28 ms·

Seattle Faces Backlash After Easing on Crimes Involving Mental Illness

249 points by realbarack 7y ago

djohnston 7y ago
In an interview at the time, Holmes said, "What we're really talking about is to say, 'Just put 'em in jail. And at least that offender will be out of sight and out of mind for a defined period of time. Not receiving treatment, but at least out of the public view.'" I'm not sure whether he's criticizing this thought or not, but if he IS, why? Having these people out of the public is obviously better than having them attempt to throw people off bridges or scream incoherent nonsense at random bystanders, regardless of whether they receive treatment.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  I think the point he's trying to get across is this: First we had institutions for the mentally ill. Then we closed them all down, with the promise that they'd be replaced by community mental health care. But since that care never showed up, all those people just starting going to jail instead. This is no better than the institutions, but they were "out of sight, out of mind", so no one cared. What Holmes is saying is, since we're not going to put these people in jail anymore, we're now forced to really deal with the problem, instead of just shuffling them somewhere so we can pretend they don't exist. Either we get real mental health care, or they stay on the streets screaming at people. The choice is yours!
  - olliej 7y ago
    Yup, save money by cutting down services, knowing that people always vote for increased prison spending. It costs more to keep someone in prison than in a mental health facility, and the latter has the chance of assisting recovery, but yay prisons!
  - booboolayla 7y ago
    Did I miss something here, did we invent cures for mental illnesses recently? There's no other way of dealing with it other than "shuffling them somewhere", be it a prison or a mental institution (which is also a prison of sorts)
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    Is this an actual choice one gets to make, though? Most mental health programs were funded (and then defunded) at the federal level with some state money. The prosecutor in question is local. And the problem is that even if the locality were to somehow raise all that money to launch comprehensive mental healthcare on its own, it would basically be a clarion call across the land for all the other cities to buy a one-way bus ticket for their homeless there, because now that one place has solved it why do they have to? Busing the homeless out to other places is a common occurrence: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
  - LordHumungous 7y ago
    We still have institutions for the mentally ill, but Pete Holmes refuses to send people to them.
- olliej 7y ago
  No, locking people up in prison does not make them better when they’re released, and often results in them coming out worse than when they went in. Also, putting someone with mental health problems in prison costs more than a real treatment facility, where at least there’s the possibly for them to get better. Here’s a clearer way to describe it: If putting people with mental health problems in prison is better than having them on the street, why are they being let out again? You’ve already decided that they’re not going to receive any treatment or assistance, so they’re going to hit the streets, commit some crime (violent or otherwise) and then go back to jail. So why let them out? Prison sentences are intended to be “long enough to correct or discourage future criminal acts”, with life sentences for people we don’t believe can be released safely. Given that we know that people with mental health problem but no treatment or support will reoffend, that seems (by your assessment) like a prime candidate for permanent incarceration.
  - djohnston 7y ago
    it's certainly better to keep violent crazy people off the streets. i would like them to be in a treatment facility, where they have the opportunity to be helped and can be let back out as healthy members of society. that doesn't exist. so, yeah, they shouldn't just be out and about harassing everyone else, right?
ajna91 7y ago
It's one thing to show compassion and not be overly punitive on those suffering from mental illness or addiction. It's another thing to throw up your hands and let unstable people cause chaos in your streets. That's not good for them or you.
- hockeybias 7y ago
  Exactly.
- codr7 7y ago
  We're getting the worst of both worlds by blaming mentally ill, poor or otherwise unwanted citizens for any problems caused while doing nothing to improve the situation. It's the oldest ruling-class distraction in the book, blame the crazy person. But it misses the point, which is figuring out what's pushing people over the edge and building a society that takes better care of everyone.
curtis 7y ago
I think this is the first article I've read to use the term "visible homelessness". For many people who live in Seattle, the world "homeless" really means visibly homeless, but for many political activists, the word includes people in shelters or living in the cars or otherwise keeping a low profile while not having a permanent address. I'm no expert but I strongly suspect that the best ways to help the visibly homeless and the not-visibly-homeless are pretty different. But activists are more than willing to conflate the two cases. This particularly arises in the case of affordable housing. Housing may indeed be the primary problem for the not-visibly-homeless. It seems pretty likely though (just based on observation) that the biggest problems for the visibly homeless are mental illness and substance abuse. I think we'd be better served by not talking past each other and instead make it clear which kind of homeless problem we're talking about at any particular time.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  In San Francisco some groups use the term visible homeless as well. I think it is a good start in categorization because there is so much cognitive dissonance between seeing a thing, not understanding what is already being done about a thing, and conflating a dozen other issues as one thing.
- sushisource 7y ago
  I hadn't thought of it in exactly those terms but this really strikes a chord. I'll definitely be using more specific language from now on.
- ncallaway 7y ago
  > that the biggest problems for the visibly homeless are mental illness and substance abuse. I think there's some reasonable evidence that housing first approaches are extremely helpful in addressing both mental illness and substance abuse. Housing creates an opportunity for both stability and routine, which are incredibly important for getting help and treatment for mental illness and substance abuse. I don't think the evidence is 100% conclusive yet, but I don't think a housing first approach can absolutely be helpful for both populations (but for different reasons!). I do think it makes sense to think about both of these populations, because they definitely don't have the all of the same needs. Pretty much everyone needs shelter and at least a small place to safety store items.
ronnier 7y ago
I live in Seattle but I'm currently in LA. Here in Santa Monica its out of control. I just went to Starbucks and a homeless person was harassing everyone in the line, very threatening -- and the security won't do anything about it. We can't do anything about it or we'd be the one cracked down on. I was in another coffee shop and a homeless was behind my chair with a lighter trying to light my hair on fire. My wife was harassed in the same coffee shop two days later. I can't see how this isn't impacting tourism. Even when I went to Hawaii, Waikiki was filled with homeless taking over all the public benches.
- Bootwizard 7y ago
  Wow. That sounds like a nightmare. I don't personally have a solution to this problem but I think treating it like it isn't one is not the solution. What's it like in Seattle? Same issues?
- steelframe 7y ago
  At least they aren't trying to straight-up murder you while you're passing by on the sidewalk. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-trying-to-throw-woman-off-seattle-overpass/931766654 https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-trying-to-... Oops, I meant, straight-up "attempted assault" you.
  - dmix 7y ago
    > Wilson, who prosecutors say suffers from mental illness, had already been arrested three times since September 2018 for assaulting total strangers, all of those cases were handled by Seattle Municipal Court. > The Seattle Municipal Court judge made the decision to dismiss all of the assault charges stemming from these recent arrests. I have so many questions
    - 14 7y ago
      I suspect it has to do with Mens Rea
  - tluyben2 7y ago
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Another POV is that whatever your problem is, I have a right to be unmolested in the street /home. So it's a bit more complicated.
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  Agreed. And I don't think anyone is saying you don't have that right. Rather we're hoping you can forgive the molestor as someone who is ill and needs treatment to get better. The act is not the sum of the person. I wouldn't fault you for not being able to do this though. We are making a choice to punish people for their illnesses. And in a humane culture we would look at those less fortunate and try to help them. This was a central tenet of Progressivisim, which as an ideal has presided over some of the finest periods of our nation's history, and since it has fallen out of favor so has the US. Currently what we're doing is throwing people in jail who are mentally ill, treating them like criminals, and not treating the mental illness. Then we release them onto the streets, where they promptly take up the same habits that got them put into jail in the first place. It's been several generations since we closed up all the inpatient facilities, and two generations since Reagan basically eliminated all federal funding for mental health care. The upshot is we have a bunch of crazy people living among us who don't realize that they're mentally ill, and who cannot be coerced into treatment because there are no treatment programs that have room for them. So they end up in jail or on the street. I think it's time for us to try something different. Clearly jailing the mentally ill is not working.
  - pteredactyl 7y ago
    You say the rights of that person molesting people on the streets is greater than that of the citizen trying to get to work (or an 8 year old en route to school). That's unacceptable to me. So while I agree with you on mental institution funding and it being a solid (Edit: part of the) solution. Compassion still has the inmates running the asylum (streets).
  - Kalium 7y ago
    You're absolutely right. No act is ever, under any circumstances in the whole of the history of humanity, the sum of a person. I applaud the kindness and compassion that fills your heart for centering this key insight. > We are making a choice to punish people for their illnesses. We are making a choice to punish people for their behavior. Their behavior may be due to their illnesses, but the two shouldn't be reflexively equated. Not unless you genuinely desire society to actively seek to punish illness instead of concerning itself with behavior. It's perhaps worth remembering that the American public did not turn against institutionalization for no reason. Those places were visions of Hell that would have turned Danté's stomach. These visions were conjured into reality by our Progressive desires to help the less fortunate meeting an inability to do so reliably and humanely at scale. Good intentions, kindness and compassion and a genuine desire to help, were not enough. I won't fault anyone for being skeptical about that being fundamentally different now.
Proven 7y ago
We can sugar coat it and analyze it but tl;dr: socialists = no respect for private property.
pteredactyl 7y ago
The law is blind. The more we bend this the more our society breaks. Especially in the eyes of our children. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice
- rolltiide 7y ago
  > The law is blind. A) thats not true, what are you 4 years old? > Especially in the eyes of our children. B) oh you are trying to impress 4 year olds. Police officers have wide discretion, district attorneys have wide discretion, prosecutors have wide discretion, juries have wide discretion, judges have wide discretion. The laws they operate on and around can be dumb. We don't have a way for 4 year olds to understand that. A holistic approach is to address all of these simultaneously.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  Police officers have wide discretion, district attorneys have wide discretion, prosecutors have wide discretion, juries have wide discretion, judges have wide discretion. The laws they operate on and around can be dumb. We don't have a way for children to understand that. A holistic approach is to address all of these simultaneously.
