After repeated unsuccessful attempts to clear out the “Jungle” on Beacon Hill’s west slope over the years, fielding complaints of chronic problems relating to the homeless from downtown businesses and of RVs taking over residential neighborhoods and witnessing a general homeless problem that’s even more in-your-face than in previous years, the city has finally declared a state of emergency for homelessness.
What was the breaking point? Perhaps it was the 60-plus squatters who took over the former Seattle Times building, were cleared out in September and returned that night? Or maybe city officials finally learned they could — after Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., declared emergencies in September and Hawaii followed suit in October.
Whatever it was, Seattle’s crisis was long in the making.
The 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, which expired last spring, didn’t eradicate homelessness but instead saw double-digit increases in this population each year, according to the annual One Night Count. Still, the city has been redirecting funding for health and human services to transportation and public safety and forcing a growing number of unsanctioned but organized tent cities to decamp every few months.
Blue-tarp encampments and RVs now litter the city, from one end of Interstate 5 to the other and points east and west, and homeless people stake out sidewalks, off-ramps and intersections with signs soliciting money.
Somewhere along the way, Seattle leaders should have gained insight that it was going to take more than a few million more dollars or even city-sanctioned homeless encampments that have yet to open to stanch the growing demand.
But with Seattle’s state of emergency, Mayor Ed Murray allotted and the City Council approved $5.3 million for 100 additional shelter beds and prevention and outreach, including the purchase of a van. This is in addition to the more than $40 million annually Murray said the city spends on services for the homeless.
The county, which declared its own state of emergency, is considering contributing $2 million for 50 more shelter beds, housing vouchers and more, on top of the more than $36 million it spends on services each year.
The need to stem the already-dire problem should have been met many years earlier with the same urgency as the more recent $15 minimum wage or the $930 million Move Seattle transportation levy. It shouldn’t have taken such statistics as 47 homeless people dying this year (as of September), or that nearly 3,000 Seattle Public School students are homeless (one elementary school’s homeless population is one-fifth of its entire enrollment) for the city to call a state of emergency, and with only $5.3 million.
The signs have all been there for a long time — they just needed to be heeded.