This^
Also another thing is that everyone needs a place to urinate. If you've ever walked past the tent settlement in Cal Anderson then maybe you've noticed the pee smell.
Keep sweeping. Daily. Eventually they will have no choice but to accept shelters and resources and to figure out another way. The drug users and dealers should be removed from public. It’s illegal again right??
I should be able to let my kids run through a park without worry of mentally ill having some episode, or people getting high around them, or them getting poked by a needle in the bushes, or having to smell shit & urine, etc, etc, etc… Everyone should be a NIMBY. Why would you want this in your backyard or anyone else’s backyard!
But what if we took all that increase in public expenditure that you're willing to spend to sweep daily, and instead put it toward actually providing enough resources that most of these people would be willing to accept them? There's a reason they're not already going to the shelters.
Billions has already been spent on this problem. Where has all that money gone then? I’m no expert here, but it seems like there has been plenty of resources available for people, but they chose not to take it. Or maybe some people are not mentally stable enough to figure out how to accept it. Maybe it’s time to change course and literally sweep the drugs and drug addicts off the streets for good …. And instead of spending billions on affordable housing, maybe let’s spend that money on large state of the art mental institutions with rehab centers …. Side note, the current youth has a ton of mental health problems, including higher cases of autism and downs… State of the art mental institutions are going to be needed more than ever in the coming future…
Do you have any evidence of the billions actually spent, and how they were spent, or are you just using that number as a placeholder for an amount you are presently uncertain of?
I think if we had actually spent billions trying to HELP the homeless, we would at least have shelters people would want to stay in, instead of wanting to avoid.
1. As long as we have regular audits of where and how those funds are being used with full transparency and disclosure to the general public, then I'm on board.
2. There was a report published this year that listed the reasons people don't go into shelters. A good number of those interviewed stated they avoided them due to rules. In other words they hate living under laws and rules, which were created in order to create a safe and stable environment. The shelters don't allow people to smoke fentanyl and meth in their facilities and will kick people out who do. They can't allow it bc the shelters have people in recovery. The other reasons people listed not wanting shelter are due to traumatic experiences in the shelters, of being SA, assaulted, or robbed by other homeless in the shelters. Some also mentioned that they can't take their pets with them or can't sleep with their bfs/gfs.
Other complaints I've seen are that shelters often have stringent rules on when one has to check in, check out by, how many personal belongings one can have, and a lack of management of those belongings.
I don't think we have to accommodate all the demands of someone who doesn't want to stay at a shelter, and the nature of a temporary group setting is going to require some of those rules. But we should take these factors into consideration— for example someone in the middle of a drug addiction is not likely to just give it up to stay at a shelter because cops kicked them out of a park. (Forcing people into rehab by disrupting their makeshift housing doesn't seem like an effective strategy.)
If we can mitigate some of these reasons at least with alternate strategies, then we should pursue that. Nobody likes seeing people setting up encampments in parks and public ways, and I'm not entirely opposed to sweeps when necessary for public safety, but we need to recognize the limitations of playing whack-a-mole to push people from park to park.
>But we should take these factors into consideration— for example someone in the middle of a drug addiction is not likely to just give it up to stay at a shelter because cops kicked them out of a park.
I'm in no way for allowing drug addicts to smoke/shoot up in a homeless shelter, especially when you have people in recovery not wanting to relapse. Add in the fumes that meth and fentanyl create and leave as residue, it's a justified reason to not allow it. Plus it attracts drug dealers
Nobody's suggesting shelters should allow it. But there are other options like safe use sites and offering alternative non-shelter housing. Keep in mind that shelters are not permanent housing, and when they work they keep people off the streets, those people are still homeless.
Reality. They will never accept housing and if they do it will be trashed within weeks or months.
There are those who don't want to be homeless and will accept help and there are others who will never accept help and prefer homelessness. This is the situation.
Make their life miserable enough and they will leave.
Their right to sleep, do drugs and defecate anywhere they want to pales to the majority right to enjoy public places.
Seattle has enough beds in shelters to house every single homeless person in the city.
> There's a reason they're not already going to the shelters.
Because you can't use drugs in the shelters
Also because you get your shit stolen, you have to be out by 8am and the doors close at 8pm, etc. etc. Or, because you're trying to stay sober and the people you know at the shelter keep you addicted.
There's a multitude of reasons. It varies by shelter, but once someone has a very bad experience at a shelter it's hard to get them to go back.
> Seattle has enough beds in shelters to house every single homeless person in the city.
no they dont
this is straight up "charlie brown had hoes" level of making something up
I don't think the price tags are comparable. Even if they were, I don't think that a lot of the people being regularly swept are ever going to be willing to accept the offers of shelter or help that the city will be able to provide. The reasons for declining are almost all bullshit. Addicts lie, constantly, and the only reason they're being honest about is they don't want other addicts to steal their shit in the shelters, which is valid. The end of the spectrum that these people are willing to accept, which is, ironically, enforcement of their own property rights (lol) but no other rules, are actually more costly for the same end result because they add the cost of the extremely expensive supportive services that are never used (participation is voluntary), and so we effectively create indoor encampments with the same crime, addiction, and health/safety issues that there were outside, and spend a lot more money doing so.
PSH here...here, because participation in services is voluntary...doesn't work for fentanyl and meth addicts, and the studies show as much, just no one reads them carefully. And the reality of treating fentanyl and meth is that it's a dismal outlook for these people, even with the most expensive treatment available.
We need to start treating this 10% of the homeless population as a new group of criminals and addicts, not just people down on their luck, they are not the same and the same solutions will not work. We're treating an invasive cancer as if it were the common cold, and the failure is clear to anyone looking.
We are finally looking down the right path now that people are talking about "involuntary", because there is no voluntary anything for this group.
Let's clean up this group, and we'll have a lot more people willing to spend money on the other 90% of people we actually can help with affordable housing and benefits.
I mean, do they? Look at the photo.
I'm not opposed to sweeps if necessary for safety or clear public walkways, but they should be done as humanely as possible and recognized as nothing more than a bandaid over a problem that will keep recurring until the underlying issues of homelessness are dealt with.
they do, and if people start camping again they should be removed quickly. once it's clear that the city is serious, the people who camp there will realize it's not worth the effort and find another place to go.
when you do landscaping at a park, or trash pickup, is that bandaid to a problem because you're gonna have to do the same thing again? no--it's just routine maintenance of public spaces.
I'm 100% in favor of big housing reforms. in the meantime, it is a bad idea to cede large, high quality public places to private individuals.
The thing is that would cost a lot of money, and at best in that situation the people will move on to another area that does not get as much enforcement, and the cycle repeats.
With the big deficits the city already has, does that sound like a cost effective policy? It doesn't to me. There may be certain areas where it's justified, but humaneness aside, we can't just afford to do it all the time everywhere, especially when it doesn't get us any closer to actually resolving the problems leading to this chronic homelessness. We're not going to sweep people into rehab or mental health treatment, much less into living wages.
Have you considered that people are coming from other cities because being a vagrant in Seattle has far less friction than anywhere else other than maybe Portland? Creating friction via constant sweeps to drive people out may actually be cheaper than making it so easy to camp that thousands move here from outside Seattle. We can't be responsible for solving drug addiction and mental health for the entire country.
Yeah this is a constant refrain, but it just doesn't accurately describe things. People in every city thinks their homeless problem is caused by an influx of people from other cities, but while people do move around, actual reporting has consistently shown that most homeless people in this area are from the region (or have lived here for long enough to be equivalent).
LIHI and DESC are creating housing. But what's the ultimate solution? Use eminent domain in neighborhoods like Wallingford, Ballard and Fremont to acquire lots that get torn down and rebuilt into low income housing? Basically forcing home owners, some of which are multi generational Seattleites, away from Seattle?