  - pteredactyl 7y ago
    Agreed. And you prove my point in a way. Our litigious (Edit: and racially preferential) culture is part of the issue. A holistic approach is a principled one. Clear laws are principled. For example, noise ordinances in SF say there's a violation if event or action is 10 decibels greater than the ambient. Or, if you push someone, harass a child en route to school, shoot up on the street, defecate on the street, etc. These are clear violations.
    - pteredactyl 7y ago
      The real question is, what do we do with violators? Especially those lost in the head. Adequate mental health institutions seems an appropriate start. But it also needs to be coordinated regionally. San Francisco and LA can not bear the burden of the western United States.
rsweeney21 7y ago
The criminal justice system should not handle these cases. I don't consider acts done by mentally ill people criminal. I have personal experience with this. My sister is bipolar and schizophrenic. For 30 years she was a little quirky, but mostly normal. She worked at a private equity firm in New York, got married, had a great life. Something changed around age 30. She started acting strange. We initially thought it was just her normal quirkyness, but then things started to escalate. She wouldn't stop talking about Prince Harry. She said she wanted to marry him. We laughed it off. Then she started talking about secret messages she was receiving from Prince Harry. She believed she had been chosen as the princess and that ISIS was trying to kill her to prevent Prince Harry from marrying her. She had all this proof (hidden messages in the news, Instagram posts of bananas, crazy stuff). She was convince that the government had put chips in our brains and were controlling us. We realized that she needed help, but she refused to believe she had a mental illness. There was absolutely nothing we could do BEFORE she committed a crime. We knew it would happen, we knew it was only a matter of time, but the criminal justice system would not do anything. Finally, on Christmas day, she went on a rampage at my grandmas house and destroyed a bunch of property. (We found a journal entry later where she said she was sad because Santa Clause didn't come and pick her up and take her to the North Pole like he was supposed to so she lost it.) We got lucky that it was only property. She was put in jail for 24 hours and then let out on the street at midnight without us knowing. She assaulted a police officer the next day. She thought he was ISIS trying to kill her. FINALLY, the criminal justice system did something. We had to hire lawyers to plead with the judge to force her on to medication. We had stacks of tweets, facebook messages, emails, etc that showed she was clearly delusional. They finally agreed. She is on meds now and has regular checkins with her parole officer to ensure she stays on them. She is back to being a little quirky, but has no more delusions. She has a job again and is happy. We are lucky. It could have ended up a lot worse. The current system for helping the mentally ill is totally broken.
- maxaf 7y ago
  I have no personal experience with mental illness, but judging by your story it seems that part of the problem was your sister's lack of willingness to seek help. Most health insurance plans cover some kind of mental health services, but the afflicted person must actively seek out such help. Compare this with a broken leg: if I stepped wrong off the curb and broke my leg, I'd be in in pain and clearly unable to walk. I would call 911 and have them pick me up, take me to a hospital, patch me up, etc. The system to make all of that happen is there. It would appear that mentally ill individuals are unable to seek help. Is it not the case that psychiatrists and mental hospitals exist and are covered by health insurance? It seems unfair to point the finger only at the system without acknowledging that helpers can't help without explicit consent on the part of the person being helped, or without some legal means by which they can be coerced to accept help.
cneurotic 7y ago
I don't think the issue is so much that cities are too lenient on these people. It's more that the resources available to them are both inappropriate and inadequate. My wife works at in-patient psych unit in my town. Granted, we experience nothing near the scale of problems in cities like Seattle. But even here, our city can't cope with the sheer number of folks with these mental health / substance abuse problems. Many of my wife's patients are dangerous to themselves or to other people. They can only stay on an in-patient unit for so long. After that, the stopwatch starts ticking. How long until the next violent offense? If there were more institutions for these people, somewhere between Hospital and Jail, at least the stopwatch would STOP more often.
- closetohome 7y ago
  I think that was more or less the conclusion of the article. The "tough on crime" contingent wants to lock people up and get them out of sight, but the alternative - getting them mental health assistance - is hard to do because we lack the range and depth of resources needed to address their issues. And since we're reasonably sure that increased incarceration isn't the answer, that leaves us in our current situation.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Perhaps one more option: Lower the standard for involuntarily forcing them into mental health treatment. Look, the standard needs to be fairly high. But don't these people need to be in treatment for long enough that it actually changes things for them? Is anything else going to work? Or do we say that their right to not be forced into something they don't want supercedes both their need and the need of society?
    - closetohome 7y ago
      I think that's a good point, and for the most part I'd say I agree. If someone meets the criminal threshold of incarceration, it should be possible to divert them to treatment for at least the same length of time as a prison sentence. Along the same lines, maybe blur the lines between incarceration and treatment a little more. Incarceration should ideally be more therapeutic than punitive.
nixgeek 7y ago
Several of our offices are around the 3rd and Pike area downtown and it’s pretty common to overhear colleagues saying they feel unsafe walking on sideways around the office. There is rampant and open usage of hard drugs, lots of people hawking used bus tickets or items stolen from Ross Dress for Less or Target, at least a couple instances a day of walkers being interrupted by visibly agitated homeless either shouting nonsense or aggressively begging. Once a month or so there’s an arrest due to a stabbing or shooting within 1-2 blocks of this area. Whatever they’re doing in policy terms at the moment isn’t working.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  That's the dirty little secret about the compassion-first, anti-law-and-order homeless strategy: it makes residents of neighbourhoods where the homeless services are provided feel unsafe, especially women, and especially at night.
aaronbrethorst 7y ago
Public frustration with the "visible homeless" found its voice in a recent hourlong special called "Seattle is Dying," by ABC affiliate KOMO-TV. This fails to mention that KOMO is owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, which has been building a sort of 'Fox News of broadcast TV' across the United States. Here's one fun story about them from April 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16734739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16734739
- Sebguer 7y ago
  They are far worse than Fox news, because at least you know what you're getting with Fox. Sinclair uses local branding and trusted voices to sell propaganda.
  - booboolayla 7y ago
    What news sources would you recommend that are not propaganda in your view?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    If anyone wants more info, there's a John Oliver segment on how Sinclair does this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc They require local stations to play pre-recorded, "must run" commentary, as well as requiring their anchors to recite a script accusing other news outlets of running "fake news". https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490 https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local...
    - leereeves 7y ago
      John Oliver isn't any better. In his segment on Libya, for example, he didn't mention that Obama and Hillary (or even the US) were responsible for the mess there. In his special on mandatory minimums, he ignored the Clinton Crime Bill, while showing footage of the first Bush. News sources slanting their coverage for political reasons isn't limited to Fox and Sinclair.
DubiousPusher 7y ago
This is a really simple problem that for some reason Americans just can't get their heads around. We have eliminated virtually every government intervention besides police power. We have also seen our social institutions significantly divest their social contributions. Therefore the criminal justice system has become the catch all. It is expected to handle the mentally ill, the homeless, the drug addicted, problematic families, neighborhood disputes and more. Every now and then, we see the consequences of that divestiture and it shocks us. We see people who only really need mentorship, medical care or friendship being treated like hardened criminals and we see how that treatment corrupts these people with otherwise fairly socially benign failings. So we pull back on the leash of the criminal justice system. These people begin to rejoin our society but with no assets, no standing, little to no mental healthcare. And unsurprisingly this influx of invested citizens gets people's attention. And regardless of whether crime genuinely increases these people are newly visible and easy to associate with any anecdote of crime and violence. So people predictably turn against them and against the pull back. But to fix this problem you have to do two things Americans are loath to do. You must tax and spend money to build institutions that are not police. And you must give those institutions some power to intervene sometimes against the will of those they are intervening with. And I have no illusions. Involuntary commitment to mental health care and drug treatment and community involvement are often ugly but Americans make it clear over and over that even though vagrants and homeless are generally not a problem that much affects those other than the vagrants and homeless themselves we will never collectively tolerate their presence. The options seem to be building institutions to specialize in the assistance and care of these people or continue to use one monolithic system and continue this cycle.
- neaden 7y ago
  I would add that besides the police we outsource a lot of this stuff to public transportation workers and librarians. All night subways operate as mobile shelters, especially in winters and libraries are frequently the only place a homeless person can stay during the day without getting kicked out or interacting with the police. Unfortunately we don't really prepare transportation/library workers with the resources to deal with them most of the time.
mr_tristan 7y ago
I'm wondering if starting with better categorization of "homeless" would be important, I'm thinking of something like ETHOS (https://www.feantsa.org/download/en-16822651433655843804.pdf https://www.feantsa.org/download/en-16822651433655843804.pdf) Ideally, you figure out how mental illness plays into the different categories, and you may be able to understand effective prevention. My sense is that this goes beyond mere "we need some mental health facilities", because preventing someone in a less secure housing situation from becoming totally roofless may end up being significantly cheaper, i.e., not require specialist mental care and hospitalization, but just a subsidized housing and someone stopping by to make sure the person hasn't regressed. Sadly, it appears nobody with real resources in the US wants to invest in understanding homelessness, so we just lump it all together and try to find ways to let the police deal with it.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Everyone who actually works with homeless people already had these distinctions. If you don't know that, you should start with really basic info like reading the Point In Time count, not making suggestions on what should be done.
- mr_tristan 7y ago
