Comments

1

Matt, it appears that you have never actually looked at the Alaskan Way plans. it's 2 lanes each direction for vehicles. Which is what it was before the viaduct was demo'd. That's not a "trench", FFS.
https://waterfrontseattle.org/waterfront-projects/alaskan-way

2

I hope Rich's upcoming expose of how horrible it was for a reporter to go to a political gathering, and making the case that the reporter was promoting his own bias while doing so, is not an anticlimatic letdown given Matt's man-the-FCC-battle-stations meltdown this morning.

3

Nothing about Clarence Thomas? Here's hoping Biden gets another pick. We deserve something good after the last six years.

4

Came here to post what @1 explained. This project is only a "the mega-lane Alaskan Way Traffic Trench" if you count the transit, bike, and turn lanes, and decide it's bad to have those things.

5

Father, why do those words sound so nasty?

6

As for our now perpetual cycle of "whack-a-mole" encampment sweeps. Many people clearly don't give two shits about actually addressing all of the systemic issues that cause homelessness, they just don't want to be confronted with the reality that homelessness exists. So, as long as the City continues to effectively shuffle encampments around in order to provide the illusion that something is being done, and the citizenry gets a few weeks or months respite until another one inevitably pops up within their view like so many mushrooms in the forest - at which point they'll complain again; lather, rinse, repeat - that's seems to be good enough for them.

9

@1 & @4 - same applies to The Strangers’ staff lack of comprehension on the I-5 Columbia River Bridge. It’s a 100+ year old seismically vulnerable drawbridge that needs to be replaced - and the replacement will indeed make the bridge bigger
 by adding transit lanes and bike/ped accommodation. But for The Stranger, bigger = bad.

11

It is so sad about the homeless but isn't it good that the parks and vegetation and trees get a chance to be cleaned up and heal between
sweeps

13

@6: I give 2 shits about addressing the systemic causes of homelessness, but I don't have the ability to do anything about it. I believe the scale of the problem is beyond the City's ability to address it. It needs a massive infusion of money from the Federal gubmint, and 180 degree about-face from intransigent Republican opposition to any and all social spending. Which isn't happening ever.

Tiny houses here and there ain't gonna fix it.

14

@12 doubtful. It would just encourage whatever area of the city that opens up in to become the new drug market for the city. Some would use it and others would be on the street using because they can't get in. It would do nothing to staunch the drug use in the city nor would it encourage anyone to go to shelter where they would be asked to stop using.

@8 has it right. Sweeps are effective tool in that it makes life on the street uncomfortable for our "unhoused" neighbors and encourages them to actually accept help. The strategy of making them comfortable and continually offering them services until they are ready to accept is not effective. People are not going to change bad behavior until there is a reason to change. No one has ever said sweeps are a solution but they are a tool. Btw someone was gunned down over the weekend at an encampment up by the U District but no mention of that here. It bears mentioning yet again that the primary victims of the drugs and mentally unstable running around the city are the homeless themselves.

16

@8 "Shelters do not allow booze or drugs." Tough shit. Stop the booze and drugs or get out of town. We're just going to keep rousting them until they do.

17

"Is that a bottle of water in your hand? GET OUTTA HERE WITH THAT SHIT."

Oh please you know Dasani is official coke water

18

"If we do this cruel thing that doesn't help often enough, they'll finally accept this slightly less cruel method that also really doesn't help!"

Previously, I posted evidence that housing first programs that do not enforce sobriety prerequisites and provide long term, stable housing reduce homelessness far more effectively than rule-heavy 100 bed aggregate temporary shelters. People insist the majority of these people are addicts and people with mental health problems, yet also think cramming a bunch of them in a barracks with a bunch of rules will address those root issues or even be effective/desirable as temporary shelter. Seems poorly thought out to me, or just deliberately thoughtless.

20

@18 I don't think anyone disputes that providing stable housing and support services are better than cramming people in barracks but where we seem to diverge is what you do with people in the interim when they are causing harm to themselves, others around them and the environment in which they live. It is simply not acceptable to say that until you are "ready" we are ok with you living in and trashing public spaces, stealing from and assaulting innocent people and basically acting like an anti social asshole. Enough already.

22

Cars bad!

24

Homeless camps just remind people what huge slobs we all are. We don't have respect for anyone's property, not even our own. Apartment/condo/house owners especially know that. A lot of tenants are getting 12 months of free rent right now because of the pandemic, but is giving the homeless free rent forever sustainable? That's what needs to be figured out.

27

@15: if that's Seattle's root causes, what are the root causes in every other city or town on the West Coast? The Midwest? The East Coast? The same?

If you squeeze a tube of toothpaste...

29

Thank you for putting Ellie up, I've had folks messaging me all day, ha ha. Love that she's the image on the carousel too!

31

@26: If you don't understand a commenter's remarks just be candid and say so instead of alleging "rhetorical hoops" as a snide put down.

32

@9, I nearly got whiplash a week or two ago when I read an article on the Portland Mercury (same ownership as The Stranger") about how the new Columbia River crossing might get funded because Washington was finally willing to pay its share and hooray; and then came to The Stranger to see the same story blurbed as "bridge BAAAD!"

35

Housing
as Commodity
(yay, Capitalism!)
is UN-sustainable.

