The Problems Housing Can’t Fix
Tents in Seattle’s Pioneer Square Neighborhood. (Lorcan Stokes)
“We’re missing the whole mark.
Seattle has experienced the gradual growth of an epidemic that has been here long before COVID. Like rain, coffee, and grunge music, homelessness has become an ingrained aspect of Seattle's reputation. Arguably, it's the most focused on aspects of our city. With news of encampments causing chaos and city sweeps shutting them down, it's a constant topic in Seattle media. The problem with homelessness in Seattle though is that it really does live up to its reputation. With that being Reported by the Continuums of Care to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), since January 2020, Washington had an estimated 22,923 people experiencing homelessness. Additionally, the 2020 annual homeless assessment report conducted by HUD saw that Seattle and King County currently has the third-largest homeless population by city/county in the United States, only losing to Los Angeles city and county and New York City. That same report highlights a daunting statistic in which Washington state has seen an increase of homelessness by 21.9% from 2007 to 2020. The majority of this growth is based in King County. The report left me questioning why the state had experienced such a massive jump in homelessness and what isn't working. I grabbed a camera, a tape recorder, and decided to find out.
I contacted the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), an organization operating thousands of low-income housing units across Washington. I made arrangements to meet Lynn Demarco, an area manager overseeing multiple of these units. We arranged to meet at Meadowbrook View, an apartment complex she oversees based in North Seattle. The property itself is a large cluster of yellow buildings, each flat is connected around a courtyard, an area which in itself was covered in children's bikes the day I went. As I made my way through the yard and up a concrete walkway, I noticed the walls to both sides of me showcased a number of children's paintings, consisting mostly of birds. When I enter the main office, I’m greeted by Lynn.
Courtyard of Meadowbrook View apartments. (Lorcan Stokes)
“Hey! Come on in,” she shouts from a room to the side. We exchange formalities and I begin interviewing her, starting off questioning with asking what type of people does LIHI house.
“There’s a broad paintbrush for homelessness. People just say “homelessness” but there are different types,” she said.
LIHI takes in a multitude of people from each “type”. Meadowbrook View apartments cater to refugees. Here, the residents are made up of families and individuals who have fled from war-torn countries or came searching for a better life. LIHI finds them in shelters and provides them with more permanent housing as well as necessities such as lessons in paying rent, using a dishwasher, learning English, helping with job searching, and sending the children to school.
“Right now, we mostly have Eritrean and Ethiopian families. We’ve had Syrian families in the past as well as one from Vietnam. We should be getting around 20 Afghani families next month,” she explained.
She mentions the other types. Those that are running from domestic violence and have nowhere to go. Those who are sick or old and can’t pay the bills anymore. A combination of these groups, often made up of women, stay at the Greenwood House, another unit Lynn is responsible for in Greenwood. There are lower-class families that despite steady income, they struggle to stay above ground. These cases are seen at the Tyree Scott apartments, a unit similar in look to Meadowbrook but located in Seattle’s South End.
“Then there are the folks under the bridges,” she said. ‘That's a whole different scenario.”
This group makes up Martin Court, a temporary transitional unit in Georgetown. This unit has more problems than the others.
“Martin Court uses Coordinated Entry (CEA). You call 211, get on a list and go through an assessment. In theory, it sounds great. One spot where everyone can go, sign up, and they’ll match you with housing that caters to you. But it can be complicated” she said. “I can’t screen out for criminal activities, warrants, and drug abuse. I have to take whoever shows up through this system.”
I think for a moment before asking: “So, there are no qualifications at all?”
“They have no barrier but you would have to go through the CEA process. You have to have an ID, social security, proof of legal citizenship-”
“Do they check for drug addiction?”
“No.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It's definitely a problem.”
“Would checking for that make for an easier solution against homelessness?”
“When it comes to these folks under the bridges or the people we see on the side of the road, housing isn’t going to fix it. Housing will fix the rest of it: refugees, domestic violence, people getting sick, and old age. We can fix all of that with good affordable housing,” she said. “Those folks and I say this with love, I can’t help them that much. I can for a little while but they will continue using, doing petty crimes, breaking the law, prostituting, beating each other up, and possibly end up dead. They’ll make the units uninhabitable”
“What would help them?”
“We’re missing the whole mark. This facet of homelessness needs drug, alcohol, and mental health rehabilitation. We need wellness and rehabilitation centers,” she said. “I can’t house these folks for long because it gets to a point where they are a danger to themselves and the rest of the community. When we get them out again, they start the cycle again. Until we fix that, housing isn’t going to work.”