  Interesting, that the HUD data (Point-in-Time count), indicates declines across the board over the last decade for homelessness, yet, most journalism indicates the exact opposite: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45442596 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45442596 And, yet, for Portland (mentioned in the BBC article), the data suggests that the "problem people", the chronically homeless, unsheltered population went up by ... 42 (.006% of the overall population): https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566631e8c21b864679fff4de/t/59ee2e7a5ffd207c6e7b41a0/1508781707710/PSU+2017+Point-In-Time_FINAL_%28Interactive%29+%281%29+%281%29.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566631e8c21b864679fff... I'd admit my _impressions_ (again, not significant suggestions, I was asking questions) have been biased by journalism, and, journalists probably find the HUD data inconvenient for telling their stories. But, I do not appear to be alone, and there are very powerful people pushing the negative narrative. Last year the PPA (Portland police union) also referred to the city as a "cesspool", which sure seems to fit with the overall theme of "homelessness getting worse": https://www.facebook.com/PortlandPoliceAssociation/photos/a.386709091352814.95949.306696819354042/2058045217552518/?type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/PortlandPoliceAssociation/photos/a.... I'd also point out that my suspicions and questions were also on the minds of other national organizations: https://endhomelessness.org/ending-homelessness/solutions/ https://endhomelessness.org/ending-homelessness/solutions/ We appear to have a massive disconnect in the narrative presented by journalists, politicians, and at least the HUD.
jackyinger 7y ago
I live in Seattle right across the street from a mental health institution. The folks that gather around it are really beyond their wits end. While I think the idea that Seattle is dying is melodramatic bs, it is quite the nuisance to have these folks hanging around. Furthermore, the inadequate public sanitation in Capitol Hill compounds the problem into one of public health. I think that the problem visible in the homeless population is the result of systematic marginalization. The USA has a real fuck-you attitude towards those who aren’t up-and-comers, so the down and out just get ground down further. It’s a tough problem to address, so do your part and try not to recoil in dehumanizing horror when you see these folks.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
Many years ago, while living in Fairfield, CA and trying to get education appropriate to becoming an urban planner, I had a class on Homelessness and Public Policy through SFSU. More recently, I spent several years homeless. A very big issue in the US is housing policy which has steadily shrunk the availability of basic housing, such as SROs and Missing Middle housing. While we need some emergency services for the homeless population, I'm really not for actively growing more homeless services as our primary approach to trying to resolve this. We need to fix what's wrong with society that's causing people to land in the street. Housing is a big part of that. A few blog posts by me: Why I'm not for "we need more homeless services!" as our primary approach: https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-shirky-principle-and-homelessness.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-shirky-... Housing cost and homelessness: https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-connection-between-housing.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-c... Missing Middle housing: https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing-middle.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing...
- pteredactyl 7y ago
  Agreed. Incentives are not aligned. It seems the unnamed "War on Homelessness" has just created an industry not actually interested in solving the problem. This recent Hoover Institution article had an interesting take seemingly aligned with yours: https://www.hoover.org/research/backwards-economics-san-franciscos-homeless-policies https://www.hoover.org/research/backwards-economics-san-fran...
- saas_sam 7y ago
  Have you been to SF or LA or Seattle? The crisis we are experiencing isn't because rents are too high. That's a separate crisis affecting a different set of people. The crisis this article is discussing, the really really bad homelessness problem, comes in two forms: drug addiction and mental illness. These people could not stay in an apartment if it cost $50 a month. Their problems are far, far worse than poverty.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
superfamicom 7y ago
I work in downtown Seattle and the people I see affected by the aggressive homeless folks are those who don't know who they are- people visiting or new to downtown. I know which homeless folks are dangerous from experience and which ones are just panhandling. I've personally been spit at, spit on, attacked with a 2x2x18 piece of wood, and had a brick thrown at me (with surprising force), charged at, sexually assaulted (physically), the list goes on. I've observed the end result of panhandling in various situations: there are the "my family needs help" folks who beg with kids in strollers and at the end of the day get back into their cars in the Target parking lot; there are the folks crying on the street begging for any money to get food, but don't want food directly even if you've already bought it for them with no strings attached; there are also the rare case of someone who was just mugged now trying to get on the bus. The end result is any compassion I had has been slowly whittled away. Actively avoiding human shit or fresh vomit every morning on the sidewalks and keeping an eye out for needles everywhere (watch where you sit on the bus) really just leaves you tired and unsympathetic. Pro Tips: avoid 3rd & Pine / Pike, avoid all of 2nd Ave. in general; avoid parks and downtown after dark; do not touch the needles unless you have to (bus seats); do not go into tall grassy or ground obscured areas as there may be needles; avoid the park beaches as they are toilets for the homeless early in the morning (4-6am).
- chmod775 7y ago
  I'm getting nauseous in more than one way just reading this. How do people living in a place like that not look inwards and wonder at what turn they committed a colossal fuckup that got them where they are now? Your post sounds like fiction to anyone living in civilized conditions, but I don't doubt you are telling the truth (even if you are exaggerating).
  - derefr 7y ago
    The “how” is that places like this (Seattle, SF, Vancouver BC) have very good municipal support for the homeless, and have pretty good welfare laws at the state level, and have climates that won’t kill you if you sit outside all day. So homeless people from everywhere else in the country gravitate to these places. These cities don’t have a municipal homeless problem; they’re sacrificial goats for entire nations’ homeless problems.
TomMckenny 7y ago
Because homelessness aggravates a controllable condition into an uncontrolled one. Treatment should be provided but it's not going to do much good if the patient is just going to live on the street. You'll find the number of homeless with mental health problems corresponds with the total number of homeless which corresponds directly with housing prices. So until there is a major effort to drive those prices down, this problem will worsen, as it has for a generation now. And of course Sinclair broadcasting is pushing to lock up the poor rather than do that.
blondie9x 7y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw
agentofoblivion 7y ago
I also live in Seattle. I have no idea how to solve the problem, but I definitely don't think letting dangerous people roam the streets, committing acts of violence without consequence, is the answer. When you have a person that's consistently assaulting random people, that person needs to be forcibly removed from the environment as a matter of public good, regardless of the causal reason for their actions. It's a real shame they were born with a bad brain that makes them incapable of not being a violent menace to society, and that no cost-effective and humane solutions seem to be on the table. But if I have to make a short-term decision on who's rights to sacrifice first: the ill violence committer or the innocent victim, I choose the former 10 times out of 10.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I don't disagree with the main thrust of your point, but I think this is an incorrect and very problematic framing: It's a real shame they were born with a bad brain that makes them incapable of not being a violent menace to society People take many years to grow into adulthood. Studies show that every dollar invested in doing right by our children saves multiple dollars down the road on prison costs and the like. America has a terrible track record for how it treats its children, especially for a wealthy, developed country. If we want to escape our current Prison-Industrial Complex with a side of violent and insane rampant homelessness, we would do well to start by developing more family-friendly policies in this country.
  - rmah 7y ago
    Nothing that agentofoblivion wrote hinted at him not supporting "doing right by our children". And nothing you wrote touches on what you think should be done after the damage has been done. Prevention is all to the good and should, of course, be pursued. But prevention of future problems does not solve the problem that exists NOW.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      Suggesting people are simply born that way implicitly suggests that there is nothing whatsoever to do about it. "You lost in the genetic lottery. Sucks to be you." I'm saying it's vastly more complicated than that and it's a serious problem to frame the problem that way because it leads to a mentality of "Just lock them up or ship them out for the good of other people." This tends to deepen the problem. There are things that help. I know a lot about such things. I sometimes try to blog about such.
Animats 7y ago
The US used to have big mental hospitals for the mentally defective. Those were phased out in the Reagan era.[1][2] They didn't cure many people, but they fed and clothed them, and warehoused them out of sight, so everyone else could get on with life. [1] https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s... [2] https://www.thebalance.com/deinstitutionalization-3306067 https://www.thebalance.com/deinstitutionalization-3306067
turtlecloud 7y ago
What the homeless activists don’t get is that 95% of most people who complain about “homeless” are talking about the visible homeless aka the crazy ones with mental/drug problems. When these activists start shaming you about not caring about the “hidden homeless” it is actually turning more people to be even more apathetic. My conspiracy theory is that the homeless activists secretly need (and promote!) the visible homeless in order to push their agenda for more housing for the “hidden homeless”. Since if the visible homeless are gone, then 95% of most people would be super apathetic to the “hidden homeless” cuz out of sight and out of mind.
- mulmen 7y ago
  I'm with you on the first two paragraphs. I lost the plot in the third paragraph. What is the benefit to these homeless activists in perpetuating homelessness?
  - philwelch 7y ago
    The "visible homeless" generate attention and motivation to address homelessness. The "invisible homeless" are, well, invisible and so it's hard to motivate people to give money/time/votes to addressing their problems. The "visible homeless" are a bit of a nuisance so there's a vested interest in addressing homelessness if you think doing so will stop that kind of thing.
  - yeehaw5002 7y ago
    hobby security
  - scruple 7y ago
    Perpetuation of the homeless-industrial complex, if I had to guess.
- LordHumungous 7y ago
  >My conspiracy theory is that the homeless activists secretly need (and promote!) the visible homeless in order to push their agenda for more housing for the “hidden homeless”. Since if the visible homeless are gone, then 95% of most people would be super apathetic to the “hidden homeless” cuz out of sight and out of mind. It's not a conspiracy theory. The service providers perform activism and give political support to the politicians, and in return the politicians keep the spigot open. Seattle area spends $1 billion per year with almost no accountability. Here's an example of how it works: https://roominate.com/blog/2019/the-academic/ https://roominate.com/blog/2019/the-academic/
ajhurliman 7y ago
Seattlites are desperate to conflate the housing "crisis" with homelessness, but I'm not convinced the person yelling at the sky and swinging a drain pipe at people in his alley narrowly missed his $5000 mortgage payment. It's unfortunate that people with less means have to live further outside the city and spend more of their commuting, but I don't it's unreasonable to assume that people will make decisions on their own behalf to stay housed rather than just live on the streets if rent is becoming too expensive.
- TheMagicHorsey 7y ago
  Yeah, but it would be easier to find housing space govt. run shelters if housing space was cheap.
