomelesssystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Count-Us-In-2020-Final_7.29.2020.pdf, at p.48

An astonishing 73% of our chronically homeless population have a psychiatric or emotional condition such as depression or schizophrenia. See https://regionalhomelesssystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Count-Us-In-2020-Final_7.29.2020.pdf, at p.49

I don't know why it's apparently controversial to suggest that persons experiencing homelessness would benefit from mental health and substance abuse treatment.

If you see a swarm of bees, call Sawant and tell her there is a group of socialist workers being led by a rival queen.

Oh, and @3, I'd be willing to bet that a high percentage of Slog readers have no idea who Walter Mondale was, and many born after he was out of office. He was a nice enough guy for a 1960s - 1980s politician, but not memorable for anything in particular, other than being a one-term VP under Carter, and winning only one state in his spectacularly unsuccessful presidential run.

So, yeah, probably not the highest priority news item for Sloggers.

We were a long, long way from having Mondale instead of Reagan. Man, that election was a beatdown in ‘84. The poor guy lost every goddamn state except Minnesota.

I believe they’re called ‘weederjacks,' Rich. In any case the Gal with the wheelbarrowful of Product’s got My number. Happy four fucking twenty.

AWESOME illy, from Mike Force btw...

whe ronny raygun gutted cum Defunded the Unions c.1980, Dem support plummetted. and then he made College Unaffordable but at least he kept the Protesters and Negroes occupied with his enrichment of our decades-long utterly FAILED War on Drugs Users. oh wait -- see: Prisons for Profit or where DID those Slave Patrols go?

@28,

Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic about the verdict based on the speed with which a decision was reached.

Gosh, I don't know much about homelessness other than I'm glad and grateful that I am not. Can't think of any solid answers for it. Gonna leave that to the younger, smarter folk, but it sure is a depressing situation to be in and a super-tough one to solve.

There's been a full-forced, well-funded campaign here in Los Angeles for about the last three years to house homeless veterans...new construction, central location, financial and health assistance. The new housing doesn't have any draconian rules about living there. Sounds pretty cool - a warm, safe place to hang your hat. Was looking like a success story.

And it has been for many, but a recent assessment shows that after three years, more than 40% of the housed vets have returned to the streets. What does that mean for solving the homeless crisis generally if there is a sizable chuck of that population who prefers(?) tents and sleeping bags? Like I said, depressing and hard to solve.

@22 At what that would cost the city in jail time, you could put every homeless person in Seattle up in a Holiday Inn Express and feed them three meals a day from room service. Keeping people in jail is ludicrously expensive compared to, you know, actually putting them in a house.

Why is it that conservatives bleat so hard about government spending and then want to go and piss away vast sums money on locking people up?

@16,

Well, my solution will never be implemented so no reason in even bothering to talk about it (I'll give you a hint though, it involves massive tax increases on the wealthy and the government taking over a lot of land to build affordable housing).

Just endlessly clearing out parks and threatening with jail (or actually sending them to jail) is utterly futile. It's not as if there's some static number of homeless and if you just keep putting them in jail, as @22 suggests, after a few months there suddenly won't be any more homeless. New people become homeless all the time, so trying to "wear them down" doesn't even make sense. There'll always be a fresh batch of homeless to restart the "throw them in jail for 90 days, then when they get out do it again" forever and ever and ever. Just a rotating 10% of the population in jail. And that's in addition to all the criminals already in jail too.

That's fucking expensive. And pointless. And cruel.

@36 For some people, probably. But for most people? It will depend a lot on the shelters available (if any), the barriers to entry in those shelters, and people's willingness to accept those barriers. I don't have an answer to that, except for the first one. There's not enough shelter space available right now for the people camping in parks. So that's out the window.

@37 Glad you told me. I'd never have guessed otherwise from your postings here.

@42,

My solutions? I've offered them often. Here you go: Raise taxes and increase housing and services.

@45,

Of course I know it won't be implemented. I said it myself in my comment @39, which you then criticized. You have a short memory.

The ultra wealthy and monied corporate interests have brainwashed enough of you people to believe that it's more important for the wealthy to keep hoarding their gold than it is to help the poor. You fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and continue to fall for it every day.

There's a sucker born every minute. Look in the mirror if you ever forget that.

Wonder how many of our resident "criminalize homelessness, lock 'em all up and throw away the key" types own stock in for-profit incarceration companies?

If they ban menthol we will never get to see someone driving a truck full of Kools around after reparations..."I'm rich biaaaatch!"

@49,

Ok, hold on. When I'm talking about solutions to homelessness, I'm talking about the majority of the homeless. Children and single moms and people with medical bankruptcies and people who can't find a job that pays enough to afford rent.

When you're talking about the homeless, are you ONLY referring to the homeless camping in the parks?

They are not representative of most homeless people.

I don't live in Seattle so I don't know how many people are camped in those parks. How many is it? 100? 200? 500? Even if it were 1000, which seems like a preposterously high number to me, is less than 10% of Seattle's homeless population.

The homeless in Seattle are not all meth addicted out-of-towners. Maybe the park campers are, but the rest aren't.

So are you criticizing me because you're ONLY thinking of the small sample of homeless that are the park campers?

@55,

No, I moved to Atlanta from Denver.

Well Jesus H Christ. Then we are having a whole other disagreement than I thought we've been having since... i dunno, a while.

Seattle has 1 or 2 THOUSAND park campers?! Thousand? You sure about that? A thousand people is a lot.

Ok, I mean, if that's true then yeah, something weird is going on. A thousand +, out of state "homeless" who are willing to camp for months in parks to... make some... statement?? Is bizarre. It's unheard of.

That doesn't sound like a homeless problem. It sounds like something else weird is going on.

@57,

Ok, I get your point, but we're not talking about "the homeless" anymore. There's something else going on. The protesters / rioters in Seattle aren't homeless at all. They're professionals ( or semi-professionals) there to provoke some sort of political action that has nothing to do with homelessness. You've got bigger fish to fry. Sorry they're targeting your parks. But what cha gonna do? If I were a professional anarchist (what a great job title!) I'd wreck the parks too. Sounds like you guys are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

@58 it's like an intentional blight, one that gets you to WANT a sanctioned encampment near you just so there is some sort of governance going on with the campers. And then you will hope and pray it is run by LIHI and not SHARE.

It sickens me to think of what kind of world we COULD be living in now had Former President Jimmy Carter's Veep, Walter Mondale and his running mate, Geraldine Ferraro (who would have made history back in 1984 as the first female Vice President of the U.S.!) been elected. I was 20 then and old enough finally to vote for the President and Vice President of the United States. Instead, too many idiots for Ronald "Mr. Cue Card" Reagan and George H.W. "Read my lips---no new taxes!" Bush yelled "Four More!"
Rest in peace, Walter Mondale.