Seattle is under siege. Over the past five years, the Emerald City has seen an explosion of homelessness, crime, and addiction. In its 2017 point-in-time count of the homeless, King County social-services agency All Home found 11,643 people sleeping in tents, cars, and emergency shelters. Property crime has risen to a rate two and a half times higher than Los Angeles’s and four times higher than New York City’s. Cleanup crews pick up tens of thousands of dirty needles from city streets and parks every year.
When you subsidize something, you get more of it. It really is that simple. When you make it easy for drug addicts and homeless people to congregate in an area, and give them money and food and all the things they want, you end up with more drug addicts and homeless people.
At the same time, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the Seattle metro area spends more than $1 billion fighting homelessness every year. That’s nearly $100,000 for every homeless man, woman, and child in King County, yet the crisis seems only to have deepened, with more addiction, more crime, and more tent encampments in residential neighborhoods. By any measure, the city’s efforts are not working.
Whoa, whoa whoa.... let's not just skip over that ONE BILLIONS DOLLARS. If they're spending $100,000 per homeless person to "fight homelessness", where the hell is that money going? I'm willing to bet it's going into the same place that it goes in every socialist-run location: Into the pockets of the politically connected.
Read the entire piece. Seattle is a laboratory for what occurs when leftists/socialists/marxists take control of a city and begin to operate based on their ideology instead of reality. Running a city on unearned moral superiority using other people's money to fund your ego never works.
It's a shame since Seattle is such a beautiful city. I understand Pioneer Square is now a nightmare of crime and such.
ReplyDeleteLet's face it, Dave - homelessness is big business. Tonight Cassano's Italian grocery is closing in Spokane. Guess who bought their building? Some homeless charity bought the building for 950K and will rehab it to house the homeless upping their capacity to 80 peeps. Really? The final price tag to house 80 homeless will be well over a million dollars. WTHell??!! I can certainly find way less expensive ways to house the homeless.
From KXLY:
Family Promise bought Cassano's with a $950,000 community development block grant from the city. They'll use the leftover grant money and community donations to renovate the 18,000-square foot space into a new family shelter, growing from its current capacity of 50 people to 80 people a night. Allen told KXLY the non-profit is planning to move into the space by mid-February.
Doesn't block grant = tax payer funds?
Merry Christmas to you and your beautiful wife.