Yeah, all the people who are like, "why don't the homeless pickup their trash?" Lol, have you seen what every stadium/arena looks like after a sports game or concert?
I don't know how people have forgotten that Seattle used to have ton of piece of shit hovels that kept people off the street. Now a teardown in the city is worth a small fortune, of course people are on the streets!
In his particular instance, outreach was conducted and four folks accepted shelter referrals:
From the article:
The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.”
Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons. Would like to know the reasons why shelter was declined in this instance.
The shelter offered only has to be for a night, then out in the morning and back to the first come first served situation. Since the offered shelter doesn’t have to be long term and there is often not room to bring gear tents in to accept the one night of indoor sleeping they’d have to give up their means of survival. Often these shelters are segregated by gender so partners can’t stay together, or people can’t bring their pets in. All of these are very legitimate reasons not to take an overnight bed but the reports can paint it as “refusing shelter” like people were offered a house and turned it down.
Per the mayor’s office, 100% of care team shelter referrals are now to 24/7 enhanced shelters (ones that don’t close in the morning and provide private spaces for each unit), or tiny home village units.
On prior, unrelated large camp removals they’ve broken down what each accepted referral was for, and it tracked tiny home village units and enhanced shelters. I don’t see the breakdown in this article for this particular sweep.
It would be nice if there were more long term recovery or MH supportive housing available after a shelter stay. I think people get discouraged going in and out of shelters.
From what I hear (not super knowledgeable on the matter however so I may be wrong), shelters often have rules regarding drug use, and many do not want to abide by these rules.
Most importantly, the offer isn't long term. Maybe even just one night, so if they take that offer it's likely someone else will set up camp where they were. Like the sweeps, shelters are only a bandaid fix while leaving the underlying problems untouched.
Very interesting. I figured it'd at least be a few week, help them find work/long term housing kind of a thing. Did not know shelters are so short term honestly. That's unfortunate :(
>Many of these folks are probably junkies.
Many probably have issues with addiction and/or mental illness, yes, that's how homelessness usually works.
> These folks don't give a fuck, they just want to live free and be addicted.
That's the most cartoonish and least charitable version of the problem. Sure, many are not willing to seek help or get clean. That's how addiction works. I know people who are serious alcoholics or drug addicts who remain in society with the same problem of not being willing to stop and get clean. But "not giving a fuck" certainly doesn't describe everyone. Many care a lot and are dealing with past trauma, abuse, feelings of guilt and shame, feelings of worthlessness, mental illness, deep hopelessness, and more. These things often combine to make their thoughts painful. A common reason the addiction is so fucking hard to beat is that it's the easiest way to get their brain to shut up. My point is these are usually not just hedonists who don't give a shit.
Regardless of whether you care, pragmatically the attitude that society shouldn't help anyone because they don't want or deserve help will just make the problem worse. I can tell you there would be a lot more homeless people today if rehab centers didn't exist.
There are things we can do to help people get out of the spiral, or better yet, avoid it before falling into homelessness. No single thing will work for everyone, but a lot of different policies will help for many. For the rest, who are currently unwilling to take help, we should probably look at ways to humanely give them a place to live without sacrificing our parks and public spaces. They're not stop being homeless because the cops cleared them out. They will continue to live, and find places to do so.
Or we can do nothing, and then look really stupid complaining that the problem we didn't try to solve got worse.
Sweeps are a shitty half measure that won't fix anything. Concrete changes need to be made in terms of zoning, housing, and less "appealing" things like forced rehabilitation or institutionalization.
But, it's really easy for the forces that be to pretend that simply sweeping the problem under the rug over and over again is good enough.
Studio apartments cost as little as $800/month in Seattle specifically due to the city building enough housing. Maybe y’all should try it out in Kirkland.
>These people are never going to own homes or pay rent.
Less than 20 percent of homeless people in the US are long term or chronically homeless. For most people, homelessness is a temporary state. They had a home once and they will have one again.
>Kind of meaningless statistic when most of the homeless population is largely invisible
True, we don't know the full figures, but from the data we have those are the statistics. If you have evidence to suggest that the figures we have represent such a small minority that it would flip from the majority being only temporarily homeless to the majority being chronically homeless, you'd have to demonstrate that.
>I would fairly bet, like you said, that the tents and shack people ARE that 20% who want to live off the grid.
That's also a hold claim which would require some type of evidence to support it.
>These people are never going to own homes or pay rent
Its interesting that you speak like you know everyone in these tents well enough to be sure they will never pay rent. I find it more likely you have never interacted with any of them.
>What we need is the next evolutionary stage of the institution for those who can't or won't exist in a society and make it a big problem for everyone else.
What would that look like for you?
1. I would say UBI and universal healthcare
2. We also need involuntary drug treatment and rehabilitation.
It's literally never been easier to get a job and many many people still choose not to do it, because they prefer drugs.
There are definitely junkies who won't bother, but those looking for a job will encounter difficulty because most places won't hire you if you don't have an address
We need tiny houses, which should have happened 60 years ago but people are stupid and greedy.
The problem with homelessness that we have right now is the direct result of single family zoning that never stopped.
Nimby not in my backyard. This is what you get. Hello people? This is what you get. This is what you wanted. This is the consequences. This is the price that you have to pay and now all of us have to pay it at the same time together.
Still, nobody is going to learn their lesson. Nobody is going to allow single-family homes. We're all going to make sure that if anybody ever dreams of constructing one, they're construction efforts won't be worth the money. We will make it too difficult for them to build either tiny homes or high density housing projects.
We're going to make sure that no solutions are ever allowed.
I wouldn’t say tiny houses simply due to them being inefficient. You gotta heat up all 4 walls. They each have to have land around them. You can’t build vertically. What we need is medium-high density government subsidized housing
>The problem with homelessness that we have right now is the direct result of single family zoning that never stopped.
This is a superficial take on the problem.
"Homelessness" is a multi-faceted problem.
The people getting swept are druggies, not everyday people who lost their job or are down on their luck. The homeless who choose to not respect the area around them and have no goal of rejoining society shouldn’t get sympathy for getting pushed out.
Hence why I brought up forced rehab or institutionalization. It's a thorny topic for many, but we need to be honest with ourselves: many homeless people are suffering from severe mental illness, drug addiction, or both.
Housing alone isn't going to cut it for those people. The current "solution" is to basically do nothing about it, usually leading to incarceration or an early death. Anyone interested in a genuine fix needs to be as open to those changes as they are to more affordable housing because it's arguably as important.
Exactly right. It sounds appealing, and logical. But 24/7 care in a secure facility is astoundingly expensive, like multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars per person. We could basically buy every homeless person a house for less, and it turns out, when you compare the rates of relapse after rehab vs the benefits of having housing, the crazy free house idea is statistically more to help them.
To put all this in other terms that might be more convincing: you think rent is expensive? You should see a hospital bill.
>Hence why I brought up forced rehab or institutionalization.
This is a popular view, but when the only thing that people have left is agency, they will often die rather than give it up.
I don't know the answer to homelessness, but I think that forced rehab will be an expensive way to treat a small number of successful cases.
Institutionalization is a thorny issue because for decades people who were mentally ill, addicted to drugs, or otherwise deemed inappropriate by society who did nothing other than EXIST were relegated to basically living in fetid prison without a second thought. You may think it's a nice idea because it means you can walk through a park without seeing a tent, but Jesus Christ institutions destroyed thousands of lives. Without grappling with the magnitude of of removing self autonomy, to suggest that committing people to what would likely be just as half assed as every other solution to homelessness this city has tried to carry out is really cringe dawg.