  - ajhurliman 7y ago
    It's plenty cheap in Renton. I think it's unreasonable to put a homeless shelter in the middle of downtown Seattle knowing that they're working with a limited budget and that paying a premium on the lot will result in less beds.
    - techsupporter 7y ago
      There are two issues with this, and they both go to the heart of why developing these services is so difficult: 1) Seattle residents have chosen to tax ourselves to pay for social services. By and large, a taxing jurisdiction can't put services outside its jurisdiction, so Seattle can't levy a tax and then use it to buy space in Renton. Yet, Seattle is more or less the only jurisdiction in King County willing to tax ourselves to pay for these services. The Eastside for damn sure isn't, at least not for services to people who aren't sympathetic groups, and would rather simply arrest people for vagrancy and haul them off to the King County jail (which is, per state law, in the county seat, thus Seattle) and then conveniently be somewhere else when the person bonds out of jail and walks onto Seattle's streets. Arguably the South King cities don't have the tax base to help shoulder the load, Renton being one of the few that does, but that then gets into people not being willing to vote for those taxes because, frankly, they don't want to. So you have a situation where only Seattle is spending the lion's share of the money but Seattle can't spend it outside of Seattle, land is expensive virtually everywhere in Seattle, and King County's government has shown precious little impulse to try to handle the problem at the county level. To say nothing of Washington State's almost-total abdication of responsibility. And then, 2) People get incredibly vocal about homeless shelters and other services for them. Just try putting a new shelter in Wallingford. Hell, just try putting one in Bellevue's Eastgate, like they've been trying to do for a decade. The lawsuits alone are just now starting to wrap up and the vocal minority, realizing they've run out of court-based options, are running candidates who sit on a platform of "yes it is needed but not here" and have no answer for "but where?" because that's not the point. I'm sure the good people of Renton would be vocally opposed to your idea to "export Seattle's homeless problem" to Renton. Thus, the only areas that wind up with shelters and other public services are the ones who either lack political clout--like Pioneer Square and the ID--or are where those services have always been...like Pioneer Square and the ID.
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TbobbyZ 7y ago
My father is homeless. No matter how much money you throw at him, he will always be homeless. He's an incompetent 54 year old. He needs to be constantly monitored so he doesn't drink or do drugs. The only real solution to this level of homelessness is you need to round them up and essentially put them all in a glorified daycare or rehabilitation centers. Kind of like a lesser prison.
fiblye 7y ago
This is a question that will likely sound incredibly offensive, but only because I don’t know of a polite way to say it. But: What’s wrong with the mentally ill in America specifically? It seems like you can’t walk down a single city block in the US without seeing someone screaming at something that’s not there, someone naked and wrapped in blankets, someone saying the earth is about to be destroyed by aliens/god/satan/whatever, someone screaming that they’re going to kill you (and looking quite serious about it), someone pissing on a wall without concern, etc. I’ve seen this nowhere else in the world. I’ve seen homeless who are clearly mentally disturbed to some extent, but they’re usually silently searching for a meal or something without harassing or terrorizing anyone. I know the go to excuse is mental health care in America sucks, but that can’t be the entirety of the problem. I’ve been to some incredibly poor places where basic health care isn’t even an option for most people, yet I still never worried about walking down city streets like I do in America. What makes American cities so particularly bad and absolutely full of people who seem to be bad movie caricatures of mentally ill homeless people? Edit: I am American and lived there most of my life, so it’s nothing to do with simply visiting a bad place. It’s something I saw everywhere
- bob_theslob646 7y ago
  >I’ve seen this nowhere else in the world. I find it hard to believe that their are not other homeless people in other countries not "tripping" on drugs.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    In most countries I've been to it's not nearly as easy to get ahold of the quantity and diversity of drugs as you can in America. In Latin America, for example, it is seriously hard to get ahold of anything but marijuana and cocaine, even for young hip people in-the-know with the right people. Only in a few small markets in Europe like major cities in the UK and cities with liberal drug use policies like Amsterdam do you get comparable drug accessibility. And even then it's still a far cry from what's available in the US. Besides street drugs, there are prescription drugs, and even there the US is exceptional in the availability of prescription drugs available via the black market.
umeshunni 7y ago
Meanwhile, in my neighborhood in San Francisco, my neighbors are suing the city to prevent the construction of a homeless shelter. https://sf.curbed.com/2019/7/11/20689583/homeless-sf-suit-navigation-center-embarcadero-shelter-lawsuit https://sf.curbed.com/2019/7/11/20689583/homeless-sf-suit-na... The noise around this in HOA meetings, local body meetings, NextDoor etc has been incredible with anyone trying to propose that a homeless shelter might be a good option vociferously shouted down, accused of "not being a Bay Area native" and a "techie". The only other cause that I've seen my neighbors so fiercely oppose is new housing construction.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  The only other cause that I've seen my neighbors so fiercely oppose is new housing construction. This is the bigger problem. The lack of housing supply is a primary root cause of homelessness.
  - umeshunni 7y ago
    > This is the bigger problem. The lack of housing supply is a primary root cause of homelessness. It could be, but in most west coast cities, it is not. Mental health issues and addiction are the primary causes of homelessness. I hardly think the guy waving a metal pipe around while schizophrenic is homeless because he missed a few payments on his $3200/mo rent.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      No, he's homeless in part because he can't afford $3200/mo rent to begin with. For every 100 families living in poverty on the West Coast, there are no more than 30 affordable homes https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-poverty-west-coast-no-30-affordable-homes/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-pove... The Clear Connection Between Housing Costs and Homelessness https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-connection-between-housing.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-c... California Statistics on Homelessness and Housing https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-statistics-on-homelessness.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...
aschearer 7y ago
Just want to say as a Seattlite that the city I experience is not a dangerous hell hole at all. I've lived in Capitol Hill for a decade. I've worked on the hill and in SODO. I regularly go to Pioneer Square, Rainier Valley, downtown, the ID, not to mention Ballard, Fremont, and so on. Homelessness is a serious problem in the city, and something I encounter every day, but I have never been attacked, threatened, etc. I'm sure it happens, but I think the narrative is getting unbalanced. I've stayed in Seattle for so long because it is truly an amazing place to live! Setting all that aside, because the issue is so pressing and the risk at losing empathy so great I volunteer with a local homeless shelter. I encourage everyone who feels this issue is important to find some time to contribute to the solution. You can help make a difference, interact with homeless people as humans not "others", and regain a little agency in the world.
- fremonter123 7y ago
  Also in Seattle, complete opposite experience. Live in Fremont near the canal. I have been swung and lunged at and had someone who was severely mentally ill tear apart my yard and try and break the windows in the house with the patio furniture while home. Absolutely terrifying and had to clean blood off of the doors. On the regular screaming could be heard in the neighborhood in the distance somewhere. Once the encampments in the area were cleared everything stopped. Turned me into a nimby right quick. Tax me sufficiently to provide adequate services and get them the hell out of my neighborhood.
- jeffwilcox 7y ago
  I used to feel this way, too - and I live in Belltown - but over the years the random stabbings have added up, like the couple killed after a Sounder's game a while back, of the 3 random people stabbed a few days ago outside Nordstrom... it's scary, but not in the "late night walking alone" way. Agree it's a relatively safe place for sure.
ralmidani 7y ago
"Some accuse a reform-oriented local criminal justice system of becoming too tolerant." As an American, I find our emphasis on inflicting maximum pain rather than reform very disturbing. Among "civilized" nations, our criminal justice system is one of the most unforgiving and inhumane.
- ajhurliman 7y ago
  Correct. Ignoring the problem and pretending that these folks are living meaningful, empowered lives is a sham. They're obviously miserable and need some help.
garbre 7y ago
This says a lot about a certain space within our current politics... Homelessness is a product of mental illness and shouldn't be criminalized... but let's not actually bother to treat these peoples' mental illness, either I don't know if this is just wishful thinking or a product of shortsightedness and unthinking hostility towards "criminalization" and all it entails, but yes, this is where we end up. To be clear, mental illness shouldn't be criminalized, but a lot of these people need either intense, voluntary support or in some cases to just be committed for their own good and the safety of others, especially when their mental illness is making them violent.
dmode 7y ago
One thing that really bothers me about America are the folks who are clearly suffering from severe mental health and substance abuse, yet are roaming the streets unable to take care of themselves. I can't recall another developed or even underdeveloped country (including where I grew up) on this being the norm. Is there research on why this is a uniquely American problem ? Is this due a stronger adherence towards civil liberties here ?
- webgoat 7y ago
  There's plenty of mentally ill people roaming the streets in Canada as well. I'd guess it's a lack of institutions to care for these people and also a lack of care on part of our municipal governments to do anything about it.
jelliclesfarm 7y ago
There are mentally ill in every country. Is it statistically higher in America? Is it a heritable condition or is it’s a brain chemical imbalance caused by environmental factors? Surely, there are mentally ill people all over the world, but they don’t congregate in cities like this and roam around uncared for..not by family..not by society..not by anyone. The sheer numbers...It’s unfathomable.
H8crilA 7y ago
The amount of insane people on the streets is a big reason why I wouldn't want to move to the United States from Europe. I lived in America for 3 months and experienced more problems than in the 25 years before. I truly don't get it why there's so many crazies in United States as opposed to pretty much any other country. Does anybody know? Seems like figuring out where does the discrepancy come from should be the first step before helping them.
- travbrack 7y ago
  If this site* is correct, the US only has only about 1% more people with mental health issues than western Europe. I'd guess it's more visible in the US because we have a much weaker social safety net. https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health#prevalence-of-mental-health-and-substance-use-disorders https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health#prevalence-of-menta...
Causality1 7y ago
If people decide the homeless are likely to be dangerous their propensity to help them, via money or food or a place to stay or a ride somewhere will plummet to near-zero. Letting assault-prone people walk free because they're mentally ill is a threat to both the normal citizenry and the well-being of the homeless at large. Not to mention the fact that dangerous homeless are much more likely to injure or kill another homeless or otherwise-vulnerable person.

