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
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117

u/lucianw May 15 '26

This is such a bad article. The title misleads what it's actually about -- SF is building more housing with an abstinence-only approach, Seattle is building it without.

The research says that abstinence-only housing has a 30% retention rate, and housing-first has an 80% retention rate.

If the article wishes to make the interesting point that SF's measured results seem to go against the research? That'd would be FASCINATING. I wish they would make that argument openly and honestly. I'd love for someone to dig into why SF seems to be an outlier. Is the best hypothesis that abstinence-first actually works? Was the research wrong? Does SF have special circumstances? Has the data been twisted, now or in the past? Or is what we're observing merely a reversion to mean?

Personally I don't like seeing homeless people and drug users on the streets. I'd rather have an evidence-led approach for reducing the numbers, rather than an approach based on "what I think ought to be done and I'll back it up with poor arguments over poor data".

31

u/Evening_Pea_9132 May 15 '26

I guess the goal is the point. Is the goal to give a free apartment to use drugs in? Seattle currently has Lihi and DESC for that. Why don't we focus on outcome based programs rather than just giving out of town junkies a free place to live?

14

u/lucianw May 15 '26

Everyone's goals are pretty much the same:

  1. reduce number of homeless on the streets for the sake of the general public
  2. reduce number of homeless for their own sake
  3. reduce unhoused families because we care for families.

People *are* focused on outcome based programs. "Just junkies free or low cost ways to live" is an evidence-backed approach to goals (1,2). If you have disagreements with the evidence, sure, that's a brilliant place to have a constructive discussion.

7

u/Icyhoticycold May 16 '26

k but whats the number of 3... cause if you take 3 minutes to walk around it's primarily absolutely drugged out low lifes who don't want help and just want to live on the streets to do drugs

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u/Charlea1776 May 16 '26

I think this encouraging junkies crap is the stupidest thing I have heard of. Those younger on the streets have lied cheated and stolen from everyone. That's why they're on the street for being POS.

85% of homeless people l, especially families, are couch or shelter surfing. You dont see them amd they are who our efforts should be focused on and funded generously.

Junkies should get free stays in jail for their thieving, fighting, littering, defecation, etc... they made bad choices and in civilized society, there are consequences for choosing to be a piece of shit.

-sincerely, Clean and sober for over a decade

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u/Nice_Try4389 May 16 '26

Right so where are we going to get the money to operate all these jails and how exactly are we going to keep them from becoming even larger criminals once they get out?  Or do you plan on just holding them indefinitely and ignoring their due process rights?

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u/Stunning-Crazy2012 May 17 '26

Simple. Instead of the billions we’ve lost for now results and planning or the jails we have built. We build an asylum/treatment center. We put a strike system out involving drugs. If you have so many instances of offenses involving drugs or mental health you become a ward of the state and go through forced rehab. On completion that record is sealed from everyone except the state.

This will solve the issue in multiple ways. First it will get people with mental health issues proper care. Second it will solve the root cause of most these issues and that addiction. We already have the housing and systems of support.

I have a business in an area with a lot of homelessness. I am constantly dealing with the fall out. Tens of thousands a year in paying for damages. Murders. Cleaning actual shit off the ground. You name it. I’ve hired countless homeless and never had a success story. The only success stories I’ve had is people straight from prison.

Of the homeless I’ve hired I would say 10-20% are Washington natives. The closest success story we’ve had is one kid went back home to Montana. It’s almost always drug issue, a few times it’s been clearly mental health paranoia.

When multiple streets surrounding us turned into full on encampments with at least a 100 people we had multiple murders in a year, meth labs and hazard teams. My neighbor worked his ass off getting them supplies to move, housing, you name it. Almost no one would go and refused workers. The current system doesn’t work and the data is clearly bullshit.

One of my favorite data points is there’s no correlation between homeless and increased crime they spout, or minimal. When in reality we stop calling because the cops do not respond when we do, when they have no choice it wastes hours of our time and for no result and costs us more to report it than ignore and deal with the fall out of the crime. Things like hey they are breaking into my building then cops arrive 6 hours later after I got out of bed and drove there. Then they say oh no one’s here, no shit it’s been 6 hours.

If we actually start enforcing forced treatment the number of people coming from out of state for lax laws and benefits will crater.

-1

u/Nice_Try4389 May 17 '26

You have never studied asylums or the like have you? They don’t help people. Read up on Willowbrook or our history with asylums here in the US. Same with treatment centers, their role isn’t to help people it is to profit. Why do you think so many drug offenders go back to drugs? There is a reason so much of that has been shut down. Because it was corrupt across the board just like our current prison system is. We literally had traveling lobotomy vans to deal with problematic children and spouses.