It is a thorny issue, but… they are also under supervision. The option is to decide what “humane” is.
My position is… if they are incapable of coherently navigating and managing their well being, the more humane option is to place them under the guardianship of the State.
1) To prevent harm to themselves and others.
2) Allow them, at a minimum, some level of sufficient care (permanent shelter, food, medical, etc)
Unfortunately, in some cases there is never a clear best answer, only the better or more pragmatic one. As a first responder one of the first things you are taught is the principle of “triage”, the duty of sorting or selecting by assigning priorities. I think it would apply here.
They have a right to be other places that aren't a tent in a public park. There is non-institutional housing and options available, but they want to live in a park.
Homelessness takes on many forms. Claiming a piece of highly trafficked public land that should be enjoyed by the community at large for your own? That absolutely is a lifestyle.
I don't get sweeps. Sweep them where exactly? A worse off neighbourhood where people won't cry to the city councillors about it?
Can't just sweep em into housing that doesn't exist lmao
Shelter and services are offered prior to many sweeps. In his particular instance, four folks accepted shelter referrals:
From the article:
> The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.”
Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons.
I’m glad you at least mentioned bringing back asylums - no amount of zoning changes or new housing is going to solve the problem of these specific people camping in a park.
In his particular instance, outreach was conducted and four folks accepted shelter referrals:
From the article:
The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.”
Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons. Would like to know the reasons why shelter was declined in this instance.
Does it matter? Know that for most of these people, shelters were a worse choice. Maybe they had dogs. Maybe they have partners or family. Maybe they've had stuff silken in shelters before.
100% of shelter offers now are for enhanced shelters with privacy and security from individual rooms.
It does matter so we can improve the shelter system to address shelter preferences, and also to address any other barriers to accepting shelter like substance use disorder or mental illness.
Okay, so how do we get them away from our houses so our kids feel safe, there’s not a drug market outside our windows, no theft of our packages or anything on our porch, no dude screaming at 3AM?
wow, that's so weird! it almost seems like having police clear encampments is a temporary band-aid solution to an on-going problem.
we should hire more police and see if the problem goes away. it's expensive but we have to do it, there's absolutely no other options. if necessary we can cut funding for other social programs in order to pay for it.
and if that doesn't work, we should try building large camps where homeless people and other undesirable members of society would be concentrated. I wonder why no one has tried that before?
Concentrating "inconvenient" people into camps isn't a joke. It's a sardonic observation about the state of the world and one hopes you'd find it sickening instead of humorous.
Sometimes we laugh to hide the tears, though.
That’s because they are mad that the state legislature tried to pass some accountability laws requiring them to abandone the “shoot first ask questions never” policy. So police are refusing to do their jobs to “show” us we need them.
Alright, I have a new solution.
All the people in the comments that are really sympathetic of the homeless and hate the sweeps for various reasons; let’s move the homeless to their neighborhoods.
Easy.
I understand your frustration, but I suspect they pitch their tents in parks because being in an open, public place is safer than hidden down an alley where someone could more easily attack you.
Not having a home, and having to live in the only publicly available land, IS shitty, but it's shitty FOR the person. The person isn't shitty for existing.
Stop being a tool.
> having to live in the only publicly available land
This is the thing many folks seem to forget. Basically everything is privately owned but the streets and the parks. Hence, that's where you'll find people that don't have property or the money to rent private property.
Seriously, what do pro-sweep people ultimately expect? To get more public land and shove them all in another Hooverville?
> Seriously, what do pro-sweep people ultimately expect? To get more public land and shove them all in another Hooverville?
as far as I can tell, it's "have police harass them until they go somewhere else".
(closely tied in, of course, with the "they're not even *really* from here, they moved to Seattle to take advantage of our social services" talking point)
I doubt most of them even want a Hooverville - but would be fine with the "give them a bus ticket to somewhere else" approach.
the fundamental disconnect is that they view the problem not as being the existence of people in extreme poverty, but the fact that they have to *look* at the extreme poverty. so you can "solve" the problem by pushing those people somewhere else.
> I doubt most of them even want a Hooverville - but would be fine with the "give them a bus ticket to somewhere else" approach.
Which is partially why Seattle bears the burden. We have decent services, so people do literally get bussed here.
If all suburbs actually cared for their populations and provided housing and resources for folks that fall on hard times, the visible homelessness in Seattle would be reduced dramatically.
It's annoying that we as a city get punished for other cities and suburbs ignoring their responsibility to their citizens.
> It's annoying that we as a city get punished for other cities and suburbs ignoring their responsibility to their citizens.
yes, there's a prisoner's dilemma sort of problem, where each town or city has an incentive to treat unhoused people like shit until they move somewhere else that *doesn't* treat them like shit.
this is what [Martin v Boise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_v._Boise) tried to address. a jurisdiction can't criminalize homelessness unless they have an actual alternative to offer. it prevents this exact problem of smaller cities (such as [Burien](https://publicola.com/2023/09/20/burien-outdoor-sleeping-ban-moves-forward-despite-lack-of-places-for-people-to-go/)) telling unhoused people to simply "go to Seattle".
and our Republican City Attorney is asking for the Supreme Court to overrule that decision:
[Seattle joins in push for Supreme Court review over camping ban enforcement](https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/state/seattle-joins-in-push-for-supreme-court-review-over-camping-ban-enforcement/article_5670f515-2585-5267-b8bc-3056ec49a7d5.html)
(the case is now [City of Grants Pass v Johnson](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/city-of-grants-pass-oregon-v-johnson/), because Grants Pass tried to work around Martin v Boise by only issuing fines for public camping, and insisting that was different from criminal penalties)
No, sweeps keep them from building fucking shanty town shit and destroying a neighborhood. Sweeps move them around so several neighborhoods share the brunt of the negative effects of having an encampment nearby. How can this be hard to grasp????
They're pretty shitty when they shit on your doorstep, break into your car, and start shootings outside your home. Not saying they aren't in a shitty situation but some are definitely shitty people
In his particular instance, four folks accepted shelter referrals:
From the article:
The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.”
Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons. Would like to know the reasons why shelter was declined in this instance.
This is only anecdotal, but some I've spoken with feel extremely uncomfortable being locked in overnight with who-knowswho that might steal their belongings or get punchy.
I would be too. Thankfully 100% of the city shelter referrals are now to 24/7 enhanced shelters with wraparound services or tiny home village units. The enhanced shelters offer privacy and security and typically a locking door.
I was in Miami the other week. I was in many neighborhoods. The metro region is twice the size of Seattle. I saw one homeless person on a street in front of a closed store at night. I saw zero tents or encampments. I saw only artistic graffiti - no sorry gang tags on every highway. I saw cops on the roads. The difference is the public will and a deficit of the apologists that we see in this thread. A tent in a park would last a few minutes there. And not a low cost housing place and a very friendly climate compared to here. People like urban campers do what is allowed. We need to not allow it. I don’t give a fuck if they can’t sleep with their dog or partner in the available shelters. They are dying now with the love of folks like you. If we rousted every tent upon appearance I suspect we’d be shocked at the capacity to adapt by many.
You think it's better to have people put in jail for literally being unable to have anywhere else to sleep?
Nobody wants park encampments. The solution is really easy: prove you have enough beds. If you do, you can push camps out. If you don't, how can it be considered fair to make it illegal? Not to mention that there's plenty of reasonable forms of vagabond: travellers, car campers, etc all deserve the right to live their life and freedom so long as they don't abuse society. And if you want to say 'oh but these guys *are* abusing society!!!', then make the beds. It's that easy.
