Democrats defend their expensive homeless policies as numbers continue to increase

The expensive and ineffective homelessness strategy that Washington Democrats are defending will once again cause more homeless individuals to suffer on our streets.

This devastating reality is what government officials are warning will be revealed when the current point-in-time homeless count figures are released in May.

Local officials are currently wrapping up their count of homeless individuals, which the federal government mandates must be performed every two years. The last full count was performed in 2024 and it revealed that there were 16,385 homeless individuals in King County. This number increased to 16,868 last year after some bureaucratic adjustments of survey data.

In November 2015, then King County Executive Dow Constantine and then Seattle Mayor Ed Murray asserted that homelessness was so severe that an “emergency” must be declared and that reducing the number of homeless was local government’s top priority. At that time there were “only” 10,047.  And as we have seen, despite billions being spent, this number rose 68% in the following decade and according to homeless officials it will continue to rise.

How bad do things have to become before local Democrats will stop defending those who are profiting from the current failed policies?  Evidently a 68% increase in suffering is not bad enough.

As you recall, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown is leading a partisan Democrat lawsuit to maintain federal funding for their failed Housing First homeless strategy which is causing the homelessness numbers to increase. AG Brown and other Democrats appear unconcerned that their policies are causing so much suffering.

There is a growing number of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, who are demanding a move away from the failed Housing First methods, and provide more resources toward recovery – from both addiction and mental health issues. Yet from reading the Seattle Times story of the latest increase (and thus latest proof Housing First policies are a failure) one would never know there was any alternative.  Not once in the Times’ story did they mention alternatives or interview anyone frustrated by the Democrats cruelty in staying with these policies. Evidently the newspapers pledge “to hold the powerful accountable “is just something they say, but not something they are willing to do – especially since the powerful provide the taxpayer funds the newspaper needs to stay in business.

HOW MUCH MORE SUFFERING MUST OCCUR BEFORE WE CHANGE TO POLICIES THAT GO AFTER THE ROOT CAUSE OF HOMELESSNESS – ADDICTION AND MENTAL HEALTH?