Over the course of a few hours early Friday morning (Jan. 29), more than 1,000 volunteers guided by the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness recorded a 19-percent spike in the county’s homeless population.
This amounts to 4,505 people living outside, compared to 3,772 counted last year. Last year’s count was a 21-percent increase over 2014.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine both announced states of emergency in regard to homelessness in November.
“I think it’s not surprising; I think the declarations of states of emergency really are an acknowledgment,” said Alison Eisinger, executive director for the Coalition on Homelessness. “I will say that this is a number that is so big that it is somewhat difficult to absorb.”
The count came a little more than two days after Murray gave a live television address about the homelessness crisis and what must be done to address it. At that same time a shooting occurred in “The Jungle,” a tent encampment that has been a problem for the city for some time. That shooting left two people dead and three injured and also prompted Murray to ask publicly whether his emergency declaration had come too late.
Eisinger said the Coalition on Homelessness will now work on expanding on the data it collected during the One Night Count, which identified 2,942 people in Seattle living on the streets, with a large number — 914 — using vehicles for shelter. The number of homeless using vehicles during this year’s count jumped significantly from last year both in Seattle and King County, she said.
The count does not include exact numbers of homeless in any one neighborhood within the city.
“Our job is to go to the places where we know people are likely to be and not get stuck in this fairly unhelpful idea that this is an issue in this neighborhood and not an issue in this other neighborhood,” she said.
She added that the transient nature of the homeless population means such a distinction would not accurately reflect a drop in homelessness in an area but likely just a shift in where homeless are staying.
‘No simple solutions’
During Murray’s address last week, he emphasized the homelessness crisis is a “national tragedy” and not just isolated to Seattle. He pointed to 35 years of cuts to federal affordable housing as a major cause for the issue the city is now facing, adding 19,000 people applied for federal housing vouchers in Seattle last year.
“The reasons for homelessness are complex, and ending homelessness will not be done easily or quickly,” Murray said. “There are no simple solutions; it will take time.”
Eisinger said Congress did recently provide some funding to assist homeless families, veterans and youths, but that won’t make a significant impact when broken up across 50 states and with years of catching up to be done.
“Congress has really been, as everybody knows, dreadfully, dreadfully stuck and dreadfully unwilling to take up the real serious reforms and public infrastructure improvements that we need,” she said.
Increasing affordable housing will be key to reaching a long-term solution, Murray said. Seattle has seen huge rental increases over the last several years.
“For some people, a $60 increase really is the difference between them being able to stay in their apartments or not,” Eisinger said, adding the organization’s fighting for legislation in the state Legislature that would extend the notice period a landlord is required to provide before increasing rental rates.
The Coalition on Homelessness planned an advocacy day in Olympia on Tuesday, Feb. 2, where homeless individuals could be connected with their legislative representatives.
Murray said in a few weeks he will lay out plans for doubling Seattle Housing Levy funding when it comes time to replace the 35-year-old measure this year, which would allow for the creation of more affordable housing.
“Perhaps as a city there is nothing more important we do this year than passing this levy,” he said.
Prioritizing services
Through the city’s state of emergency declaration, Murray said an additional $7 million in one-time new funding became available to open 300 additional “safe places.” Two safe lots — one in Ballard and another in Delridge — were announced two weeks ago. They will open soon to address concerns about the numbers of vehicles, particularly RVs, cluttering streets in neighborhoods across the city, while also connecting individuals with housing advocates and other human service providers.
A van service has also been launched for providing medical and substance abuse treatment; Murray pointed out heroin overdose deaths in King County went up 60 percent over the last two years.
There is also the issue of addressing mental health, another factor playing heavily into the increase in homeless populations nationwide.
“Our state has the second-highest rank of mental illness but ranks at the bottom for access to treatment,” Murray said, adding Washington ranks 46th in the nation for mental health access. “This itself is a disaster that must be addressed.”
In his address, Murray was critical of the city’s “fractured system” for program funding, saying the current process can’t continue “simply because [programs] have political support, even when they do not work.”
The mayor said he proposes the city adopts recommendations provided by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which includes a data-driven shift in how services are prioritized: “We will collect better data without threatening individual privacy or service provider funding, and I ask our service providers to work with us in doing this.”
The city will spend nearly $50 million addressing the homeless crisis this year, but Murray said there are advocates and City Council members saying that won’t be enough. He said it would take another $49 million — double the current investment — just for basic emergency shelter, but he can’t see where cuts could be made to the existing budget without seriously harming other programs, infrastructure improvements and municipal services.
“To me, these are unacceptable tradeoffs,” Murray said.
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