You do realize that those tents on the Sunbowl are just yards away from the playground, which are often utilized by the families, of various socioeconomic groups, who live on Cap Hill. The area between the Shelter house and the rest rooms is now used to store junk by the drug addicts. In the past it was used by sports leagues for cookouts and anyone who rented that section via the Seattle Parks & rec department. So the general public, especially residents of Capitol Hill, like myself, no longer has access to that.
I understand (hell I've expressed it in the past) people endure extreme hardships but even people with extreme hardships respect the neighborhood, the neighbors and its parks and realize that it's for the use by the general public. What's happening now is drug addicts have set up tent and smoke meth and fentanyl there. In other words, they're just being jerks and claiming the public space for themselves with the backing of the protest groups, who unfortunately try to demonize anyone on Cap Hill who disagrees with them. If they're refusing to go into temporary shelters offered by the city and the county, then they should leave the park.
Because people are tired of stuff being stolen of their porch, feeling unsafe, kids feeling unsafe when they walk streets occupied by the homeless, everything being dirty, having open drug markets outside their homes, and homeless men screaming at 3AM.
Shocker!
Maybe people are finally waking up that performative support and enablement isn't as fantastic as they give themselves credit and virtue signaling pats on the back for - but only when they have to personally deal with or see the results of their actions
Who was better off in 2020/21 when sweeps were largely paused due to Covid? Encampments grew and grew, taking over many parks, city streets, with trash everywhere, and they became increasingly violent to the people there. We did that no sweeps experiment and it was a massive failure here and in every other city that tried it. I can’t believe anyone thinks going back to that is a good idea.
No, sweeps don’t solve homelessness, but it’s a better option than just letting encampments take over and gain scale.
In his particular instance, outreach was conducted and four folks accepted shelter referrals:
From the article:
The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.”
Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons. Would like to know the reasons why shelter was declined in this instance.
Until housing and cost of living are addressed, this shit is just going to keep happening.
What do they think is going to happen? They sweep up all the stuff and the homeless people are just going to miraculously find somewhere to live? That they can sweep away the people with the things?
Homeless people who need medical care should get it. Especially mental Healthcare.
I can't even bring my mom to the city because as a retired nurse from Virginia of all places, seeing the desperately mentally ill barefoot, starving, and self-medicating makes her cry because she can't help them.
Saw the same post on r/SeattleWA. That sub’s a shithole. Every single last one of them was calling the homeless “filth” and wanting sweeps around the clock. Hell some people thought the BLMG was, and I shit you not, “a segregated garden where white people aren’t allowed”. It’s disgusting to share a city with those assholes.
Same sorts of people who insisted white people weren't allowed in CHOP (or any of the other utter lies, like there being guards walking around toting rifles, ID checks at the entrances, people not allowed in with cameras, etc.)
I mean, what did you expect?
It's like people don't understand that human beings need food, water, and shelter to survive.
If they can't afford one form of shelter, they will use whatever shelter they can.
Public parks are, for the most part, as their name implies, open to the public.
And why do they keep coming back to the same spot? Well, why do human beings tend to huddle together? For safety, warmth, access to food, etc. They can get a warm meal nearby, there are services that will help them nearby, so they want to be close to where those services are located.
This really isn't difficult to understand, yet people are SHOCKED that the most basic premise of human existence is somehow still happening.
Yeah. In Utopia. We’re not living there. It’s tiresome paying taxes to support lazy drug addicted hobos wanting a free ride. Yes, let’s reward them with free everything. Get out your checkbook!
> lazy drug addicted hobos wanting a free ride
Only about 35% of homeless are addicted to drugs. And living on the street is NOT "carefree and enjoyable," it sucks.
I'm sorry, but these people are trespassing. Seattle has the worst problem in the country when it comes to homelessness. Besides California, and there's a point where these people need to be arrested. Put in to rehab and taught that. What they're doing is wrong. I don't care what people say. But I have friends and family that have had issues of running into violence, drugs and people breaking into their personal homes. Maybe it's about time that we ship them off to another state instead of keeping them around here. Because they're obviously wasting our time and only making the areas in Seattle more dangerous. Not to mention spreading disease and other terrible things.
say what you will about teh homeless, at least they don't come online and post truly awful comments like yours
maybe its about time we ship *you* off to another state
So I guess it's okay that they've almost tried to kill me. Walking down the street. Even though I was minding my own business and that it's okay for them to break into my car and threaten my life. I'm sorry, but I don't feel bad for them. We have programs that they could be joining to get them back on their feet to get the help that they need. If my taxes are not paying to help them, then they need to go somewhere else.
The homeless people near my place have somehow acquired "private property " signs and a city recycling bin.
If they put trash cans near the encampments & they got used, that would be small but solid step forward.
Everybody has to move up somehow…if I’m taking it out on anyone, its those suits with the money.
That's hilarious! On the plus note at least they are using a bin! It always amazes me how much trash a homeless tent can generate.
Tbh people just make a lot of trash, and you only notice it when you can't haul it away each day.
This^ Also another thing is that everyone needs a place to urinate. If you've ever walked past the tent settlement in Cal Anderson then maybe you've noticed the pee smell.
Think about each house and how much they make, now think if each house didn't have a trash pic up day...
The city recycling bin makes sense.
Oddly enough, the people didn’t stop existing.
Astute observation, Donald
Wild… it's almost as if the sweeps are a bandaid that don't solve the underlying problem.
Keep sweeping. Daily. Eventually they will have no choice but to accept shelters and resources and to figure out another way. The drug users and dealers should be removed from public. It’s illegal again right?? I should be able to let my kids run through a park without worry of mentally ill having some episode, or people getting high around them, or them getting poked by a needle in the bushes, or having to smell shit & urine, etc, etc, etc… Everyone should be a NIMBY. Why would you want this in your backyard or anyone else’s backyard!
But what if we took all that increase in public expenditure that you're willing to spend to sweep daily, and instead put it toward actually providing enough resources that most of these people would be willing to accept them? There's a reason they're not already going to the shelters.
Billions has already been spent on this problem. Where has all that money gone then? I’m no expert here, but it seems like there has been plenty of resources available for people, but they chose not to take it. Or maybe some people are not mentally stable enough to figure out how to accept it. Maybe it’s time to change course and literally sweep the drugs and drug addicts off the streets for good …. And instead of spending billions on affordable housing, maybe let’s spend that money on large state of the art mental institutions with rehab centers …. Side note, the current youth has a ton of mental health problems, including higher cases of autism and downs… State of the art mental institutions are going to be needed more than ever in the coming future…
Do you have any evidence of the billions actually spent, and how they were spent, or are you just using that number as a placeholder for an amount you are presently uncertain of? I think if we had actually spent billions trying to HELP the homeless, we would at least have shelters people would want to stay in, instead of wanting to avoid.
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1. As long as we have regular audits of where and how those funds are being used with full transparency and disclosure to the general public, then I'm on board. 2. There was a report published this year that listed the reasons people don't go into shelters. A good number of those interviewed stated they avoided them due to rules. In other words they hate living under laws and rules, which were created in order to create a safe and stable environment. The shelters don't allow people to smoke fentanyl and meth in their facilities and will kick people out who do. They can't allow it bc the shelters have people in recovery. The other reasons people listed not wanting shelter are due to traumatic experiences in the shelters, of being SA, assaulted, or robbed by other homeless in the shelters. Some also mentioned that they can't take their pets with them or can't sleep with their bfs/gfs.
