"Many of these people are not getting housing referrals and adequate outreach before the city pushes them from one corner to another, according to mutual aid groups who are on the ground."

Invalid. The homeless have to make an effort to reach out for help as well Hannah. They're far from helpless.

"To add insult to injury, the sweep notices are printed only in English and Spanish for an encampment in Chinatown International District."

Not an issue, lots of folks around to translate and it's incompetent on them to learn the native language. They already know a little English anyway just to get by.

"Stop The Sweeps accuses the city of white supremacy and classism for seemingly providing more services to encampments in affluent, whiter neighborhoods compared to the CID encampment and others in predominately BIPOC neighborhoods."

There is no white supremacy or classism, just desperate excuses to play victim.

What a rage reporting fest Hannah. Calm down, everything is going to be all right.

King County shattered shooting statistics in 2021 and is on pace to break that in 2022. Shit a 15 yo was killed on 3rd ave last week. Stranger wake the fuck up this city is not good. Stop acting like this shit is normal and should be tolerated. You care more about the big bad white man trying to clean up this city then the dead kids lying in the streets not to mention the overdoses and sexual Assaults (!) in encampments that are common place now. Maybe some of the people in these encampments are actually pieces of shit that should be in jail? Why do you continue to keep turning a blind eye to what is blatantly obvious to everyone that is has not made this issue a delusion of class warfare or what ever the fuck you want to paint it out to be. Slog used to tell it like it was but now you just are like the Breitbart of the left wing.

Sweep early, sweep often, sweep relentlessly. Make is so hard to be homeless in Seattle that the homeless go somewhere else. Don't care where, just not here. Go to Eugene. The weather is better.

Alweg offered to expand the monorail route, but the city didn’t take up the offer.
And now, over 60 years later, we’re still struggling to build light rail transportation.

"cops still have not explained why they were there and why they killed the man."

because they can

@1: where do you get your stats, Toby? I see plenty of homeless that aren't young, or male.

Expanding on @1, just 2% of our homeless population identify as Asian.

See https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Count-Us-In-2020-Final_7.29.2020.pdf at p.10

It's not just the W. Seattle bridge that's being fucked by the concrete strike. The Waterfront "Trench", multiple (affordable) housing projects. Basically everything.

SETTLE.

@11 fair enough but I question whether the lack of a translated flyer has any impact on the sweeps process. Outreach workers have access to translation services and worse case, members of the community could step in and provide support. The fact that even SLOG commenters are fed up with the negative impacts of giving our unhoused neighbors free rein around the city leads me to believe the wider community supports these sweeps and wishes them to continue. The only ones speaking out against these sweeps right now are activists that stand to benefit from having a never ending populace to exploit for financial/political gain.

Maybe Seattle should follow San Francisco's spin and call sweeps "encampment resolutions". Euphemisms can be helpful in quelling plebeian anxieties when cities implement public safety measures for the greater good.

@11, your claim that activists are doing what they do for financial gain is news to those activists. If any person or organization is interested in paying them to do so, I'm sure they'd be happy to sign up for that, but so far it seems to be non-paying volunteer work.

@10: "If people are saying they lack the translation resources they need to reach certain homeless populations i would assume they're not making that up bc there is no conceivable benefit to lie about it."

In this headline post and comment thread, the group making this claim is called, "Stop the Sweeps." We can therefore reasonably assume anything they say is in service of their attempt to, um, stop the sweep. In that context, it is completely reasonable to assume they might see a benefit in making stuff up to stop the sweep.

@18 Yep, there sure is. There are millions and millions of dollars up for grabs in the regional homelessness response, and lots of folks angling to get in on the action. The Stranger was reporting on this just yesterday:

Seattle Rep. Frank Chopp pisses off the King County Regional Homelessness Authority: KCRHA wanted to "diversify" the nonprofits who build tiny shelters, which the state thinks are okay to build in emergencies but not as replacements for longterm housing, and so it launched a competitive bidding process with $2 million in state funds. Catholic Community Services and Chief Seattle Club won the bids, but then Chopp allocated the money to the Low-Income Housing Institute, a nonprofit he founded. The Seattle Times has the story. Scandal.