"The Mariners Switch to Coke"

Excellanto!
Meth is BAD.*

*no, I didn't
read it.

37

@8:

Yeah, and how long has the City been doing this? And how long to you think they'll have to KEEP doing this until we see the kind of response you continue to fantasize about - this great mass migration of the unhoused to some mythical rock candy mountain? Years? Decades? Forever?

And what's the point of "offering shelter" when there are only enough spaces for about half the current unhoused population? It's all just empty theatrics intended to placate people like you who think this is a "solution" to a problem you would prefer just be removed from sight so you don't have to contemplate the sheer enormity of it.

38

@COMTE: Thank You

nyt: Behind the Killings of Homeless
Men, Portraits of 3 Lives Derailed

Before their lives violently intersected, two men who were shot to death and the man the police believe killed them had all fought the same scourge: severe mental illness.”

one reader’s comment from the Article by Andy Newman, Campbell Robertson, Samira Asma-Sadeque and Ashley Southall on 3/21/22:

As a retired psychiatric nurse practitioner, I remember the days when commitment for treatment of the obviously mentally ill was much easier and legal.

The mentally ill were treated, and even received long term care when needed. This system was far from perfect, and some people were inappropriately institutionalized.

I have watched, over the years, as the pendulum has swung all the way toward individual rights, and the mentally ill are now living on our streets and filling our jails and prisons.

Somehow, we have to find a way as a society to respect individual rights yet intervene when treatment is needed.

We have to accept that some of the chronically mentally ill need long term care and to be willing to pay for it. We need to care for them, not punish them.

--L Seymour, Goshen AR

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/nyregion/homeless-men-killed.html

39

actually, two:

"He didn’t want to be committed, but he wasn’t in his right mind."

THIS is the problem. Mentally ill people are assumed to have agency to decline treatment, hospitalization and housing even when it is clear that their illness impairs their judgment. The state-EVERY state-refuses to acknowledge that the illness itself makes people make bad decisions.

We value so-called "autonomy" and "liberty" so much that people "rot with their rights on." What good are rights in a situation in which a person might not even know it's cold out, as one victim's mother said? What good are "rights" when one is ill and unable to care for oneself or dangerous to others due to delusions?

Our system is so, so broken and willfully so. Hospital beds are expensive, but the life we condemn the mentally ill to, on the streets, bereft of treatment, medically compromised, vulnerable to the dangers of other people, the elements, you name it...is completely inhumane. We are a poor society indeed.

Lawyers have argued, all too successfully, for the rights of everyone to make their own decisions, but come on: demanding personal liberty for someone whose mind is a prison is hardly a freedom any of us would value. Psychiatric medications have side effects, absolutely, but psychiatric illnesses have actual bad effects as well.

I've been a community psychiatrist for most of my professional life. It's sad to be an expert in futility. Society simply will not see these people as ill, and help them.
--Ellen Tabor, New York City

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/nyregion/homeless-men-killed.html#commentsContainer

40

@39:
“Our system . . . is
completely inhumane.
We are a poor society indeed.”

well not only are we ‘EXCEPTIONAL’
but Also Thee RICHEST Country
in the HISTORY of the Known
Fucking Universe.

Funny (af) but
Not ha-ha.

44

@30,

So you're arguing that the quality of the journalism is bad and that they're not generating enough content?

"Waiter, this food is terrible! And there's not enough of it!"

45

yep sweep sweep, sweep sweep sweep
and keep on keeping our Billionaires'
Bank Accounts fucking Phat.

THREE families
OWN More
Wealth
than
One-
HALF
the Citizenry.

does ANY-one
think this will
End Well?

46

"Waiter, this food is terrible!
And there's not enough of it!"

see ya Tomorrow!

47

And yet all these people who literally hate this outlet spend all day on it every single day.

51

Go, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, GO!!! Burn the RepubliKKKans down and make 'em squeal like the corrupt little pigfuckers they are. Hand them their sorry, ugly asses on a dirty plate.

So Extreme Court Injustice Clarence Thomas is feeling a little sick? Good riddance. With a little luck he can spread it to Covid Amy Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Babyface Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito, Jr.

COKE?!?! Coca-cola is more like CHOKE-a-cola or JOKE-a-cola! Does anyone know or care what it does to teeth (Kids: try this science experiment at home: Put a human tooth in a glass of Coca-cola and let it sit for 24 hours. The tooth will be completely dissolved. Shock your friends!)? Bottled water is prohibited at Mariners' games? That's pro sports for ya---dumb the fans down and fatten 'em up. Who cares if they're like "Toofwess" (David Alan Grier character spoof of boxer Mike Tyson on In Living Color, back in the day)?

@35 kristofarian: No, I don't. But I do share your global concerns.

52

@42: Do you have any better ideas, Herr-boob?

@51: Oops---make that @45 to kristofarian, not @35.

53

@3: +1 Brent Gumbo for the WIN!!!

54

"kids on bikes that they can’t ride in the park, instead they have to go into the 30-mph traffic lanes"

How nice of Matt to totally ignore the newer bike lanes that comprise the outer (partial) loop. Sure, they don't yet totally encircle the lake, but they do let people ride in the area without being in "30-mph traffic lanes".

How much time do you actually spend at Green Lake park, Matt?


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