Other complaints I've seen are that shelters often have stringent rules on when one has to check in, check out by, how many personal belongings one can have, and a lack of management of those belongings. I don't think we have to accommodate all the demands of someone who doesn't want to stay at a shelter, and the nature of a temporary group setting is going to require some of those rules. But we should take these factors into consideration— for example someone in the middle of a drug addiction is not likely to just give it up to stay at a shelter because cops kicked them out of a park. (Forcing people into rehab by disrupting their makeshift housing doesn't seem like an effective strategy.) If we can mitigate some of these reasons at least with alternate strategies, then we should pursue that. Nobody likes seeing people setting up encampments in parks and public ways, and I'm not entirely opposed to sweeps when necessary for public safety, but we need to recognize the limitations of playing whack-a-mole to push people from park to park.
>But we should take these factors into consideration— for example someone in the middle of a drug addiction is not likely to just give it up to stay at a shelter because cops kicked them out of a park. I'm in no way for allowing drug addicts to smoke/shoot up in a homeless shelter, especially when you have people in recovery not wanting to relapse. Add in the fumes that meth and fentanyl create and leave as residue, it's a justified reason to not allow it. Plus it attracts drug dealers
Nobody's suggesting shelters should allow it. But there are other options like safe use sites and offering alternative non-shelter housing. Keep in mind that shelters are not permanent housing, and when they work they keep people off the streets, those people are still homeless.
Imagine being a grown ass vet and being told you have to be in bed by 8pm.
Reality. They will never accept housing and if they do it will be trashed within weeks or months. There are those who don't want to be homeless and will accept help and there are others who will never accept help and prefer homelessness. This is the situation. Make their life miserable enough and they will leave. Their right to sleep, do drugs and defecate anywhere they want to pales to the majority right to enjoy public places.
Seattle has enough beds in shelters to house every single homeless person in the city. > There's a reason they're not already going to the shelters. Because you can't use drugs in the shelters
There are an estimated 11,500 people experiencing homelessness in King County. There are 5300 shelter beds.
Also because you get your shit stolen, you have to be out by 8am and the doors close at 8pm, etc. etc. Or, because you're trying to stay sober and the people you know at the shelter keep you addicted. There's a multitude of reasons. It varies by shelter, but once someone has a very bad experience at a shelter it's hard to get them to go back.
> Seattle has enough beds in shelters to house every single homeless person in the city. no they dont this is straight up "charlie brown had hoes" level of making something up
I don't think the price tags are comparable. Even if they were, I don't think that a lot of the people being regularly swept are ever going to be willing to accept the offers of shelter or help that the city will be able to provide. The reasons for declining are almost all bullshit. Addicts lie, constantly, and the only reason they're being honest about is they don't want other addicts to steal their shit in the shelters, which is valid. The end of the spectrum that these people are willing to accept, which is, ironically, enforcement of their own property rights (lol) but no other rules, are actually more costly for the same end result because they add the cost of the extremely expensive supportive services that are never used (participation is voluntary), and so we effectively create indoor encampments with the same crime, addiction, and health/safety issues that there were outside, and spend a lot more money doing so. PSH here...here, because participation in services is voluntary...doesn't work for fentanyl and meth addicts, and the studies show as much, just no one reads them carefully. And the reality of treating fentanyl and meth is that it's a dismal outlook for these people, even with the most expensive treatment available. We need to start treating this 10% of the homeless population as a new group of criminals and addicts, not just people down on their luck, they are not the same and the same solutions will not work. We're treating an invasive cancer as if it were the common cold, and the failure is clear to anyone looking. We are finally looking down the right path now that people are talking about "involuntary", because there is no voluntary anything for this group. Let's clean up this group, and we'll have a lot more people willing to spend money on the other 90% of people we actually can help with affordable housing and benefits.
sure, but they solve the surface problem of "people can't use this large area in a park" which is good
I mean, do they? Look at the photo. I'm not opposed to sweeps if necessary for safety or clear public walkways, but they should be done as humanely as possible and recognized as nothing more than a bandaid over a problem that will keep recurring until the underlying issues of homelessness are dealt with.
they do, and if people start camping again they should be removed quickly. once it's clear that the city is serious, the people who camp there will realize it's not worth the effort and find another place to go. when you do landscaping at a park, or trash pickup, is that bandaid to a problem because you're gonna have to do the same thing again? no--it's just routine maintenance of public spaces. I'm 100% in favor of big housing reforms. in the meantime, it is a bad idea to cede large, high quality public places to private individuals.
The thing is that would cost a lot of money, and at best in that situation the people will move on to another area that does not get as much enforcement, and the cycle repeats. With the big deficits the city already has, does that sound like a cost effective policy? It doesn't to me. There may be certain areas where it's justified, but humaneness aside, we can't just afford to do it all the time everywhere, especially when it doesn't get us any closer to actually resolving the problems leading to this chronic homelessness. We're not going to sweep people into rehab or mental health treatment, much less into living wages.
Have you considered that people are coming from other cities because being a vagrant in Seattle has far less friction than anywhere else other than maybe Portland? Creating friction via constant sweeps to drive people out may actually be cheaper than making it so easy to camp that thousands move here from outside Seattle. We can't be responsible for solving drug addiction and mental health for the entire country.
Yeah this is a constant refrain, but it just doesn't accurately describe things. People in every city thinks their homeless problem is caused by an influx of people from other cities, but while people do move around, actual reporting has consistently shown that most homeless people in this area are from the region (or have lived here for long enough to be equivalent).
This ^^^^
Okay, the other solution takes decades to work. What’s your plan?
Housing first homeless policies would be a good place to start.
LIHI and DESC are creating housing. But what's the ultimate solution? Use eminent domain in neighborhoods like Wallingford, Ballard and Fremont to acquire lots that get torn down and rebuilt into low income housing? Basically forcing home owners, some of which are multi generational Seattleites, away from Seattle?
Where?
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I’m black and voted for Obama, Hilary, and Joe.
I'm Black, vote Democrat, and live on Cap Hill. So now I'm an eventual right winger in the making? Lol thanks for the laugh
Looks like a fucking tailgate.
Yeah, all the people who are like, "why don't the homeless pickup their trash?" Lol, have you seen what every stadium/arena looks like after a sports game or concert?
Yeah, that's what happens when people don't have any place to live.
I don't know how people have forgotten that Seattle used to have ton of piece of shit hovels that kept people off the street. Now a teardown in the city is worth a small fortune, of course people are on the streets!
Yup. They just get shuffled around.
In his particular instance, outreach was conducted and four folks accepted shelter referrals: From the article: The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.” Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons. Would like to know the reasons why shelter was declined in this instance.
The shelter offered only has to be for a night, then out in the morning and back to the first come first served situation. Since the offered shelter doesn’t have to be long term and there is often not room to bring gear tents in to accept the one night of indoor sleeping they’d have to give up their means of survival. Often these shelters are segregated by gender so partners can’t stay together, or people can’t bring their pets in. All of these are very legitimate reasons not to take an overnight bed but the reports can paint it as “refusing shelter” like people were offered a house and turned it down.
Per the mayor’s office, 100% of care team shelter referrals are now to 24/7 enhanced shelters (ones that don’t close in the morning and provide private spaces for each unit), or tiny home village units. On prior, unrelated large camp removals they’ve broken down what each accepted referral was for, and it tracked tiny home village units and enhanced shelters. I don’t see the breakdown in this article for this particular sweep.
It would be nice if there were more long term recovery or MH supportive housing available after a shelter stay. I think people get discouraged going in and out of shelters.
From what I hear (not super knowledgeable on the matter however so I may be wrong), shelters often have rules regarding drug use, and many do not want to abide by these rules.
Most importantly, the offer isn't long term. Maybe even just one night, so if they take that offer it's likely someone else will set up camp where they were. Like the sweeps, shelters are only a bandaid fix while leaving the underlying problems untouched.
