Seattle has a new nickname – City in Ruins.
I know, I know. You’re trying to fix the homeless problem. I’ve heard you say it a thousand times. Just give you more money and-
-And nothing!
You CAN’T solve the problem by throwing more money at it.
You CAN solve it by enforcing the law.
That’s right. We already have laws in place to stop most of this mess. It has never been legal to camp in city parks or on sidewalks.
Have you ever been around people? I sometimes wonder. Because people do what is easiest.
Make it hard to camp illegally in Seattle, make the campers uncomfortable and ill at ease, and they’ll stop.
Before you know it those droves of interlopers who have polluted our city with waste and drugs will be gone. They’ll tuck their tails between their legs and scurry back to wherever they came from.
My neighborhood is one of the forgotten ones. A neighborhood full of families and small businesses, a neighborhood struggling to overcome the constant mismanagement of the City Council.
There’s a corner a few blocks from my house where sketchy people hang out. Right about when the City Council decided that citizens of Seattle mattered less than whatever drifter rolled into our town, the population of that corner exploded.
So now if I want to walk from my house to the business district I’d have to stroll through a disorderly crowd, most of them obviously drunk or loopy on drugs. I can’t count the number of times I’ve witnessed one or more of them dropping their drawers and…well, you know. It’s not at all hygenic.
As you might guess, my family has decided to use our cars to visit nearby stores and restaurants. And if there are sketchy people hanging out in those parking lots, we keep driving.
I’d rather take my business to a nearby town rather than put my family at risk.
But today, while walking our dog, my daughter found a tent in our very neighborhood. Not on the outskirts, not at the sanctioned site just up the road.
It makes me feel unsafe in my own neighborhood.
My question to you, Seattle City Leaders, is what are you going to do about it?