Actually, ALL of the revenue was going to fight homelessness in Seattle. Something like 70% was aimed at increasing housing (the dirty secret of which was it was almost all emergency shelter space very little for affordable long term housing, so basically with no plan on how to get these people into long term stable housing, they even floated Fema style tents for them). The rest of the funds were to go to increase livable wages for the direct service workers who the studies show here only last in their position on average for 18 months. I am one of those people. I actually work in the neighborhood depicted in the photo above, providing housing to homeless queer youth here. I can’t afford to live in the city I work, (I have doubled the 18 month average). and sometimes when I am successful at my job, the people I support into housing make more money than I do, and I often qualify for the very services I am signing up my residents for.
Additionally, this “head tax” was only going to last for 5 years, and studies showed we needed over 75 million in funds to make these changes work, and they capitulated days before passing this bill to cut that in half. These funds were never going to adequately help this situation at 45 million, and they will use the argument that these funds never seem to help, yet they never want to pony up the money to even marginally fund these systems enough to be effective.
What if we buy up a couple of those ghost towns I keep seeing for sale? Give people places to live there, put in a little investment in some stores there (a market, laundry, restaurant, etc), get Habitat For Humanity to fix up the houses.
Because the optics of shipping homeless people out of cities is awful and then dropping them into a town with no infrastructure or long term investment or real economy isn’t a plan.
It’s the mark of a stupid affluent person that he can’t see how unsustainable that situation is. Smart people understand that the people who make the city work on a daily basis – cops, firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers, social service workers like yourself, etc. – should have the option of living in that city.
To be fair that’s also the places with the space and the low cost to house more people, but as you say half assed measures do nothing but make things worse. I’m sure spending dollars would go further investing in these towns.
Yeah, I think you’d have to invest in some infrastructure in these towns and give some grants or something to start businesses. But it gets around the NIMBY issue doesn’t it? and as @AsteriskCGY points out, money would go further there.
*Note: I’m not an economist or urban planner. I’m genuinely wondering if this is a viable option.
Then why can’t we do it for towns in WV that are struggling or eastern KY when their economies bottom out and there isn’t sustainable livable jobs to maintain them?
I don’t think shipping houseless people to dead towns to reinvest in them is the answer nor sustainable nor do I think we would have the commitment to do it adequately.
Cities are where considerable services, connections, and resources are, shipping people to rural areas where they are disconnected from all of this is akin to out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentalities, as if houselessness is some visual blight on our cities. We can absolutely make and create space in our cities for these individuals, again, it is the political expediency and capitalist will to address it that is lacking. We need to ENGAGE not push away.
I saw an article earlier this week about tourists in San Francisco who were horrified seeing homeless people and drug paraphernalia in “nice” neighborhoods. I had the same reaction on my first visit to Seattle seven years ago. What disturbed me was the tour guide, who spent a lot of time pointing out all of the artwork in public spaces. She told us that was considered to be a priority in the city. During my trip, there was a local news report about locking or removing public bathrooms to keep the homeless from using them. I’m sorry to hear the situation hasn’t improved.
Exactly. And if you had opted for the neighborhood with the security guard at the gate your neighbors would have complained about the length of your lawn before you cut it, or complained that you hung laundry out to dry, or that the colors of your impatience didn’t match.
Yea I can see that. Part is existing infrastructure will always be cheaper than new ones, the other is just familiarity for people. Since we have this proven solution is now about execution.
That is why I passed up a great many houses that would have otherwise gotten an offer from me when I was house shopping. I saw ‘HOA’ on the listing, shouted “KISS OF DEATH!!!” and went on to the next one. (I loath HOAs and gated communities with a passion- I’m fond of saying that gated communities keep crime in rather than out.)
Sure, my house has problems. it was built in '61, and the prior owners didn’t do much to keep major parts of it up to date. It’s also in an area that does see a bit of crime, but the rate is lower than one might think for it being under a quarter mile from the barrio, and my neighbors are by and large decent people.
Where I live there’s plenty of already existing, long-vacant buildings (because no one could afford the exorbitant rent being asked) that could be much less expensively converted to low income housing… but that would mean a loss of profits for someone somewhere, so of course it never happens…
Though I live on the West coast now, I was born in the Midwest. The last time I went “back home” to visit my mom a few years ago, the experience was harrowing… because in my hometown, instead of letting vacant buildings that no one could afford to rent stand empty and ‘go to seed,’ they had begun demolishing them and leaving the rubble where it fell.
Meaning that, instead of a neighborfood merely depreciating because of neglect and potential squatters, it looks like the aftermath of a war zone, and the property becomes a haven for vermin, (and inevitably, disease.)
This is the kind of small-minded, unsustainable mentality at work all across the nation, and that’s at the heart of problem.
That sounds nice, but in practice it is a very narrow window between the pre gentrified City that they would not be caught dead living in and the post gentrified too expensive. 20 years ago when it was cheap the cops, firemen, and teachers still didn’t live here.
I’d rather we focus on ways to achieve conditions for that narrow window than continue on our current course of turning desirable Western cities into playgrounds and safe deposit boxes for the wealthy.
I was living in NYC in 1998 when a lot of neighbourhoods were either gentrified or in-process (Giuliani had been mayor for 4 years at that point). I knew at least two people in each of those job categories who lived there (including a few in Manhattan below 116th St.). I can’t say if we were within your narrow window but it was obviously close enough.
Regarding gentrification, it’s not just the mere presence of White folks living “in the hood.”
My own kid’s godparents are White, and they live in our diverse neighborhood; where they constantly give back to the community by volunteering, mentoring and doing various other forms of community service; that’s how we first met.