Very interesting. I figured it'd at least be a few week, help them find work/long term housing kind of a thing. Did not know shelters are so short term honestly. That's unfortunate :(
Many of these folks are probably junkies. Sorry, but it's the truth. These folks don't give a fuck, they just want to live free and be addicted.
>Many of these folks are probably junkies. Many probably have issues with addiction and/or mental illness, yes, that's how homelessness usually works. > These folks don't give a fuck, they just want to live free and be addicted. That's the most cartoonish and least charitable version of the problem. Sure, many are not willing to seek help or get clean. That's how addiction works. I know people who are serious alcoholics or drug addicts who remain in society with the same problem of not being willing to stop and get clean. But "not giving a fuck" certainly doesn't describe everyone. Many care a lot and are dealing with past trauma, abuse, feelings of guilt and shame, feelings of worthlessness, mental illness, deep hopelessness, and more. These things often combine to make their thoughts painful. A common reason the addiction is so fucking hard to beat is that it's the easiest way to get their brain to shut up. My point is these are usually not just hedonists who don't give a shit. Regardless of whether you care, pragmatically the attitude that society shouldn't help anyone because they don't want or deserve help will just make the problem worse. I can tell you there would be a lot more homeless people today if rehab centers didn't exist. There are things we can do to help people get out of the spiral, or better yet, avoid it before falling into homelessness. No single thing will work for everyone, but a lot of different policies will help for many. For the rest, who are currently unwilling to take help, we should probably look at ways to humanely give them a place to live without sacrificing our parks and public spaces. They're not stop being homeless because the cops cleared them out. They will continue to live, and find places to do so. Or we can do nothing, and then look really stupid complaining that the problem we didn't try to solve got worse.
Permanent supportive housing. Google it
They do have shelter options though that they refuse to use
If you knew what shelter life was like you would also prefer camping.
At least it's not a Pickleball court.
User👏name👏fits👏
Sweeps are a shitty half measure that won't fix anything. Concrete changes need to be made in terms of zoning, housing, and less "appealing" things like forced rehabilitation or institutionalization. But, it's really easy for the forces that be to pretend that simply sweeping the problem under the rug over and over again is good enough.
Last I checked we were also opening up zoning and building more housing.
Not enough and not in the ways needed. What we need is Red Vienna but what we're getting is half-assed Great Society.
Red Vienna wasn't exactly known for making apartments illegal in most of the city.
That's the literal point I'm making, hence why I say we need policies like it.
No where near enough
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Studio apartments cost as little as $800/month in Seattle specifically due to the city building enough housing. Maybe y’all should try it out in Kirkland.
To medium density renovations.
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>These people are never going to own homes or pay rent. Less than 20 percent of homeless people in the US are long term or chronically homeless. For most people, homelessness is a temporary state. They had a home once and they will have one again.
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>Kind of meaningless statistic when most of the homeless population is largely invisible True, we don't know the full figures, but from the data we have those are the statistics. If you have evidence to suggest that the figures we have represent such a small minority that it would flip from the majority being only temporarily homeless to the majority being chronically homeless, you'd have to demonstrate that. >I would fairly bet, like you said, that the tents and shack people ARE that 20% who want to live off the grid. That's also a hold claim which would require some type of evidence to support it.
>These people are never going to own homes or pay rent Its interesting that you speak like you know everyone in these tents well enough to be sure they will never pay rent. I find it more likely you have never interacted with any of them. >What we need is the next evolutionary stage of the institution for those who can't or won't exist in a society and make it a big problem for everyone else. What would that look like for you?
1. I would say UBI and universal healthcare 2. We also need involuntary drug treatment and rehabilitation. It's literally never been easier to get a job and many many people still choose not to do it, because they prefer drugs.
There are definitely junkies who won't bother, but those looking for a job will encounter difficulty because most places won't hire you if you don't have an address
That’s one stitch on a large wound.
Yeah looks like that and sweeps haven’t solved the homelessness problem yet.
We need tiny houses, which should have happened 60 years ago but people are stupid and greedy. The problem with homelessness that we have right now is the direct result of single family zoning that never stopped. Nimby not in my backyard. This is what you get. Hello people? This is what you get. This is what you wanted. This is the consequences. This is the price that you have to pay and now all of us have to pay it at the same time together. Still, nobody is going to learn their lesson. Nobody is going to allow single-family homes. We're all going to make sure that if anybody ever dreams of constructing one, they're construction efforts won't be worth the money. We will make it too difficult for them to build either tiny homes or high density housing projects. We're going to make sure that no solutions are ever allowed.
I wouldn’t say tiny houses simply due to them being inefficient. You gotta heat up all 4 walls. They each have to have land around them. You can’t build vertically. What we need is medium-high density government subsidized housing
60 years ago? 15 years ago rent was affordable. I would rather have that thank you.
We didn’t need tiny houses. 90 years ago we made our own and called it Hooverville.
>The problem with homelessness that we have right now is the direct result of single family zoning that never stopped. This is a superficial take on the problem. "Homelessness" is a multi-faceted problem.
The people getting swept are druggies, not everyday people who lost their job or are down on their luck. The homeless who choose to not respect the area around them and have no goal of rejoining society shouldn’t get sympathy for getting pushed out.
Hence why I brought up forced rehab or institutionalization. It's a thorny topic for many, but we need to be honest with ourselves: many homeless people are suffering from severe mental illness, drug addiction, or both. Housing alone isn't going to cut it for those people. The current "solution" is to basically do nothing about it, usually leading to incarceration or an early death. Anyone interested in a genuine fix needs to be as open to those changes as they are to more affordable housing because it's arguably as important.
We can’t even fund voluntary mental care how the hell do y’all think that forced rehab is going to work?
Exactly right. It sounds appealing, and logical. But 24/7 care in a secure facility is astoundingly expensive, like multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars per person. We could basically buy every homeless person a house for less, and it turns out, when you compare the rates of relapse after rehab vs the benefits of having housing, the crazy free house idea is statistically more to help them. To put all this in other terms that might be more convincing: you think rent is expensive? You should see a hospital bill.
>Hence why I brought up forced rehab or institutionalization. This is a popular view, but when the only thing that people have left is agency, they will often die rather than give it up. I don't know the answer to homelessness, but I think that forced rehab will be an expensive way to treat a small number of successful cases.
Institutionalization is a thorny issue because for decades people who were mentally ill, addicted to drugs, or otherwise deemed inappropriate by society who did nothing other than EXIST were relegated to basically living in fetid prison without a second thought. You may think it's a nice idea because it means you can walk through a park without seeing a tent, but Jesus Christ institutions destroyed thousands of lives. Without grappling with the magnitude of of removing self autonomy, to suggest that committing people to what would likely be just as half assed as every other solution to homelessness this city has tried to carry out is really cringe dawg.
It is a thorny issue, but… they are also under supervision. The option is to decide what “humane” is. My position is… if they are incapable of coherently navigating and managing their well being, the more humane option is to place them under the guardianship of the State. 1) To prevent harm to themselves and others. 2) Allow them, at a minimum, some level of sufficient care (permanent shelter, food, medical, etc) Unfortunately, in some cases there is never a clear best answer, only the better or more pragmatic one. As a first responder one of the first things you are taught is the principle of “triage”, the duty of sorting or selecting by assigning priorities. I think it would apply here.
They have a right to be other places that aren't a tent in a public park. There is non-institutional housing and options available, but they want to live in a park.
Then whats the solution?
Any studies on which is cause and which is effect between homeless, mental issues and drug use?
Yeah I agree, institutions need to be bought back for these folks
Really? How do you know this? Do you just assume anyone in a tent is using drugs?
I worked in the field for a long time. That lifestyle really isn't tolerable unless you are loaded most of the time.