249 points by realbarack 7y ago

In an interview at the time, Holmes said, "What we're really talking about is to say, 'Just put 'em in jail. And at least that offender will be out of sight and out of mind for a defined period of time. Not receiving treatment, but at least out of the public view.'" I'm not sure whether he's criticizing this thought or not, but if he IS, why? Having these people out of the public is obviously better than having them attempt to throw people off bridges or scream incoherent nonsense at random bystanders, regardless of whether they receive treatment.

Analemma_ 7y ago
I think the point he's trying to get across is this: First we had institutions for the mentally ill. Then we closed them all down, with the promise that they'd be replaced by community mental health care. But since that care never showed up, all those people just starting going to jail instead. This is no better than the institutions, but they were "out of sight, out of mind", so no one cared. What Holmes is saying is, since we're not going to put these people in jail anymore, we're now forced to really deal with the problem, instead of just shuffling them somewhere so we can pretend they don't exist. Either we get real mental health care, or they stay on the streets screaming at people. The choice is yours!
- olliej 7y ago
  Yup, save money by cutting down services, knowing that people always vote for increased prison spending. It costs more to keep someone in prison than in a mental health facility, and the latter has the chance of assisting recovery, but yay prisons!
- booboolayla 7y ago
  Did I miss something here, did we invent cures for mental illnesses recently? There's no other way of dealing with it other than "shuffling them somewhere", be it a prison or a mental institution (which is also a prison of sorts)
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Is this an actual choice one gets to make, though? Most mental health programs were funded (and then defunded) at the federal level with some state money. The prosecutor in question is local. And the problem is that even if the locality were to somehow raise all that money to launch comprehensive mental healthcare on its own, it would basically be a clarion call across the land for all the other cities to buy a one-way bus ticket for their homeless there, because now that one place has solved it why do they have to? Busing the homeless out to other places is a common occurrence: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
- LordHumungous 7y ago
  We still have institutions for the mentally ill, but Pete Holmes refuses to send people to them.
olliej 7y ago
No, locking people up in prison does not make them better when they’re released, and often results in them coming out worse than when they went in. Also, putting someone with mental health problems in prison costs more than a real treatment facility, where at least there’s the possibly for them to get better. Here’s a clearer way to describe it: If putting people with mental health problems in prison is better than having them on the street, why are they being let out again? You’ve already decided that they’re not going to receive any treatment or assistance, so they’re going to hit the streets, commit some crime (violent or otherwise) and then go back to jail. So why let them out? Prison sentences are intended to be “long enough to correct or discourage future criminal acts”, with life sentences for people we don’t believe can be released safely. Given that we know that people with mental health problem but no treatment or support will reoffend, that seems (by your assessment) like a prime candidate for permanent incarceration.
- djohnston 7y ago
  it's certainly better to keep violent crazy people off the streets. i would like them to be in a treatment facility, where they have the opportunity to be helped and can be let back out as healthy members of society. that doesn't exist. so, yeah, they shouldn't just be out and about harassing everyone else, right?

ajna91 7y ago

It's one thing to show compassion and not be overly punitive on those suffering from mental illness or addiction. It's another thing to throw up your hands and let unstable people cause chaos in your streets. That's not good for them or you.

hockeybias 7y ago
Exactly.
codr7 7y ago
We're getting the worst of both worlds by blaming mentally ill, poor or otherwise unwanted citizens for any problems caused while doing nothing to improve the situation. It's the oldest ruling-class distraction in the book, blame the crazy person. But it misses the point, which is figuring out what's pushing people over the edge and building a society that takes better care of everyone.

curtis 7y ago

I think this is the first article I've read to use the term "visible homelessness". For many people who live in Seattle, the world "homeless" really means visibly homeless, but for many political activists, the word includes people in shelters or living in the cars or otherwise keeping a low profile while not having a permanent address. I'm no expert but I strongly suspect that the best ways to help the visibly homeless and the not-visibly-homeless are pretty different. But activists are more than willing to conflate the two cases. This particularly arises in the case of affordable housing. Housing may indeed be the primary problem for the not-visibly-homeless. It seems pretty likely though (just based on observation) that the biggest problems for the visibly homeless are mental illness and substance abuse. I think we'd be better served by not talking past each other and instead make it clear which kind of homeless problem we're talking about at any particular time.

rolltiide 7y ago
In San Francisco some groups use the term visible homeless as well. I think it is a good start in categorization because there is so much cognitive dissonance between seeing a thing, not understanding what is already being done about a thing, and conflating a dozen other issues as one thing.
sushisource 7y ago
I hadn't thought of it in exactly those terms but this really strikes a chord. I'll definitely be using more specific language from now on.
ncallaway 7y ago
> that the biggest problems for the visibly homeless are mental illness and substance abuse. I think there's some reasonable evidence that housing first approaches are extremely helpful in addressing both mental illness and substance abuse. Housing creates an opportunity for both stability and routine, which are incredibly important for getting help and treatment for mental illness and substance abuse. I don't think the evidence is 100% conclusive yet, but I don't think a housing first approach can absolutely be helpful for both populations (but for different reasons!). I do think it makes sense to think about both of these populations, because they definitely don't have the all of the same needs. Pretty much everyone needs shelter and at least a small place to safety store items.

ronnier 7y ago

I live in Seattle but I'm currently in LA. Here in Santa Monica its out of control. I just went to Starbucks and a homeless person was harassing everyone in the line, very threatening -- and the security won't do anything about it. We can't do anything about it or we'd be the one cracked down on. I was in another coffee shop and a homeless was behind my chair with a lighter trying to light my hair on fire. My wife was harassed in the same coffee shop two days later. I can't see how this isn't impacting tourism. Even when I went to Hawaii, Waikiki was filled with homeless taking over all the public benches.

Bootwizard 7y ago
Wow. That sounds like a nightmare. I don't personally have a solution to this problem but I think treating it like it isn't one is not the solution. What's it like in Seattle? Same issues?
steelframe 7y ago
At least they aren't trying to straight-up murder you while you're passing by on the sidewalk. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-trying-to-throw-woman-off-seattle-overpass/931766654 https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-trying-to-... Oops, I meant, straight-up "attempted assault" you.
- dmix 7y ago
  > Wilson, who prosecutors say suffers from mental illness, had already been arrested three times since September 2018 for assaulting total strangers, all of those cases were handled by Seattle Municipal Court. > The Seattle Municipal Court judge made the decision to dismiss all of the assault charges stemming from these recent arrests. I have so many questions
  - 14 7y ago
    I suspect it has to do with Mens Rea
- tluyben2 7y ago

onetimemanytime 7y ago

Another POV is that whatever your problem is, I have a right to be unmolested in the street /home. So it's a bit more complicated.

jschwartzi 7y ago
Agreed. And I don't think anyone is saying you don't have that right. Rather we're hoping you can forgive the molestor as someone who is ill and needs treatment to get better. The act is not the sum of the person. I wouldn't fault you for not being able to do this though. We are making a choice to punish people for their illnesses. And in a humane culture we would look at those less fortunate and try to help them. This was a central tenet of Progressivisim, which as an ideal has presided over some of the finest periods of our nation's history, and since it has fallen out of favor so has the US. Currently what we're doing is throwing people in jail who are mentally ill, treating them like criminals, and not treating the mental illness. Then we release them onto the streets, where they promptly take up the same habits that got them put into jail in the first place. It's been several generations since we closed up all the inpatient facilities, and two generations since Reagan basically eliminated all federal funding for mental health care. The upshot is we have a bunch of crazy people living among us who don't realize that they're mentally ill, and who cannot be coerced into treatment because there are no treatment programs that have room for them. So they end up in jail or on the street. I think it's time for us to try something different. Clearly jailing the mentally ill is not working.
- pteredactyl 7y ago
  You say the rights of that person molesting people on the streets is greater than that of the citizen trying to get to work (or an 8 year old en route to school). That's unacceptable to me. So while I agree with you on mental institution funding and it being a solid (Edit: part of the) solution. Compassion still has the inmates running the asylum (streets).
- Kalium 7y ago
  You're absolutely right. No act is ever, under any circumstances in the whole of the history of humanity, the sum of a person. I applaud the kindness and compassion that fills your heart for centering this key insight. > We are making a choice to punish people for their illnesses. We are making a choice to punish people for their behavior. Their behavior may be due to their illnesses, but the two shouldn't be reflexively equated. Not unless you genuinely desire society to actively seek to punish illness instead of concerning itself with behavior. It's perhaps worth remembering that the American public did not turn against institutionalization for no reason. Those places were visions of Hell that would have turned Danté's stomach. These visions were conjured into reality by our Progressive desires to help the less fortunate meeting an inability to do so reliably and humanely at scale. Good intentions, kindness and compassion and a genuine desire to help, were not enough. I won't fault anyone for being skeptical about that being fundamentally different now.

