This could be Katie Wilson’s “moment,” if she adopts a commonsense homelessness strategy

The instability of Seattle’s political system is best illustrated by the revolving door at the mayor’s office. Since 1998, none of the City of Seattle’s chief executives left office under their own volition. Four (Mayors Schell, Nickels, McGinn, and Harrell) were defeated at the polls, one (Mayor Murray) resigned, and one (Mayor Durkan) chose not to run for re-election due to low poll numbers.

Will Mayor-elect Katie Wilson be the first Seattle mayor in 30 years to not be thrown out of office? Or will she be the 8^th straight mayor to fail to deliver on their campaign promises and be dismissed by the voters?

When she was asked how her administration will be judged, Wilson responded, “What I’m going to be judged on, what my administration is going to be judged on, first and foremost, is homelessness and public safety.” (We at ChangeWA agree and will track the Wilson administration’s results on these issues.)

Four years ago, Mayor Bruce Harrell came into office promising to moderate city policies after the radical agenda of Councilmembers Kshama Sawant, Andrew Lewis, and Lorena Gonzalez led to skyrocketing homelessness. Yet Harrell appeared afraid to take on the wealthy and powerful Housing First special interest groups, thus no serious reform ever took place and homelessness continued to rise in the city.

While Wilson is focusing on the correct issues, her campaign statements and early appointments indicate her administration will be implementing the same “Housing First” policies which caused homelessness to skyrocket 68% in the past decade.

Like Mayor Bruce Harrell, Wilson believes the homelessness crisis will be fixed simply by opening more public housing units. Harrell failed to deliver on the 2,000 he promised in 2021. Wilson says she will build 4,000 housing units but has not detailed how she will pay for these new units that have previously cost more than $330,000 for local government to obtain.

Again, like Mayor Harrell, Wilson does not appear to be a strong advocate for mental health and addiction treatment programs to focus on the primary causes of homelessness. In a 2,500-word Urbanist article on her homelessness agenda, not once is the word “treatment” used. On her campaign website, “treatment” is used briefly as part of a larger expensive solution, but not part of a long-term strategy to discourage drug use.

One of Wilson’s first appointments on her homelessness team is Tiffani McCoy, the co-executive director of House Our Neighbors, a non-profit housing group which advocates and profits from failed Housing First policies. Its website condemns private sector housing, stressing that only taxpayer-funded “social housing” can solve the homelessness crisis.

Clearly, Katie Wilson aims to follow the same extreme homelessness strategy which has brought so much misery to Seattle’s homeless population. The only difference is she wants to pour more money into policies which have a very poor track record both here and across other progressive West Coast cities.

So what if we try a different strategy? One that has been developed by leading homelessness experts which focuses on the root causes of homelessness and not the downstream symptoms. One that aims to reduce the number of homeless individuals and help the 75% of homeless individuals overcome their addiction and mental illness issues?  Since we clearly know the current strategy isn’t working, why doesn’t Mayor Elect Wilson give this common sense approach a try?

The Discovery Institute’s Michelle Steeb (respected author and the CEO of Northern California’s largest and most comprehensive program to help homeless women and children) worked with respected homelessness experts Dr. Robert Marbut and Marvin Olask to author a comprehensive article outlining a five-point plan to reverse the growing homelessness trend. The plan includes:

• Prioritize transitional and treatment-based recovery models. Divert money from wasteful long-term housing projects and place funds into mental health/addiction treatment.
• Partner with high-performing recovery organizations. Due to lack of reports, there is currently very little accountability within the public sector housing system. This needs to improve. With the data collected, successful programs will continue to receive tax dollars, while poor performing activities will be defunded.
• Empower and deploy multidisciplinary “CARE+” outreach units. Improve responses, with teams prepared to help those in physical, mental, or addiction crisis. Amy Barden has brought data analysis to her job as Chief of Seattle’s CARE unit and is committed to deploying staff to ensure best results.
• Enforce public health and safety laws to restore order while providing pathways to treatment. The S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision freed local authorities to enforce anti-camping laws. The Harrell Administration claimed progress in cleaning up encampments in public places, yet all residents either built new encampments, or they moved into hiding in woods or into empty buildings.
• Demand performance, not platitudes, at every level of the system.Public dashboards, based on individuals successfully completing treatment and obtaining housing stability, need to be developed to ensure accountability.

Realizing that Mayor-elect Wilson will be up against powerful special interest groups who don’t want to change a system which has been lucrative for them, Steeb concludes her article encouraging the new mayor to break the mold of progressive politicians by showing compassion to those who are suffering on our streets:

“Katie, you have the chance to lead Seattle into a future where compassion is not a slogan, but a force that restores people and the city they call home. This is your moment. History will remember the mayor who chose courage over habit, transformation over stagnation. Seattle’s soul is waiting to be mended. Now is the time to lead the city there.”

It has been 10 years since then Mayor Ed Murray declared homelessness a crisis. Expensive Housing First policies have brought a 68% increase in the suffering with hundreds of people dying every year. If Katie Wilson and her progressive allies truly cared about the homeless, they would break free from the special interest groups which are profiting from the misery of others and adopt treatment solutions which alleviate the root causes of the problem – addiction and mental health issues. If Wilson’s team recognize the dismal performance of Housing First and adopts a treatment-based approach, they can count on ChangeWA to assist to make these much needed strategies a reality.