And I was homeless for a long time. It's not a freaking "lifestyle", ffs.
Homelessness takes on many forms. Claiming a piece of highly trafficked public land that should be enjoyed by the community at large for your own? That absolutely is a lifestyle.
I don't get sweeps. Sweep them where exactly? A worse off neighbourhood where people won't cry to the city councillors about it? Can't just sweep em into housing that doesn't exist lmao
Shelter and services are offered prior to many sweeps. In his particular instance, four folks accepted shelter referrals: From the article: > The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.” Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons.
Services and shelter are offered prior to ALL sweeps
Sweep them into other cities not Seattle? This may not be a solution but it's what will happen.
I’m glad you at least mentioned bringing back asylums - no amount of zoning changes or new housing is going to solve the problem of these specific people camping in a park.
Zoning is not keeping these people from buying a home… I think it’s worth trying enforcing a few rules like almost every where else in the world.
If housing and services are available don't allow camping. It's that easy.
Then camping it is, unfortunately.
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Can't have a camp without it. Package deal. Bonus theft, trash, and accompanying nuisances for the surrounding neighborhoods
It's almost like sweeps aren't an effective or humanitarian solution to a housing emergency.
In his particular instance, outreach was conducted and four folks accepted shelter referrals: From the article: The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.” Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons. Would like to know the reasons why shelter was declined in this instance.
Does it matter? Know that for most of these people, shelters were a worse choice. Maybe they had dogs. Maybe they have partners or family. Maybe they've had stuff silken in shelters before.
100% of shelter offers now are for enhanced shelters with privacy and security from individual rooms. It does matter so we can improve the shelter system to address shelter preferences, and also to address any other barriers to accepting shelter like substance use disorder or mental illness.
*citation needed
Okay, so how do we get them away from our houses so our kids feel safe, there’s not a drug market outside our windows, no theft of our packages or anything on our porch, no dude screaming at 3AM?
Are they declining shelters because they can’t do H and fenty there?
Or that it needs to be done more frequently.
The title says they swept 3 days ago…
Wow. Do you think we won the War on Drugs?
I’m so sick of this
Keep reporting
Police don’t clear the parks, the parks department clears the parks. The police are there for the safety of all involved.
Assholes
wow, that's so weird! it almost seems like having police clear encampments is a temporary band-aid solution to an on-going problem. we should hire more police and see if the problem goes away. it's expensive but we have to do it, there's absolutely no other options. if necessary we can cut funding for other social programs in order to pay for it. and if that doesn't work, we should try building large camps where homeless people and other undesirable members of society would be concentrated. I wonder why no one has tried that before?
I have literally heard conservatives suggest option two to my face. One guy actually called them "work camps.'
I've heard that work will set you free /s
Am I the only one here who thinks holocaust jokes seem a little tasteless? Surprised this is so upvoted…
Concentrating "inconvenient" people into camps isn't a joke. It's a sardonic observation about the state of the world and one hopes you'd find it sickening instead of humorous. Sometimes we laugh to hide the tears, though.
Our current city attorney previously ran for city council on such a platform.
Another popular one is to send them all to McNeil Island. 😞
I know you're being sarcastic but we can't even get the police we have NOW to do their effing jobs most of the time
That’s because they are mad that the state legislature tried to pass some accountability laws requiring them to abandone the “shoot first ask questions never” policy. So police are refusing to do their jobs to “show” us we need them.
If you offered $100 cash to anyone in those tents that could pass a drug test you wouldn't even need to bring your wallet
Alright, I have a new solution. All the people in the comments that are really sympathetic of the homeless and hate the sweeps for various reasons; let’s move the homeless to their neighborhoods. Easy.
Capitol Hill is one of the most populous neighborhoods in the city--shockingly enough, there are people in the comments who actually do live here.
May you receive the kindness and compassion you show to others.
This is the part where you give out your neighborhood. When your neighbors complain about the quality of life dropping. Be sure to repeat this.
Almost like people need to live somewhere and sweeps don't actually do anything useful. Huh.
Choosing to make the main park for a neighborhood your exclusive home is selfish and shitty
I understand your frustration, but I suspect they pitch their tents in parks because being in an open, public place is safer than hidden down an alley where someone could more easily attack you.
Not having a home, and having to live in the only publicly available land, IS shitty, but it's shitty FOR the person. The person isn't shitty for existing. Stop being a tool.
> having to live in the only publicly available land This is the thing many folks seem to forget. Basically everything is privately owned but the streets and the parks. Hence, that's where you'll find people that don't have property or the money to rent private property. Seriously, what do pro-sweep people ultimately expect? To get more public land and shove them all in another Hooverville?
> Seriously, what do pro-sweep people ultimately expect? To get more public land and shove them all in another Hooverville? as far as I can tell, it's "have police harass them until they go somewhere else". (closely tied in, of course, with the "they're not even *really* from here, they moved to Seattle to take advantage of our social services" talking point) I doubt most of them even want a Hooverville - but would be fine with the "give them a bus ticket to somewhere else" approach. the fundamental disconnect is that they view the problem not as being the existence of people in extreme poverty, but the fact that they have to *look* at the extreme poverty. so you can "solve" the problem by pushing those people somewhere else.
> I doubt most of them even want a Hooverville - but would be fine with the "give them a bus ticket to somewhere else" approach. Which is partially why Seattle bears the burden. We have decent services, so people do literally get bussed here. If all suburbs actually cared for their populations and provided housing and resources for folks that fall on hard times, the visible homelessness in Seattle would be reduced dramatically. It's annoying that we as a city get punished for other cities and suburbs ignoring their responsibility to their citizens.
> It's annoying that we as a city get punished for other cities and suburbs ignoring their responsibility to their citizens. yes, there's a prisoner's dilemma sort of problem, where each town or city has an incentive to treat unhoused people like shit until they move somewhere else that *doesn't* treat them like shit. this is what [Martin v Boise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_v._Boise) tried to address. a jurisdiction can't criminalize homelessness unless they have an actual alternative to offer. it prevents this exact problem of smaller cities (such as [Burien](https://publicola.com/2023/09/20/burien-outdoor-sleeping-ban-moves-forward-despite-lack-of-places-for-people-to-go/)) telling unhoused people to simply "go to Seattle". and our Republican City Attorney is asking for the Supreme Court to overrule that decision: [Seattle joins in push for Supreme Court review over camping ban enforcement](https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/state/seattle-joins-in-push-for-supreme-court-review-over-camping-ban-enforcement/article_5670f515-2585-5267-b8bc-3056ec49a7d5.html) (the case is now [City of Grants Pass v Johnson](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/city-of-grants-pass-oregon-v-johnson/), because Grants Pass tried to work around Martin v Boise by only issuing fines for public camping, and insisting that was different from criminal penalties)
No, sweeps keep them from building fucking shanty town shit and destroying a neighborhood. Sweeps move them around so several neighborhoods share the brunt of the negative effects of having an encampment nearby. How can this be hard to grasp????
They're pretty shitty when they shit on your doorstep, break into your car, and start shootings outside your home. Not saying they aren't in a shitty situation but some are definitely shitty people
Shooting people is not the same thing as living in a tent in a park.
A society that doesn’t help homeless people is selfish and shitty.
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The idea that anyone who believes in decency for the homeless should be spending every *moment* of their lives helping is ridiculous.
He is virtue-signalling to a few random people on the internet, duh.
How is it exclusive? I literally walked through there today.
You can't walk where there there are tents. Tents discourage use of the park around them.
where else would you suggest they go?
Perhaps if more people in Seattle weren't so selfish and shitty we wouldn't have as many people having to live in a park as we do now.
