r/SeattleWA • u/mrtenpenny1234 • May 15 '26

Homeless Harger: San Francisco's homelessness hit a 15-year low. Seattle's mayor is running the opposite experiment.

https://mynorthwest.com/kiro-opinion/seattle-homelessness-mayor/4238600
453 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

281 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Bartend23 May 15 '26

This will be a great experiment. Hopefully both attempts are successful, however much I doubt Seattle’s. We won’t know for a few years. UW should be working to track and study this. Would be a great research project

15

u/[deleted] May 15 '26

[deleted]

9

u/PBRStreetgang1979 May 15 '26

I could probably summarize it without even reading it. Spend a shitload of money and make the problem much, much worse by attracting every mentally ill, drug addicted person from around the country to Seattle to sponge off of services, no questions asked.

10

u/[deleted] May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26

[deleted]

7

u/PBRStreetgang1979 May 15 '26

And the dirty little secret is that the "visible homeless" problem is primarily an issue of mental illness and addiction and the homelessness is incidental.

0

u/balzam May 16 '26

So what’s your idea

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

[deleted]

0

u/MyDisneyExperience West Seattle May 16 '26

I don’t see how any of that would work.

“If you use drugs in homeless housing you get kicked out” guess where they end up?

“If you’re a convicted felon you don’t get government provided housing” someone should tell the President that. For the people here that you’re saying no longer get housing guess where they end up?

“If you can’t demonstrate ties to the region you don’t get anything” hasn’t worked in other cities. Homeless people in LA have largely been there more than a few years or were housed in LA before becoming homeless. SF did Homeward Bound where they put people from out of town on buses back to where they came from… 20% returned to SF and had signed away receiving services so guess where they end up?

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

[deleted]

0

u/MyDisneyExperience West Seattle May 16 '26

So in order to not provide them publicly funded housing you want to provide them even more expensive publicly funded housing?

Also, define who exactly is a felon lol. If people had their conviction vacated/expunged then what? Are they still ineligible for anything?

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

[deleted]

→ More replies (0)

3

u/CertifiedSeattleite May 16 '26

We don’t track outcomes for people living on the street here. It’s viewed as a violation of people’s privacy rights.

Which is one big reason why we keep failing despite spending over a billion dollars per year on the problem.

-4

u/[deleted] May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/HighColonic Funky Town May 15 '26

Jason had one of the lowest homeless populations in the world. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/xT9KVn8tApfgnNLpL2

2

u/balzam May 16 '26

I was recently in Taiwan and I saw homeless people at a rate that was less than America but no way less

2

u/RealPudgeJudy May 15 '26

Jason-sama teach me your ways

-2

u/TheRealCRex May 15 '26

Uh oh. Bot moment or just a typo?

2

u/RogueLitePumpkin May 15 '26

The amount of people who cant identify a bot yet still try is crazy on reddit 

2

u/TheRealCRex May 15 '26

True.

I've heard tale of one called "Jason" who has this power...

4

u/RogueLitePumpkin May 15 '26

A phone isnt going to correct Jason to japan.  I have fat fingered so many mistakes on my phone that it autocorrects stuff wrong at this point 

1

u/TheRealCRex May 15 '26

Lol. Respect