Wraparound services are additional resources provided to the homeless to get back on their feet. Case management is one that LIHI provides among others. Access to rehabilitation for mental health facilities for addictions another. Without them, housing doesn't always work, effectively highlighted by the housing thirst theory.
“You have to get someone somewhere to live so they can accept services,” Lynn said. “But once they get it, they can continue to use drugs because there's no incentive for them.”
Lynn paints a picture highlighting a cycle of addiction in which residents who get permanent housing will be back on the street soon after due to being unable to kick their addiction. But was this the reason for the major surge of homelessness in Seattle in the last few years?
“For years and years, the city of Seattle has been saying that these are our folks. Everyone that works here and in homelessness knows that they aren’t from here,” she said. “They hear about the services, how the weather isn’t bad, and social programs are great. The city won’t arrest you and they’ve decriminalized drugs and petty crime. So they’ll travel here.”
As far as reporting on these people coming in, results get skewed as government workers take a tally of how many homeless people are sleeping in the city.
“We used to do night counts. Over the course of 24 hours, someone will go out and ask someone living on the streets where they slept the previous night,” she said. “If they answer Seattle, they are written up as a Seattle resident. The data comes out and shows everyone is from here.”
When the conversation ended, Lynn arranged for me to meet both the property and case manager at Martin Court a few days later. I drove home from Meadowbrooke not so much feeling informed but questioning the government reports being published. How many were taken in that fashion and changing the numbers? I needed more perspective, which I got days later when I came to Martin Court.
Courtyard of Martin Court. (Lorcan Stokes)
Located on a Georgetown intersection, the complex is somewhat greyer than Meadowbrook. The cheerfulness derived from the bikes, toys, and art in Meadowbrook View eluded the apartment complex. I knocked on the glass office door by the entrance.
“Hi, my name is Lorcan Stokes. I’m here to talk to Melissa Dendy, the property manager.”
I’m brought to the main office. Melissa is sitting in the center while Jamie Welker, the case manager, is sitting at another desk towards the front of the room. After I explained the assignment, I began questions by asking what the residents are like here compared to other LIHI properties.
“The other properties I’ve worked at are permanent housing,” Dendy said. “Here, they come in either from tents, out in the open, or sometimes shelters but they're all totally homeless and have no permanent housing.”
“What's the process of arrival?”
Jamie answered.
“The first thing I do is go over a contract explaining the rules of being able to participate in the program. This could include setting up meetings for 30 minutes each week so we can get them closer to permanent housing,” she said. “Some of it is as basic as making sure they have valid social security cards or proof of income. Later, we’ll start addressing things like addiction and mental illness.”
I ask for their take on Lynn’s answer on how she viewed mental illness and addiction at the forefront of the homelessness crisis..
“I believe a lot of the addiction is just self-medication. I’ll often try to get them a counselor and on proper medication, if they are clearly suffering mentally,” Welker responded. “It sounds backward but if we can get them stabilized, we can start working on other barriers to housing.”
“That can’t be easy.”
”It's not. When someone is having an episode or a psychotic break, they need to have something immediate,” she said. “Especially since Covid, if you have someone here who needs something right now, it's hard to encourage them to wait for two weeks before that something happens.”
Exterior of Martin Court. (Lorcan Stokes)
I eventually ask why they believe Seattle is experiencing such a homeless crisis. The response is on par with Lynns.
“We have great social services. When I was working at Mary’s place (homeless shelter), I would say 50% of them are not from Seattle. A lot of them were from the likes of Florida and Texas,” Welker said. “They hear about the services. If they have kids, we have all of these great programs to help them. I don’t want to say this contributes because it's there to help but ....”
“It can be a draw though,” Melissa chimed in.
I pondered my final question. On the way over to the property, I had parked my car a few blocks away on a street that appeared to be solely inhabited with tents, RVs, trash, and syringes. Is there really an overall solution? Or is it just minimization? The only way the fight against homelessness could ever be effective is if drug addiction and mental health were prioritized first. I finally ask what they see the solution looks like.
“When they say it takes a village to raise a child, it applies to those suffering mentally and from addiction. Writing a check isn’t going to solve it,” Welker said. “I don’t know if anyone has a solid answer but the reality is when people are suffering from mental illness as well as drug addiction, it's really hard to get them into permanent housing without wrap-around services. Otherwise, they're going to behave the same way.”
Like Lynn’s, the answer is simple but complicated. On one hand, it’s nice to know there’s the capacity for change. On the other hand, it’s hard to say if it’s ever going to happen. Regardless, Mental health rehabilitation and drug addiction are crucial for even the slightest progress.