Seattle’s Homeless Crisis
Tent in downtown Seattle. (Lorcan Stokes)
Encampments are slowly replacing parks. Sidewalks are cluttered with tents, making some of them impossible to walk on. RVs are used as makeshift homes in Seattle backstreets. Homelessness is growing to unparalleled levels in Washington. According to a 2020 annual homeless assessment report conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which was released in January 2021, Seattle and King County currently hold third in largest homeless population by city/county, trailing behind Los Angeles and New York City.
That same report highlights an increase in Washington state's homeless population, with an increase of 6.2% from 2019 to 2020. In January 2020, it was reported by the United States Interagency Council on homelessness that roughly 22,923 Washington State residents experienced some form of homelessness. Dividing that percentage jump with the population, it would show that around 1400 became homeless within the year. The makeup of this demographic includes those living on the streets, crashing with friends, staying at motels, or living in a vehicle.
This number has likely increased due to COVID-19. According to King County Public Health, 81 emergency shelters have seen COVID outbreaks since March of last year, resulting in deaths of both staff and the homeless seeking refuge. Emergency shelters act as safe havens for homeless people living in extreme circumstances. Unlike homeless shelters, these places have more of a focus on victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse who have nowhere to go. The disinfecting of these shelters would have sent people back on the streets without other options. Currently, nearly 4% of the state’s population is homeless. That’s a large number. A year struggling on the streets with a lack of regular shelter would push many people towards drugs, drinking, and petty theft to cope.
Reasons for homelessness include lack of funding for mental health, lack of affordable housing, high cost of city living, and low-wage jobs. In Washington, encampments often undergo city sweeps, completely clearing out entire communities. This technique of moving the homeless has been used frequently under Mayor Jenny Durkan. Despite the usage of sweeps, there have been critics such as Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, a city attorney candidate who ran much of her election on decriminalizing poverty, with one of her slogans being “stop the sweeps”.
Another critic of the sweeps is Seattle Councilman Andrew Lewis, who wrote a report just this year on the devastating effects COVID had on homelessness. In this same report, he highlighted that when COVID measures were preventing sweeps and shelters were building room for extra beds, many homeless individuals came out for the beds rather than remaining in a camp.
According to Lewis, “Success in moving residents of unsanctioned encampments into shelter is tied most significantly to the availability of suitable shelter spaces, not the threat of encampment removal.”
These results in a show that sweeps are not a solution but rather a contributor to a problem. Just because someone has been moved doesn’t mean they aren’t there anymore.