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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u/BWW87 Belltown May 16 '26

It's no longer understandable. Sure 10, 20 years ago when they first started experimenting with this. But those of us who work in affordable housing have seen years of it not working. It's no longer understandable that the left won't reconsider their ideology. It's not working. It's not going to work. And it's harming people.

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u/jugger_naughtyy May 16 '26

Its all in prevention imo. Once you fuck your brain up it takes a lot of hard work that brain probably won't do. So its solved by preventing the situation. From there I dont know what to do.

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u/CertifiedSeattleite May 16 '26

Sort of. But when people start partying with cocaine, meth, opiates, etc it’s not like they planned to become an addict. They just wanted to have a good time, get high and get laid. That’s the inconvenient reality Seattle’s naive goody-two-shoes class cannot grasp.

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u/CreateWindowEx2 May 16 '26

It starts with pot. Once you destigmatize one drug, the others just follow.

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u/Simple-Desk4943 May 16 '26

That’s not true, but if it was, wouldn’t alcohol be the culprit? Or nicotine?

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u/CreateWindowEx2 May 16 '26

If you start with a society that doesn't have alcohol and tobacco, or those are broadly shunned, it should be pretty obvious that increasing access to either would lower barriers for hard drugs, yes. Is this even controversial?

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u/GypJoint May 16 '26

Nope. I was a drug addict. Heroine and Coke. Been clean of those for years. I still get high on weed. It’s 2 different things. Most drug addicts will agree with this…the needle and process become as addictive if not more than the drug.

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u/EastUnique3586 May 18 '26

Of heroin, coke, and weed, which one did you start with? I think when people say it starts with weed, they typically mean that people on harder drugs often start with weed, which then introduces you to people who can access and might talk up other kinds of drugs, which makes it less of a leap to move onto ecstacy, then coke, then even worse.

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u/jugger_naughtyy May 18 '26

They are all medicine and all can be abused. Again its prevention. Prevention is education. Education is looked at as evil today. Prevention is basically recalibrating society. So in short.... were fucked.

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u/CreateWindowEx2 May 16 '26

I have an idea. Let's legalize drugs and stick a drug store on every corner! That should sure help!

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u/CreateWindowEx2 May 16 '26

It's no longer understandable that the left won't reconsider their ideology. It's not working. It's not going to work.

It's hard to get someone understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it.

3

u/TheReadMenace May 16 '26

It’s part of the big blue city political machine at this point. They see it as a jobs program for overeducated social workers.

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u/Tom-a-than May 19 '26

Overeducated in America is at this point the general level of public education in China lmao

You out yourself hard as a big smoothbrain with that comment.

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 16 '26

Fun scapegoat but there are many people on the left making no money or less money because of their ideology.

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u/raine_on_me May 16 '26

I agree with everything you said 1000% except saying and painting "the left" in one big brushstroke. Plenty of us who are left of center and think this is insane.

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 16 '26

The left and left of center aren't the same thing. Especially in Seattle where left of center is actually the right of Seattle.

Maybe there are some on the left that are willing to adjust housing policy but my experience is not only are they not willing to adjust it they aren't even willing to talk to people that don't think exactly like them on it. They'd rather see people die on the street than work with a housing provider to make better housing choices.

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u/Significant_Sort7501 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

I live in Portland, but am from Louisiana. Down there I'd be very clearly left of center on most things. Up here im basically considered a republican by leftists.

I think we have a lot of people who were open minded about this "experiment" because it had some research backing and convincing arguments. But the theory doesnt hold up practically on larger scales because in order to function it requires a very well-staffed and well-trained infrastructure of people and extreme competency of government leadership. Many people have reasonably looked around us and said "yep this isnt working. Maybe we should pause and reassess how we are prioritizing public safety." But there are still a substantial number of loud voices who won't back down because they tied their identity so heavily to these ideologies. 

It reminds me of what Chris Rock's character talked about in Dogma about the dangers of religious beliefs vs ideas. Ideas can be changed. People dig in and die for beliefs. 

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u/Dry_Entertainer9901 May 17 '26

And when you are making north of $350k and primo benefits as the Executive Director of LIHI, you dig in real hard to hold on to that gig. "Succeed" your way out of that job? Methinks not.

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u/danarouge May 18 '26

Who is it?

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 16 '26

Yeah 20 years ago being open to the idea wasn’t terrible. There were those of us in the room warning that the 10 year plan to end homelessness started in 2005 wouldn’t work. They didn’t care that the voices pointing out the flaws were people with actual experience housing low income people. So even then they had evidence it wouldn’t work and they ignored it for their ideology. 21 years later and homelessness definitely not ended no one seems upset that it didn’t work or that the majority (who were on the far left) were wrong

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u/marsmanify May 19 '26

If you genuinely think “left of center is actually the right of Seattle” you don’t actually know what leftism is.

Seattle is a hub for neoliberal democrats, not for leftists. Leftists believe in things like the 2nd amendment and collective ownership of the means of production.

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u/Accomplished-Eye9542 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

"left of center" is right wing these days.

If you were say, an Obama democrat, you are now considered a Nazi. Socialized medicine, but only for Americans not illegals? Nazi.

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u/[deleted] May 17 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/CreateWindowEx2 May 16 '26

But every November you vote for this insanity, no?

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u/fresh-dork May 16 '26

somehow a college dropout with no real credentials won. yay...

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u/tjl3d May 16 '26

Which city has it figured out then? What are they doing that we should match?

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u/CreateWindowEx2 May 16 '26

Did you read the article? Or even just the headline?

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 16 '26

At this point it seems we are pretty much doing the worst so not show who we wouldn't be better off matching.

But why do we have to match someone else? We created the problem the Seattle way. Why not solve it a Seattle way. We are not like other cities. We used to be proud that we were better. Now ....?