Made me dust off my HN account for this. I’m a fourth generation resident of Tacoma, WA just south of Seattle, so I might be able to shed some light on what’s

Made me dust off my HN account for this. I’m a fourth generation resident of Tacoma, WA just south of Seattle, so I might be able to shed some light on what’s been happening. Please pardon spelling errors, I’m typing this on my phone. Washignton state is very passive aggressive as a whole. You see it in the politics as well as the people themselves. In this case, Seattle does want to help the homeless but doesn’t want to make the effort to build a proper facility. We’re quick to jump in social issues like gay marriage, but will absolutely balk at anything that requires more money, time, or effort. So Seattle, in the most passive way possible, stops enforcing public camping laws. There are other significant components to it as well. In the case of the Seattle Police, they just got shaken down by the Dept of Justice for corruption and racial profiling as well as by the WA State Supreme Court (the death penalty ban cites a Seattle prosecutor being openly racist on the record in King County Court). My guess is that the police is being super careful right now to avoid another legal confrontation, so a lot of grey area stuff (like homelessness - illegal to camp but they gotta sleep soemwhere) doesn’t get enforced. The freeway camps get even trickier since they’re on Department of Transportation land, which only the State Patrol has legal jurisdiction on under current law (city laws don’t affect highway land).