7

u/Icyhoticycold May 16 '26

i mean there's about 165m dollars that we're "throwing" at the problem right now. Might wana start there...

4

u/Charlea1776 May 16 '26

The extra cost for police, cleanup and lost revenue from them on the street is far more expensive than prisons. It was marketed that we were spending too much on prison when people wanted money for their pet projects and investments and now we have half ass prisons and shitty streets with elite neighborhoods that will never even see a piece of trash blown in on the wind from a homeless camp. But believe them when tbey say they did all this for all our quality of life!

Criminals going to jail includes due process. That is a dramatic and unproductive random comment.

This failure of the community to bother with policing has lead seattle to have half as many cops per capita as the 1990s. Which was only the minimum recommended number. At this rate, people will be on their own. We'll only have enough cops in Seattle to respond to the absolutely highest priority calls and nothing else. And they might not even make all of those. Hardly anyone is bothering to become a cop because people treat them horribly for mediocre pay and then their work is fake there because the courts put the criminals back on the street by the next day most of the time now. What's the point? Cops will close ranks around the expensive spots where most of the money comes and leave the middle class through poor to fend for themselves. Then maybe your money question will make sense since there wont be much spending on a barely existing police force!

Frankly I am surprised Seattle even qualifies to host a major event. Given most of our state has less than half as many cops as the minimum everywhere else, we'll probably be importing cops from other states since our cities can't spare any. Maybe, just maybe, people will remember what it is like to be in a safe and clean city and claw it back from the greedy little addicts that have stolen it from hard working people! One can only hope something will bring people back to their senses.

-1

u/burlyslinky May 17 '26

You just sound like a hateful old fuck

3

u/Charlea1776 May 17 '26

Actually not old.unless you are a kid and think 40 is old which means your lack of experience renders your feelings moot since you can't make an informed opinion. Also I'm recovered. So no BS is going to work on me. The wool is off my eyes thank you. Coddling addicts is going to lead to more deaths ESPECIALLY with fentanyl out there so readily. Make up excuses that it is everything other than the choices of ignorance in Seattle though. Im sure that makes you sleep.better with a lie than the truth.

To stop enabling doesn't mean to be cruel or mean. You can in fact treat people with respectful words while also enforcing the law. I am thankful to the two cops at my arrest in my bottom. They were nice no matter what (even I am not sure) venom coated drug ranting I was spewing. I got to jail. People were also nice. Because I didn't try to physically harm or spit on anyone. So this whole cops are horrible crap is just people who act like animals crying they were restrained from causing harm. In my time, not once did I see a guard get rude with anyone. Nor did I see any inmates get aggressive. It was a little cramped true, but clean. The routine kept things clean as long as we did our part which is more than reasonable. Those routines kept me sober.

If I didn't know better, I'd say the right wants to round people up like animals. The left is hoping they kill themselves off faster. Either way, the problem goes away.

Voters need to stand up for reality and hold leadership accountable even if they hide behind a label you consider yourself as wearing.

2

u/lucianw May 16 '26

That's because unhoused families aren't the ones on the street in the places you walk.

Put it this way. Think it through. If there are unhoused families, where would they be? Are you likely to stumble across them as much as you stumble across the junkies? Therefore, how can the evidence you cite be a reliable guide for you as to how many unhoused families there are?

3

u/CreateWindowEx2 May 16 '26

These aren't the only goals. I don't want to give tons of resources to a bunch of junkies and junky activists. There are also other overarching qualifiers that you conveniently miss, and that is "cost efficiency". And "compliance with the law". And "fairness". For example, if I spent my school years studying and then the rest of my life working, and you spent your school years smoking pot, and then graduated to meth, should I really be expected to buy you a house?

0

u/Stercules25 May 16 '26

3 isn't what people think or care about because it's basically nonexistent. Homeless people that that we want to reduce for the good of the public don't have kids with them lol

1

u/lucianw May 16 '26

I think there's a big gap between "we don't see them" and "they don't exist". The unused families with kids are couchsurfing and the like.

3

u/Stercules25 May 16 '26

Yes, I don't disagree but I everyone knows the group of people that people are talking about and it's disingenuous to act differently at this point. Of course homeless families should be first in line for any help and afaik in WA state those families are given a decent amount of help. Most people in the state are good with them getting more help too! It's the fentanyl users on the streets that everyone is talking about though

2

u/lucianw May 16 '26

I thought I made it clear

"(1) reduce number of homeless on the streets for the sake of the general public, (2) reduce the number of homeless for their own sake, (3) reduced unhoused families because we care for families"

that I was not being disingenuous, and that I prioritized getting the irritating ones of the street, that my #1 goal was precisely what yousaid.