Stop funding failed homeless policies and instead fund efforts that help people
A leading homeless advocate is encouraging Seattle’s political leadership to abandon failed homelessness and drug policies and instead increase access to treatment-based methods to help those suffering on our streets. Let’s hope that new Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and new King County Executive Girmay Zahilay are paying attention to what is and what is not working on the homeless issue and that throwing more money into bad policies is only increasing the number of homeless individuals.
Last weekend, the Seattle Times published an op-ed from Andrea Suarez, the executive director of We Heart Seattle, a volunteer organization she founded at the height of the covid pandemic. Its initial mission was to clean up garbage left behind by the growing number of drug encampments that were littering Seattle’s sidewalks, parks, and public spaces.
Soon after becoming immersed in the homeless debate, Saurez witnessed firsthand the problems with Housing First policies and the many concerns with the prevailing political strategy to reduce the number of people sleeping in public spaces. The top concern is that homelessness has risen 68% in King County during the past decade, while Housing First methods were employed. This past week, local government officials warned that the annual point-in-time count that is currently taking place will likely reveal that the homelessness number will again rise this year.
(Housing First is the belief that the current homelessness crisis is caused by lack of affordable housing. Proponents argue that we must provide more taxpayer funded/subsidized housing, and once a homeless individual receives public housing, they can obtain help for their other issues.)
Using her daily connection with those struggling on Seattle’s streets, Saurez’ op-ed refuted those who support Housing First policies. She stated that it is obvious to anyone who spends time helping those in encampments that addiction and mental health issues are the dominant force behind the region’s homelessness crisis.
Suarez described the experience of visiting an encampment. “What you see, what we all see, is the devastating evidence of severe mental health crises and, far more commonly, active drug addiction. The refuse, the chaos, is not created by economic hardship. This is the visible manifestation of untreated addiction and serious psychiatric illness.”
Saurez points out that the region’s adherence to Housing First policies is not only failing to help those currently living on the streets, but it also creates unhealthy conditions for those who are trying to become sober. “When housing programs place people with diverse and severe disabilities under one roof, including people actively using drugs, their dealers, and codependent using partners, the environment becomes toxic to recovery. Your drug dealer may live down the hall. Your using buddy is your next-door neighbor. The very people and behaviors you need to escape to heal are now your permanent roommates.”
We should note that McKenney has since become one of the leading architects of a treatment-based national homelessness strategy and was a driving force behind the federal governments push for more treatment to help those trapped by addiction.
Suarez’s approach calls for three approaches to reduce homelessness in Seattle:
- Public housing for those in addiction treatment (remove those who don’t comply)
- Stand-alone treatment
- Low-barrier housing for those who refuse help with reduced funding
Moving funds from ineffective policies to ones that work is the key difference between the current failed homelessness strategy and the method proposed by the Discovery Institute and Suarez. If we are to reduce homelessness, we must focus more resources on homelessness’s root causes – addiction and mental health issues.