Proven 7y ago

We can sugar coat it and analyze it but tl;dr: socialists = no respect for private property.

pteredactyl 7y ago

The law is blind. The more we bend this the more our society breaks. Especially in the eyes of our children. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice

rolltiide 7y ago
> The law is blind. A) thats not true, what are you 4 years old? > Especially in the eyes of our children. B) oh you are trying to impress 4 year olds. Police officers have wide discretion, district attorneys have wide discretion, prosecutors have wide discretion, juries have wide discretion, judges have wide discretion. The laws they operate on and around can be dumb. We don't have a way for 4 year olds to understand that. A holistic approach is to address all of these simultaneously.
rolltiide 7y ago
Police officers have wide discretion, district attorneys have wide discretion, prosecutors have wide discretion, juries have wide discretion, judges have wide discretion. The laws they operate on and around can be dumb. We don't have a way for children to understand that. A holistic approach is to address all of these simultaneously.
- pteredactyl 7y ago
  Agreed. And you prove my point in a way. Our litigious (Edit: and racially preferential) culture is part of the issue. A holistic approach is a principled one. Clear laws are principled. For example, noise ordinances in SF say there's a violation if event or action is 10 decibels greater than the ambient. Or, if you push someone, harass a child en route to school, shoot up on the street, defecate on the street, etc. These are clear violations.
  - pteredactyl 7y ago
    The real question is, what do we do with violators? Especially those lost in the head. Adequate mental health institutions seems an appropriate start. But it also needs to be coordinated regionally. San Francisco and LA can not bear the burden of the western United States.

rsweeney21 7y ago

The criminal justice system should not handle these cases. I don't consider acts done by mentally ill people criminal. I have personal experience with this. My sister is bipolar and schizophrenic. For 30 years she was a little quirky, but mostly normal. She worked at a private equity firm in New York, got married, had a great life. Something changed around age 30. She started acting strange. We initially thought it was just her normal quirkyness, but then things started to escalate. She wouldn't stop talking about Prince Harry. She said she wanted to marry him. We laughed it off. Then she started talking about secret messages she was receiving from Prince Harry. She believed she had been chosen as the princess and that ISIS was trying to kill her to prevent Prince Harry from marrying her. She had all this proof (hidden messages in the news, Instagram posts of bananas, crazy stuff). She was convince that the government had put chips in our brains and were controlling us. We realized that she needed help, but she refused to believe she had a mental illness. There was absolutely nothing we could do BEFORE she committed a crime. We knew it would happen, we knew it was only a matter of time, but the criminal justice system would not do anything. Finally, on Christmas day, she went on a rampage at my grandmas house and destroyed a bunch of property. (We found a journal entry later where she said she was sad because Santa Clause didn't come and pick her up and take her to the North Pole like he was supposed to so she lost it.) We got lucky that it was only property. She was put in jail for 24 hours and then let out on the street at midnight without us knowing. She assaulted a police officer the next day. She thought he was ISIS trying to kill her. FINALLY, the criminal justice system did something. We had to hire lawyers to plead with the judge to force her on to medication. We had stacks of tweets, facebook messages, emails, etc that showed she was clearly delusional. They finally agreed. She is on meds now and has regular checkins with her parole officer to ensure she stays on them. She is back to being a little quirky, but has no more delusions. She has a job again and is happy. We are lucky. It could have ended up a lot worse. The current system for helping the mentally ill is totally broken.

maxaf 7y ago
I have no personal experience with mental illness, but judging by your story it seems that part of the problem was your sister's lack of willingness to seek help. Most health insurance plans cover some kind of mental health services, but the afflicted person must actively seek out such help. Compare this with a broken leg: if I stepped wrong off the curb and broke my leg, I'd be in in pain and clearly unable to walk. I would call 911 and have them pick me up, take me to a hospital, patch me up, etc. The system to make all of that happen is there. It would appear that mentally ill individuals are unable to seek help. Is it not the case that psychiatrists and mental hospitals exist and are covered by health insurance? It seems unfair to point the finger only at the system without acknowledging that helpers can't help without explicit consent on the part of the person being helped, or without some legal means by which they can be coerced to accept help.

cneurotic 7y ago

I don't think the issue is so much that cities are too lenient on these people. It's more that the resources available to them are both inappropriate and inadequate. My wife works at in-patient psych unit in my town. Granted, we experience nothing near the scale of problems in cities like Seattle. But even here, our city can't cope with the sheer number of folks with these mental health / substance abuse problems. Many of my wife's patients are dangerous to themselves or to other people. They can only stay on an in-patient unit for so long. After that, the stopwatch starts ticking. How long until the next violent offense? If there were more institutions for these people, somewhere between Hospital and Jail, at least the stopwatch would STOP more often.

closetohome 7y ago
I think that was more or less the conclusion of the article. The "tough on crime" contingent wants to lock people up and get them out of sight, but the alternative - getting them mental health assistance - is hard to do because we lack the range and depth of resources needed to address their issues. And since we're reasonably sure that increased incarceration isn't the answer, that leaves us in our current situation.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Perhaps one more option: Lower the standard for involuntarily forcing them into mental health treatment. Look, the standard needs to be fairly high. But don't these people need to be in treatment for long enough that it actually changes things for them? Is anything else going to work? Or do we say that their right to not be forced into something they don't want supercedes both their need and the need of society?
  - closetohome 7y ago
    I think that's a good point, and for the most part I'd say I agree. If someone meets the criminal threshold of incarceration, it should be possible to divert them to treatment for at least the same length of time as a prison sentence. Along the same lines, maybe blur the lines between incarceration and treatment a little more. Incarceration should ideally be more therapeutic than punitive.

nixgeek 7y ago

Several of our offices are around the 3rd and Pike area downtown and it’s pretty common to overhear colleagues saying they feel unsafe walking on sideways around the office. There is rampant and open usage of hard drugs, lots of people hawking used bus tickets or items stolen from Ross Dress for Less or Target, at least a couple instances a day of walkers being interrupted by visibly agitated homeless either shouting nonsense or aggressively begging. Once a month or so there’s an arrest due to a stabbing or shooting within 1-2 blocks of this area. Whatever they’re doing in policy terms at the moment isn’t working.

CryptoPunk 7y ago
That's the dirty little secret about the compassion-first, anti-law-and-order homeless strategy: it makes residents of neighbourhoods where the homeless services are provided feel unsafe, especially women, and especially at night.

aaronbrethorst 7y ago

Public frustration with the "visible homeless" found its voice in a recent hourlong special called "Seattle is Dying," by ABC affiliate KOMO-TV. This fails to mention that KOMO is owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, which has been building a sort of 'Fox News of broadcast TV' across the United States. Here's one fun story about them from April 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16734739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16734739

Sebguer 7y ago
They are far worse than Fox news, because at least you know what you're getting with Fox. Sinclair uses local branding and trusted voices to sell propaganda.
- booboolayla 7y ago
  What news sources would you recommend that are not propaganda in your view?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  If anyone wants more info, there's a John Oliver segment on how Sinclair does this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc They require local stations to play pre-recorded, "must run" commentary, as well as requiring their anchors to recite a script accusing other news outlets of running "fake news". https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490 https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local...
  - leereeves 7y ago
    John Oliver isn't any better. In his segment on Libya, for example, he didn't mention that Obama and Hillary (or even the US) were responsible for the mess there. In his special on mandatory minimums, he ignored the Clinton Crime Bill, while showing footage of the first Bush. News sources slanting their coverage for political reasons isn't limited to Fox and Sinclair.

DubiousPusher 7y ago

This is a really simple problem that for some reason Americans just can't get their heads around. We have eliminated virtually every government intervention besides police power. We have also seen our social institutions significantly divest their social contributions. Therefore the criminal justice system has become the catch all. It is expected to handle the mentally ill, the homeless, the drug addicted, problematic families, neighborhood disputes and more. Every now and then, we see the consequences of that divestiture and it shocks us. We see people who only really need mentorship, medical care or friendship being treated like hardened criminals and we see how that treatment corrupts these people with otherwise fairly socially benign failings. So we pull back on the leash of the criminal justice system. These people begin to rejoin our society but with no assets, no standing, little to no mental healthcare. And unsurprisingly this influx of invested citizens gets people's attention. And regardless of whether crime genuinely increases these people are newly visible and easy to associate with any anecdote of crime and violence. So people predictably turn against them and against the pull back. But to fix this problem you have to do two things Americans are loath to do. You must tax and spend money to build institutions that are not police. And you must give those institutions some power to intervene sometimes against the will of those they are intervening with. And I have no illusions. Involuntary commitment to mental health care and drug treatment and community involvement are often ugly but Americans make it clear over and over that even though vagrants and homeless are generally not a problem that much affects those other than the vagrants and homeless themselves we will never collectively tolerate their presence. The options seem to be building institutions to specialize in the assistance and care of these people or continue to use one monolithic system and continue this cycle.

neaden 7y ago
I would add that besides the police we outsource a lot of this stuff to public transportation workers and librarians. All night subways operate as mobile shelters, especially in winters and libraries are frequently the only place a homeless person can stay during the day without getting kicked out or interacting with the police. Unfortunately we don't really prepare transportation/library workers with the resources to deal with them most of the time.

mr_tristan 7y ago

I'm wondering if starting with better categorization of "homeless" would be important, I'm thinking of something like ETHOS (https://www.feantsa.org/download/en-16822651433655843804.pdf https://www.feantsa.org/download/en-16822651433655843804.pdf) Ideally, you figure out how mental illness plays into the different categories, and you may be able to understand effective prevention. My sense is that this goes beyond mere "we need some mental health facilities", because preventing someone in a less secure housing situation from becoming totally roofless may end up being significantly cheaper, i.e., not require specialist mental care and hospitalization, but just a subsidized housing and someone stopping by to make sure the person hasn't regressed. Sadly, it appears nobody with real resources in the US wants to invest in understanding homelessness, so we just lump it all together and try to find ways to let the police deal with it.

