4 ms·

I think you have hit many things amazingly well with Seattle homelessness. I think one of the reasons why we get very "every person for themselves" when the pr

by blang 8y ago

I think you have hit many things amazingly well with Seattle homelessness. I think one of the reasons why we get very "every person for themselves" when the price tag comes up is it's hard to think of the single mother living in her car while working every day because the most visible members are the addicts sitting in the alley passed out in their own feces next to your stolen bicycle. Also it's hard to get data on who is the more representative group.

techsupporter 8y ago
> it's hard to think of the single mother living in her car while working every day because the most visible members are the addicts sitting in the alley passed out in their own feces next to your stolen bicycle I think this is what's going to result in a rather massive upheaval in the next city council elections in Seattle. There seems to be a belief--right or wrong[0]--that "the vagrants are taking over, the community is sick of it, and our generosity is at an end." (In quotes because it's a characterization.) There has already been one candidate for council in district 6 (Ballard, Crown Hill, Northwest Seattle), who subsequently dropped out because of other political drama, that made his main plank that he was going to do nothing except push to roll back spending at every opportunity and get ordinances passed requiring the police to actively go after "vagrancy." He didn't get very far, mostly because of the aforementioned drama, but that he got as much attention as he did is telling. I think if a more viable, or at least level-headed, candidate starts to challenge the district 6 incumbent (I'm picking on district 6 because a lot of the noise about this problem has been coming from there and 6 includes Aurora Ave N) on the basis of this belief that the problem is too far out of control and must be stopped with a big hammer, the divide between the two groups will become pretty stark. And if that challenger doesn't win, it'll be a pretty close race. 0 - I happen to think this belief is wrong.

by blang 8y ago

techsupporter 8y ago

> it's hard to think of the single mother living in her car while working every day because the most visible members are the addicts sitting in the alley passed out in their own feces next to your stolen bicycle I think this is what's going to result in a rather massive upheaval in the next city council elections in Seattle. There seems to be a belief--right or wrong[0]--that "the vagrants are taking over, the community is sick of it, and our generosity is at an end." (In quotes because it's a characterization.) There has already been one candidate for council in district 6 (Ballard, Crown Hill, Northwest Seattle), who subsequently dropped out because of other political drama, that made his main plank that he was going to do nothing except push to roll back spending at every opportunity and get ordinances passed requiring the police to actively go after "vagrancy." He didn't get very far, mostly because of the aforementioned drama, but that he got as much attention as he did is telling. I think if a more viable, or at least level-headed, candidate starts to challenge the district 6 incumbent (I'm picking on district 6 because a lot of the noise about this problem has been coming from there and 6 includes Aurora Ave N) on the basis of this belief that the problem is too far out of control and must be stopped with a big hammer, the divide between the two groups will become pretty stark. And if that challenger doesn't win, it'll be a pretty close race. 0 - I happen to think this belief is wrong.