Sometimes telling somebody NO, is the most compassionate option. The opposite is enabling. It 's not normal to live in a tent on a busy city sidewalk as a long-term housing option. It's not normal to spend your nights burglarizing homes and businesses to feed your drug habit. Sweeps will at least prompt many to go back from where they came or otherwise move along.

Sometimes realizing people post in the SLOG without thinking so you can ignore it saves a lot of time.

Especially when they pretend to believe Suburban TV portrayals of Seattle, which are 90 percent false.

Where they live is where the higher levels of drug addiction and gun violence actually are. Statistics show that.

@19: what could the profit margin on 2 million for tiny houses possibly be? enough to pay the staff at LIHI? do you think Chopp got a kick-back or something? tempest in a teapot.

Here's the article @19 referenced by didn't link:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattles-rep-frank-chopp-moved-2-million-from-regional-homelessness-authority-to-nonprofit-he-co-founded/

The reality is more nuanced than hbb thinks. Of course.

@13: Well, you're frequently quite coy in rebutting me and not referencing the comment number.

How is my support of the city's sweeps "lashing out" at the outreach workers? All I said is that I don't fault the city for not printing additional translations. It's not a showstopper. Maybe they will next time. Secure from General Quarters.

@25 Sorry, not a subscriber. You'll have to clue me in to the contents of that article.

@23: "Where they live is where the higher levels of drug addiction and gun violence actually are. Statistics show that."

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/wa/seattle/crime

Were you hoping nobody would actually take the time to look it up and just accept your lies as the gospel truth?

@14 I also said some do it for political gain. The visible homeless are a great tool for the political class to push their agenda. Kshama loves using them to "pack city hall" and to rail against Amazon.

@21: "We should provide people the appropriate services they need rather than shunting them into the criminal justice system or just sweeping the can from one block to the next."

In the meantime "sweeping the can from one block to the next" will at least alleviate the shootings and fires, allow clean ups, and time for plants to heal.

Oh, was I too harsh? Sorry.

Probably a lot of room on McNeil Island for a big homeless camp, and no drug or alcohol access. Dry 'em out.

@26:

I hear there was a fatal shooting at a mall down in Tacoma recently - I guess we should shut that place down too. I mean, if we're going to do something about gun violence, we should go after all the places where gun violence occurs and shut them all down, otherwise, we would just be singling out one particular group or locale while completely failing to address all the other places where gun violence also occurs, right?

To add my 2 cents - I don’t have a heated opinion, about the best solution, but there have been more than 6 gun shootings/fires/stabbings within 4 Blocks of my residence in the last 2 years- and this in a gentrifying Seattle neighborhood.
Why one was earlier this week!

Activistspeak can be so ridiculous. I know what they are getting at but the phrase "encampments in affluent, whiter neighborhoods" is incredibly stupid. It's almost as if they are begging to be ridiculed.

Go to Denny Blaine or Admiral or Laurelhurst, or almost all of Magnolia. Find me an encampment. I'll wait here.

Maybe get two out of those 4 cops that have to go to every single neighbor's noise complaint to go check out all the burglaries and wild west gun fights? Just a suggestion, because I'm so tired of hearing people say there's never enough cops.

@39: It's The Stranger's business model. The word "snark" is in the job description for a new staffers. We're all being played in a very cynical and depraved game.

@44- the very large encampments in Woodland Park are surrounded by affluent white neighborhoods. I don’t that they’re getting more than their fair share of services though.

There has to be kickbacks to the politicians supporting all these non profits. Has to be. There is no way anyone that has familiarized themselves with the people on the street doesn’t realize the vast majority of homeless are addicts. Half have said no to any kind of help so the answer is just letting them continue to steal and live on the street. The politicians know this and if they don’t, how is it they aren’t that familiar with the number one problem in the city? That would make them either terrible at their job… or it’s in their financial interest to see it that way. The Stranger writers also have to be in on it somehow too. Who wants an army of addicts stealing from every business in the city?

dvs99 dear, not to take away from the Woodland Park neighborhood, but it is not particularly affluent (at least by Seattle Standards).