lazyasciiart 7y ago
Everyone who actually works with homeless people already had these distinctions. If you don't know that, you should start with really basic info like reading the Point In Time count, not making suggestions on what should be done.
mr_tristan 7y ago
Interesting, that the HUD data (Point-in-Time count), indicates declines across the board over the last decade for homelessness, yet, most journalism indicates the exact opposite: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45442596 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45442596 And, yet, for Portland (mentioned in the BBC article), the data suggests that the "problem people", the chronically homeless, unsheltered population went up by ... 42 (.006% of the overall population): https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566631e8c21b864679fff4de/t/59ee2e7a5ffd207c6e7b41a0/1508781707710/PSU+2017+Point-In-Time_FINAL_%28Interactive%29+%281%29+%281%29.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566631e8c21b864679fff... I'd admit my _impressions_ (again, not significant suggestions, I was asking questions) have been biased by journalism, and, journalists probably find the HUD data inconvenient for telling their stories. But, I do not appear to be alone, and there are very powerful people pushing the negative narrative. Last year the PPA (Portland police union) also referred to the city as a "cesspool", which sure seems to fit with the overall theme of "homelessness getting worse": https://www.facebook.com/PortlandPoliceAssociation/photos/a.386709091352814.95949.306696819354042/2058045217552518/?type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/PortlandPoliceAssociation/photos/a.... I'd also point out that my suspicions and questions were also on the minds of other national organizations: https://endhomelessness.org/ending-homelessness/solutions/ https://endhomelessness.org/ending-homelessness/solutions/ We appear to have a massive disconnect in the narrative presented by journalists, politicians, and at least the HUD.

jackyinger 7y ago

I live in Seattle right across the street from a mental health institution. The folks that gather around it are really beyond their wits end. While I think the idea that Seattle is dying is melodramatic bs, it is quite the nuisance to have these folks hanging around. Furthermore, the inadequate public sanitation in Capitol Hill compounds the problem into one of public health. I think that the problem visible in the homeless population is the result of systematic marginalization. The USA has a real fuck-you attitude towards those who aren’t up-and-comers, so the down and out just get ground down further. It’s a tough problem to address, so do your part and try not to recoil in dehumanizing horror when you see these folks.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

Many years ago, while living in Fairfield, CA and trying to get education appropriate to becoming an urban planner, I had a class on Homelessness and Public Policy through SFSU. More recently, I spent several years homeless. A very big issue in the US is housing policy which has steadily shrunk the availability of basic housing, such as SROs and Missing Middle housing. While we need some emergency services for the homeless population, I'm really not for actively growing more homeless services as our primary approach to trying to resolve this. We need to fix what's wrong with society that's causing people to land in the street. Housing is a big part of that. A few blog posts by me: Why I'm not for "we need more homeless services!" as our primary approach: https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-shirky-principle-and-homelessness.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-shirky-... Housing cost and homelessness: https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-connection-between-housing.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-c... Missing Middle housing: https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing-middle.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing...

pteredactyl 7y ago
Agreed. Incentives are not aligned. It seems the unnamed "War on Homelessness" has just created an industry not actually interested in solving the problem. This recent Hoover Institution article had an interesting take seemingly aligned with yours: https://www.hoover.org/research/backwards-economics-san-franciscos-homeless-policies https://www.hoover.org/research/backwards-economics-san-fran...
saas_sam 7y ago
Have you been to SF or LA or Seattle? The crisis we are experiencing isn't because rents are too high. That's a separate crisis affecting a different set of people. The crisis this article is discussing, the really really bad homelessness problem, comes in two forms: drug addiction and mental illness. These people could not stay in an apartment if it cost $50 a month. Their problems are far, far worse than poverty.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

superfamicom 7y ago

I work in downtown Seattle and the people I see affected by the aggressive homeless folks are those who don't know who they are- people visiting or new to downtown. I know which homeless folks are dangerous from experience and which ones are just panhandling. I've personally been spit at, spit on, attacked with a 2x2x18 piece of wood, and had a brick thrown at me (with surprising force), charged at, sexually assaulted (physically), the list goes on. I've observed the end result of panhandling in various situations: there are the "my family needs help" folks who beg with kids in strollers and at the end of the day get back into their cars in the Target parking lot; there are the folks crying on the street begging for any money to get food, but don't want food directly even if you've already bought it for them with no strings attached; there are also the rare case of someone who was just mugged now trying to get on the bus. The end result is any compassion I had has been slowly whittled away. Actively avoiding human shit or fresh vomit every morning on the sidewalks and keeping an eye out for needles everywhere (watch where you sit on the bus) really just leaves you tired and unsympathetic. Pro Tips: avoid 3rd & Pine / Pike, avoid all of 2nd Ave. in general; avoid parks and downtown after dark; do not touch the needles unless you have to (bus seats); do not go into tall grassy or ground obscured areas as there may be needles; avoid the park beaches as they are toilets for the homeless early in the morning (4-6am).

chmod775 7y ago
I'm getting nauseous in more than one way just reading this. How do people living in a place like that not look inwards and wonder at what turn they committed a colossal fuckup that got them where they are now? Your post sounds like fiction to anyone living in civilized conditions, but I don't doubt you are telling the truth (even if you are exaggerating).
- derefr 7y ago
  The “how” is that places like this (Seattle, SF, Vancouver BC) have very good municipal support for the homeless, and have pretty good welfare laws at the state level, and have climates that won’t kill you if you sit outside all day. So homeless people from everywhere else in the country gravitate to these places. These cities don’t have a municipal homeless problem; they’re sacrificial goats for entire nations’ homeless problems.

TomMckenny 7y ago

Because homelessness aggravates a controllable condition into an uncontrolled one. Treatment should be provided but it's not going to do much good if the patient is just going to live on the street. You'll find the number of homeless with mental health problems corresponds with the total number of homeless which corresponds directly with housing prices. So until there is a major effort to drive those prices down, this problem will worsen, as it has for a generation now. And of course Sinclair broadcasting is pushing to lock up the poor rather than do that.

blondie9x 7y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw

agentofoblivion 7y ago

I also live in Seattle. I have no idea how to solve the problem, but I definitely don't think letting dangerous people roam the streets, committing acts of violence without consequence, is the answer. When you have a person that's consistently assaulting random people, that person needs to be forcibly removed from the environment as a matter of public good, regardless of the causal reason for their actions. It's a real shame they were born with a bad brain that makes them incapable of not being a violent menace to society, and that no cost-effective and humane solutions seem to be on the table. But if I have to make a short-term decision on who's rights to sacrifice first: the ill violence committer or the innocent victim, I choose the former 10 times out of 10.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
I don't disagree with the main thrust of your point, but I think this is an incorrect and very problematic framing: It's a real shame they were born with a bad brain that makes them incapable of not being a violent menace to society People take many years to grow into adulthood. Studies show that every dollar invested in doing right by our children saves multiple dollars down the road on prison costs and the like. America has a terrible track record for how it treats its children, especially for a wealthy, developed country. If we want to escape our current Prison-Industrial Complex with a side of violent and insane rampant homelessness, we would do well to start by developing more family-friendly policies in this country.
- rmah 7y ago
  Nothing that agentofoblivion wrote hinted at him not supporting "doing right by our children". And nothing you wrote touches on what you think should be done after the damage has been done. Prevention is all to the good and should, of course, be pursued. But prevention of future problems does not solve the problem that exists NOW.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Suggesting people are simply born that way implicitly suggests that there is nothing whatsoever to do about it. "You lost in the genetic lottery. Sucks to be you." I'm saying it's vastly more complicated than that and it's a serious problem to frame the problem that way because it leads to a mentality of "Just lock them up or ship them out for the good of other people." This tends to deepen the problem. There are things that help. I know a lot about such things. I sometimes try to blog about such.

Animats 7y ago

The US used to have big mental hospitals for the mentally defective. Those were phased out in the Reagan era.[1][2] They didn't cure many people, but they fed and clothed them, and warehoused them out of sight, so everyone else could get on with life. [1] https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s... [2] https://www.thebalance.com/deinstitutionalization-3306067 https://www.thebalance.com/deinstitutionalization-3306067

turtlecloud 7y ago

What the homeless activists don’t get is that 95% of most people who complain about “homeless” are talking about the visible homeless aka the crazy ones with mental/drug problems. When these activists start shaming you about not caring about the “hidden homeless” it is actually turning more people to be even more apathetic. My conspiracy theory is that the homeless activists secretly need (and promote!) the visible homeless in order to push their agenda for more housing for the “hidden homeless”. Since if the visible homeless are gone, then 95% of most people would be super apathetic to the “hidden homeless” cuz out of sight and out of mind.

mulmen 7y ago
I'm with you on the first two paragraphs. I lost the plot in the third paragraph. What is the benefit to these homeless activists in perpetuating homelessness?
- philwelch 7y ago
  The "visible homeless" generate attention and motivation to address homelessness. The "invisible homeless" are, well, invisible and so it's hard to motivate people to give money/time/votes to addressing their problems. The "visible homeless" are a bit of a nuisance so there's a vested interest in addressing homelessness if you think doing so will stop that kind of thing.
- yeehaw5002 7y ago
  hobby security
- scruple 7y ago
  Perpetuation of the homeless-industrial complex, if I had to guess.
LordHumungous 7y ago
>My conspiracy theory is that the homeless activists secretly need (and promote!) the visible homeless in order to push their agenda for more housing for the “hidden homeless”. Since if the visible homeless are gone, then 95% of most people would be super apathetic to the “hidden homeless” cuz out of sight and out of mind. It's not a conspiracy theory. The service providers perform activism and give political support to the politicians, and in return the politicians keep the spigot open. Seattle area spends $1 billion per year with almost no accountability. Here's an example of how it works: https://roominate.com/blog/2019/the-academic/ https://roominate.com/blog/2019/the-academic/

ajhurliman 7y ago

Seattlites are desperate to conflate the housing "crisis" with homelessness, but I'm not convinced the person yelling at the sky and swinging a drain pipe at people in his alley narrowly missed his $5000 mortgage payment. It's unfortunate that people with less means have to live further outside the city and spend more of their commuting, but I don't it's unreasonable to assume that people will make decisions on their own behalf to stay housed rather than just live on the streets if rent is becoming too expensive.