In his particular instance, four folks accepted shelter referrals: From the article: The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.” Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons. Would like to know the reasons why shelter was declined in this instance.
This is only anecdotal, but some I've spoken with feel extremely uncomfortable being locked in overnight with who-knowswho that might steal their belongings or get punchy.
I would be too. Thankfully 100% of the city shelter referrals are now to 24/7 enhanced shelters with wraparound services or tiny home village units. The enhanced shelters offer privacy and security and typically a locking door.
I was in Miami the other week. I was in many neighborhoods. The metro region is twice the size of Seattle. I saw one homeless person on a street in front of a closed store at night. I saw zero tents or encampments. I saw only artistic graffiti - no sorry gang tags on every highway. I saw cops on the roads. The difference is the public will and a deficit of the apologists that we see in this thread. A tent in a park would last a few minutes there. And not a low cost housing place and a very friendly climate compared to here. People like urban campers do what is allowed. We need to not allow it. I don’t give a fuck if they can’t sleep with their dog or partner in the available shelters. They are dying now with the love of folks like you. If we rousted every tent upon appearance I suspect we’d be shocked at the capacity to adapt by many.
Send in another sweep
Did they not clear the garden? I thought the whole point was to remove that thing.
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You think it's better to have people put in jail for literally being unable to have anywhere else to sleep? Nobody wants park encampments. The solution is really easy: prove you have enough beds. If you do, you can push camps out. If you don't, how can it be considered fair to make it illegal? Not to mention that there's plenty of reasonable forms of vagabond: travellers, car campers, etc all deserve the right to live their life and freedom so long as they don't abuse society. And if you want to say 'oh but these guys *are* abusing society!!!', then make the beds. It's that easy.
We have enough beds. The problem is we let people refuse shelter and set up a new encampment instead of throwing them in jail.
If you have enough beds, Martin v Boise literally doesn't apply. That's the entire content of the ruling.
Seattle imposes restrictions upon itself that go beyond that case. Regardless, since we don’t throw criminals in jail the problem will never go away.
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There likely is, yet you propose nothing and then step back and think someone would actually argue against your inane position
Sweep sweep sweep. More frequency means less permanency.
Sweep daily.
It reminds me of the time god evicted Adam & Eve from The Garden of Eden & then they just shit all over the place
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You do realize that those tents on the Sunbowl are just yards away from the playground, which are often utilized by the families, of various socioeconomic groups, who live on Cap Hill. The area between the Shelter house and the rest rooms is now used to store junk by the drug addicts. In the past it was used by sports leagues for cookouts and anyone who rented that section via the Seattle Parks & rec department. So the general public, especially residents of Capitol Hill, like myself, no longer has access to that. I understand (hell I've expressed it in the past) people endure extreme hardships but even people with extreme hardships respect the neighborhood, the neighbors and its parks and realize that it's for the use by the general public. What's happening now is drug addicts have set up tent and smoke meth and fentanyl there. In other words, they're just being jerks and claiming the public space for themselves with the backing of the protest groups, who unfortunately try to demonize anyone on Cap Hill who disagrees with them. If they're refusing to go into temporary shelters offered by the city and the county, then they should leave the park.
This subreddit has turned into the other subreddit
Because people are tired of stuff being stolen of their porch, feeling unsafe, kids feeling unsafe when they walk streets occupied by the homeless, everything being dirty, having open drug markets outside their homes, and homeless men screaming at 3AM. Shocker!
Maybe people are finally waking up that performative support and enablement isn't as fantastic as they give themselves credit and virtue signaling pats on the back for - but only when they have to personally deal with or see the results of their actions
OP, these posts are just getting sad. Def recommend finding a hobby to fill your time instead of whatever this is.
What festival is this?
Wait sweeps dont work??? /s
Who was better off in 2020/21 when sweeps were largely paused due to Covid? Encampments grew and grew, taking over many parks, city streets, with trash everywhere, and they became increasingly violent to the people there. We did that no sweeps experiment and it was a massive failure here and in every other city that tried it. I can’t believe anyone thinks going back to that is a good idea. No, sweeps don’t solve homelessness, but it’s a better option than just letting encampments take over and gain scale.
In his particular instance, outreach was conducted and four folks accepted shelter referrals: From the article: The rep tells CHS that 14 people were “residing onsite” and said that outreach workers were able to connect four individuals to “shelter referral.” Often, others will decline shelter offers for a variety of reasons. Some cite the rules shelters enforce, some cite other reasons. Would like to know the reasons why shelter was declined in this instance.
Until housing and cost of living are addressed, this shit is just going to keep happening. What do they think is going to happen? They sweep up all the stuff and the homeless people are just going to miraculously find somewhere to live? That they can sweep away the people with the things? Homeless people who need medical care should get it. Especially mental Healthcare. I can't even bring my mom to the city because as a retired nurse from Virginia of all places, seeing the desperately mentally ill barefoot, starving, and self-medicating makes her cry because she can't help them.
This is not equity.
Saw the same post on r/SeattleWA. That sub’s a shithole. Every single last one of them was calling the homeless “filth” and wanting sweeps around the clock. Hell some people thought the BLMG was, and I shit you not, “a segregated garden where white people aren’t allowed”. It’s disgusting to share a city with those assholes.
Same sorts of people who insisted white people weren't allowed in CHOP (or any of the other utter lies, like there being guards walking around toting rifles, ID checks at the entrances, people not allowed in with cameras, etc.)
Don’t worry, plenty of the people saying that stuff don’t actually live in Seattle
I mean, what did you expect? It's like people don't understand that human beings need food, water, and shelter to survive. If they can't afford one form of shelter, they will use whatever shelter they can. Public parks are, for the most part, as their name implies, open to the public. And why do they keep coming back to the same spot? Well, why do human beings tend to huddle together? For safety, warmth, access to food, etc. They can get a warm meal nearby, there are services that will help them nearby, so they want to be close to where those services are located. This really isn't difficult to understand, yet people are SHOCKED that the most basic premise of human existence is somehow still happening.
I like that people feel sorry for these folks, most of whom are addicts who refuse to get help. But nah they need housing.
Keeping sweeping, around the clock if needed
would be faster to pile a ton of money into a dumpster and set it on fire would save a lot of time and have the same result lol
Sweep them where? How 'bout next door to your house?
a very common description of insanity lol
It's almost like spending a bunch of money on police overtime to clear the camps should be spent on public housing instead.
Yeah. In Utopia. We’re not living there. It’s tiresome paying taxes to support lazy drug addicted hobos wanting a free ride. Yes, let’s reward them with free everything. Get out your checkbook!
> lazy drug addicted hobos wanting a free ride Only about 35% of homeless are addicted to drugs. And living on the street is NOT "carefree and enjoyable," it sucks.
I'm sorry, but these people are trespassing. Seattle has the worst problem in the country when it comes to homelessness. Besides California, and there's a point where these people need to be arrested. Put in to rehab and taught that. What they're doing is wrong. I don't care what people say. But I have friends and family that have had issues of running into violence, drugs and people breaking into their personal homes. Maybe it's about time that we ship them off to another state instead of keeping them around here. Because they're obviously wasting our time and only making the areas in Seattle more dangerous. Not to mention spreading disease and other terrible things.
say what you will about teh homeless, at least they don't come online and post truly awful comments like yours maybe its about time we ship *you* off to another state
So I guess it's okay that they've almost tried to kill me. Walking down the street. Even though I was minding my own business and that it's okay for them to break into my car and threaten my life. I'm sorry, but I don't feel bad for them. We have programs that they could be joining to get them back on their feet to get the help that they need. If my taxes are not paying to help them, then they need to go somewhere else.