I'm thinking more an encampment in Laurelhurst Park, or along E Madison in front of Broadmoor.

To change the subject for a moment, I wonder if Trump has thought through this lawsuit all the way. What will be revealed about him and his fellow lawbreakers during discovery?

"garden girlies" ??
This, from a woman who doesn't like to be called a girl...wtf?!
.
"Or rather, there are trees that to my untrained eye look like cherry trees. I don’t want to piss off the garden girlies."
.
Sounds downright disingenuous and infantile...
I want to like the Stranger, but holy shit

Cherry trees, it's not that hard.

The PubliCola story is here: https://publicola.com/2022/03/24/city-to-sweep-sites-of-recent-shootings-unclear-when-in-person-council-meetings-will-resume-homelessness-authority-frustrated-by-chopp-money-grab/

First, as that title shows, the city decided to sweep these encampments because persons had died violently in them. (Not simply because "the city is extremely sweep-happy right now.") Second, some outreach was performed, but due to the emergent need to stop continued killings, there wasn't time for the normal amount of outreach. (As a result, we can expect a very large majority of the campers to refuse all offers of aid, instead of merely a majority of the campers refusing all offers of aid.)

If the Stranger would actually research stories before posting them, instead of simply repeating propaganda from groups like Stop the Sweeps, then maybe it wouldn't be left to commenters like @26 to reveal why the sweeps are even happening in the first place.

GO, Billie Eilish!! Keep on rocking the house! Texabamada pigfuckers can get cornholed in in hell.

@43 patL: 6 shootings / stabbings / fires in your neighborhood within 4 blocks of your home within the last 2 years?? YIKES! Stay safe! Sending hugs, positrons, and VW beeps. It's crazy where I am, too. ;(
'
@50 Musicbiker: Good question. Donald Jackass Trump doesn't have the capacity to think, much less read anything above the first grade level. I just wish Vladimir Putin and its sock puppet Orange Turd, along with all their dipshit followers finally just drop dead already.

Some do (Charles/Rich for example) however Matt/Hannah are the new vein that want to engage readership and be provocative to garner clicks and drive ad revenue. I would take all their work with a healthy dose of skepticism.

"If you haven’t noticed, the city is extremely sweep-happy right now."

That may have something to do with abolitionist candidate NTK losing to REPUBLICAN candidate Davison. (Also with defund candidate Oliver losing to business-owner Nelson.)

The level of jackassery on this comment section is obscene. I honestly think these people would have cheered the Japanese Internment.

Substance use and the addiction that sometimes results is a response to trauma or other mental health issues, and the trauma of being forced to live on the streets is indeed a provocation. Everyone involved is a victim. But we can house everyone and provide the needed services. We can make encampments safer in the meantime without displacing them thereby destabilizing people further and stealing their belongings. We just have to try for once.

Most commenters may laugh but you and I both know that if it happened to you you'd more than likely end up exactly the same.

The whole thing is on the one hand a massive discrimination against people with mental health issues, but on the other, pretty much anyone who is outside for a year is going to acquire some mental health issues. I sure would. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/is-homelessness-a-housing-problem-two-seattle-experts-make-their-case-in-new-book/

@58: "Substance use and the addiction that sometimes results is a response to trauma or other mental health issues,"

Why is addiction necessarily a response to "trauma or other mental health issues"? Why can't Substance Use Disorder alone explain addiction, at least in some cases?

"But we can house everyone and provide the needed services."

Sure. How much will it cost? Specifically, of the $100M+ that Seattle spends annually on homelessness services, what portion(s) should be allocated differently?

"We can make encampments safer in the meantime without displacing them..."

How? What aspect(s) of encampments justify their costs and risks to the surrounding city?

"I honestly think these people would have cheered the Japanese Internment."

I honestly think you would have cheered the Spanish Inquisition, but I certainly hope nobody expects this honest belief to be the basis of any valid argument.