TheMagicHorsey 7y ago
Yeah, but it would be easier to find housing space govt. run shelters if housing space was cheap.
- ajhurliman 7y ago
  It's plenty cheap in Renton. I think it's unreasonable to put a homeless shelter in the middle of downtown Seattle knowing that they're working with a limited budget and that paying a premium on the lot will result in less beds.
  - techsupporter 7y ago
    There are two issues with this, and they both go to the heart of why developing these services is so difficult: 1) Seattle residents have chosen to tax ourselves to pay for social services. By and large, a taxing jurisdiction can't put services outside its jurisdiction, so Seattle can't levy a tax and then use it to buy space in Renton. Yet, Seattle is more or less the only jurisdiction in King County willing to tax ourselves to pay for these services. The Eastside for damn sure isn't, at least not for services to people who aren't sympathetic groups, and would rather simply arrest people for vagrancy and haul them off to the King County jail (which is, per state law, in the county seat, thus Seattle) and then conveniently be somewhere else when the person bonds out of jail and walks onto Seattle's streets. Arguably the South King cities don't have the tax base to help shoulder the load, Renton being one of the few that does, but that then gets into people not being willing to vote for those taxes because, frankly, they don't want to. So you have a situation where only Seattle is spending the lion's share of the money but Seattle can't spend it outside of Seattle, land is expensive virtually everywhere in Seattle, and King County's government has shown precious little impulse to try to handle the problem at the county level. To say nothing of Washington State's almost-total abdication of responsibility. And then, 2) People get incredibly vocal about homeless shelters and other services for them. Just try putting a new shelter in Wallingford. Hell, just try putting one in Bellevue's Eastgate, like they've been trying to do for a decade. The lawsuits alone are just now starting to wrap up and the vocal minority, realizing they've run out of court-based options, are running candidates who sit on a platform of "yes it is needed but not here" and have no answer for "but where?" because that's not the point. I'm sure the good people of Renton would be vocally opposed to your idea to "export Seattle's homeless problem" to Renton. Thus, the only areas that wind up with shelters and other public services are the ones who either lack political clout--like Pioneer Square and the ID--or are where those services have always been...like Pioneer Square and the ID.

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TbobbyZ 7y ago

My father is homeless. No matter how much money you throw at him, he will always be homeless. He's an incompetent 54 year old. He needs to be constantly monitored so he doesn't drink or do drugs. The only real solution to this level of homelessness is you need to round them up and essentially put them all in a glorified daycare or rehabilitation centers. Kind of like a lesser prison.

fiblye 7y ago

This is a question that will likely sound incredibly offensive, but only because I don’t know of a polite way to say it. But: What’s wrong with the mentally ill in America specifically? It seems like you can’t walk down a single city block in the US without seeing someone screaming at something that’s not there, someone naked and wrapped in blankets, someone saying the earth is about to be destroyed by aliens/god/satan/whatever, someone screaming that they’re going to kill you (and looking quite serious about it), someone pissing on a wall without concern, etc. I’ve seen this nowhere else in the world. I’ve seen homeless who are clearly mentally disturbed to some extent, but they’re usually silently searching for a meal or something without harassing or terrorizing anyone. I know the go to excuse is mental health care in America sucks, but that can’t be the entirety of the problem. I’ve been to some incredibly poor places where basic health care isn’t even an option for most people, yet I still never worried about walking down city streets like I do in America. What makes American cities so particularly bad and absolutely full of people who seem to be bad movie caricatures of mentally ill homeless people? Edit: I am American and lived there most of my life, so it’s nothing to do with simply visiting a bad place. It’s something I saw everywhere

bob_theslob646 7y ago
>I’ve seen this nowhere else in the world. I find it hard to believe that their are not other homeless people in other countries not "tripping" on drugs.
- malandrew 7y ago
  In most countries I've been to it's not nearly as easy to get ahold of the quantity and diversity of drugs as you can in America. In Latin America, for example, it is seriously hard to get ahold of anything but marijuana and cocaine, even for young hip people in-the-know with the right people. Only in a few small markets in Europe like major cities in the UK and cities with liberal drug use policies like Amsterdam do you get comparable drug accessibility. And even then it's still a far cry from what's available in the US. Besides street drugs, there are prescription drugs, and even there the US is exceptional in the availability of prescription drugs available via the black market.

umeshunni 7y ago

Meanwhile, in my neighborhood in San Francisco, my neighbors are suing the city to prevent the construction of a homeless shelter. https://sf.curbed.com/2019/7/11/20689583/homeless-sf-suit-navigation-center-embarcadero-shelter-lawsuit https://sf.curbed.com/2019/7/11/20689583/homeless-sf-suit-na... The noise around this in HOA meetings, local body meetings, NextDoor etc has been incredible with anyone trying to propose that a homeless shelter might be a good option vociferously shouted down, accused of "not being a Bay Area native" and a "techie". The only other cause that I've seen my neighbors so fiercely oppose is new housing construction.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
The only other cause that I've seen my neighbors so fiercely oppose is new housing construction. This is the bigger problem. The lack of housing supply is a primary root cause of homelessness.
- umeshunni 7y ago
  > This is the bigger problem. The lack of housing supply is a primary root cause of homelessness. It could be, but in most west coast cities, it is not. Mental health issues and addiction are the primary causes of homelessness. I hardly think the guy waving a metal pipe around while schizophrenic is homeless because he missed a few payments on his $3200/mo rent.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    No, he's homeless in part because he can't afford $3200/mo rent to begin with. For every 100 families living in poverty on the West Coast, there are no more than 30 affordable homes https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-poverty-west-coast-no-30-affordable-homes/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-pove... The Clear Connection Between Housing Costs and Homelessness https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-connection-between-housing.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-c... California Statistics on Homelessness and Housing https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-statistics-on-homelessness.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...

aschearer 7y ago

Just want to say as a Seattlite that the city I experience is not a dangerous hell hole at all. I've lived in Capitol Hill for a decade. I've worked on the hill and in SODO. I regularly go to Pioneer Square, Rainier Valley, downtown, the ID, not to mention Ballard, Fremont, and so on. Homelessness is a serious problem in the city, and something I encounter every day, but I have never been attacked, threatened, etc. I'm sure it happens, but I think the narrative is getting unbalanced. I've stayed in Seattle for so long because it is truly an amazing place to live! Setting all that aside, because the issue is so pressing and the risk at losing empathy so great I volunteer with a local homeless shelter. I encourage everyone who feels this issue is important to find some time to contribute to the solution. You can help make a difference, interact with homeless people as humans not "others", and regain a little agency in the world.

fremonter123 7y ago
Also in Seattle, complete opposite experience. Live in Fremont near the canal. I have been swung and lunged at and had someone who was severely mentally ill tear apart my yard and try and break the windows in the house with the patio furniture while home. Absolutely terrifying and had to clean blood off of the doors. On the regular screaming could be heard in the neighborhood in the distance somewhere. Once the encampments in the area were cleared everything stopped. Turned me into a nimby right quick. Tax me sufficiently to provide adequate services and get them the hell out of my neighborhood.
jeffwilcox 7y ago
I used to feel this way, too - and I live in Belltown - but over the years the random stabbings have added up, like the couple killed after a Sounder's game a while back, of the 3 random people stabbed a few days ago outside Nordstrom... it's scary, but not in the "late night walking alone" way. Agree it's a relatively safe place for sure.

ralmidani 7y ago

"Some accuse a reform-oriented local criminal justice system of becoming too tolerant." As an American, I find our emphasis on inflicting maximum pain rather than reform very disturbing. Among "civilized" nations, our criminal justice system is one of the most unforgiving and inhumane.

ajhurliman 7y ago
Correct. Ignoring the problem and pretending that these folks are living meaningful, empowered lives is a sham. They're obviously miserable and need some help.

garbre 7y ago

This says a lot about a certain space within our current politics... Homelessness is a product of mental illness and shouldn't be criminalized... but let's not actually bother to treat these peoples' mental illness, either I don't know if this is just wishful thinking or a product of shortsightedness and unthinking hostility towards "criminalization" and all it entails, but yes, this is where we end up. To be clear, mental illness shouldn't be criminalized, but a lot of these people need either intense, voluntary support or in some cases to just be committed for their own good and the safety of others, especially when their mental illness is making them violent.

dmode 7y ago

One thing that really bothers me about America are the folks who are clearly suffering from severe mental health and substance abuse, yet are roaming the streets unable to take care of themselves. I can't recall another developed or even underdeveloped country (including where I grew up) on this being the norm. Is there research on why this is a uniquely American problem ? Is this due a stronger adherence towards civil liberties here ?

webgoat 7y ago
There's plenty of mentally ill people roaming the streets in Canada as well. I'd guess it's a lack of institutions to care for these people and also a lack of care on part of our municipal governments to do anything about it.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago

There are mentally ill in every country. Is it statistically higher in America? Is it a heritable condition or is it’s a brain chemical imbalance caused by environmental factors? Surely, there are mentally ill people all over the world, but they don’t congregate in cities like this and roam around uncared for..not by family..not by society..not by anyone. The sheer numbers...It’s unfathomable.

H8crilA 7y ago

The amount of insane people on the streets is a big reason why I wouldn't want to move to the United States from Europe. I lived in America for 3 months and experienced more problems than in the 25 years before. I truly don't get it why there's so many crazies in United States as opposed to pretty much any other country. Does anybody know? Seems like figuring out where does the discrepancy come from should be the first step before helping them.

travbrack 7y ago
If this site* is correct, the US only has only about 1% more people with mental health issues than western Europe. I'd guess it's more visible in the US because we have a much weaker social safety net. https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health#prevalence-of-mental-health-and-substance-use-disorders https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health#prevalence-of-menta...

Causality1 7y ago

If people decide the homeless are likely to be dangerous their propensity to help them, via money or food or a place to stay or a ride somewhere will plummet to near-zero. Letting assault-prone people walk free because they're mentally ill is a threat to both the normal citizenry and the well-being of the homeless at large. Not to mention the fact that dangerous homeless are much more likely to injure or kill another homeless or otherwise-vulnerable person.