I work in downtown Seattle and the people I see affected by the aggressive homeless folks are those who don't know who they are- people visiting or new to downtown. I know which homeless folks are dangerous from experience and which ones are just panhandling. I've personally been spit at, spit on, attacked with a 2x2x18 piece of wood, and had a brick thrown at me (with surprising force), charged at, sexually assaulted (physically), the list goes on.
I've observed the end result of panhandling in various situations: there are the "my family needs help" folks who beg with kids in strollers and at the end of the day get back into their cars in the Target parking lot; there are the folks crying on the street begging for any money to get food, but don't want food directly even if you've already bought it for them with no strings attached; there are also the rare case of someone who was just mugged now trying to get on the bus.
The end result is any compassion I had has been slowly whittled away. Actively avoiding human shit or fresh vomit every morning on the sidewalks and keeping an eye out for needles everywhere (watch where you sit on the bus) really just leaves you tired and unsympathetic.
Pro Tips: avoid 3rd & Pine / Pike, avoid all of 2nd Ave. in general; avoid parks and downtown after dark; do not touch the needles unless you have to (bus seats); do not go into tall grassy or ground obscured areas as there may be needles; avoid the park beaches as they are toilets for the homeless early in the morning (4-6am).
> Actively avoiding human shit or fresh vomit every morning on the sidewalks and keeping an eye out for needles everywhere (watch where you sit on the bus) really just leaves you tired and unsympathetic.
In addition to the dump dodging and vomit avoidance, you have to keep an eye on every shifty character in Starbucks or on the street to make sure you aren't going to be another victim of an intentional or inadvertent stabbing. Its getting to the point that for the safety of myself and my loved ones I would recommend commuting by vehicle and make walking around the city the exception rather than the norm.
I think also knowing which streets to avoid entirely are good too. Each street has its own vibe and always has. 3rd and pike was bad way back in 2000's in ways that are similar to now. The ambient level of visibly homeless, and more importantly those in actively crisis has gone way up IMO--and you can't really avoid that.
Be interesting and depresisng to make map for people to use like that but I am not sure how it wouldn't devolve into fearmongering like nextdoor does.
I feel bad for the occasional wide eyed family from the burbs I see walking streets even I wouldn't dare tread on from my car or lyft.
The problem is that 3rd is where all the downtown bus stops are. If you commute by transit, it's almost impossible to ignore. Your only option is to rush to the next block and hope nothing goes wrong.
ya there is always some scary characters around McStabbys/StabDonalds at 3rd and Pine. I have trouble following the logic when a company decides to plop a corporate office down in the middle of the Seattle sketch corridor. Witnessed a straight up drug deal go down as people with corporate lanyards walked past.
Hey, I used to work there in the 90s, it’s always been like that. We had off duty cops staffing the place along with a frequently used banned list. And this was when it was two stories, I think it must be easier these days given that they smartly got rid of the second floor dining area.
Worked at an office on 2nd and Pine for a few years - every summer, if you opened the windows, you’d get a steady wafting of crack pipe smoke coming in the building. You could tell if any cops were nearby because people outside would be singing or whistling as a warning call. Good times.
The “how” is that places like this (Seattle, SF, Vancouver BC) have very good municipal support for the homeless, and have pretty good welfare laws at the state level, and have climates that won’t kill you if you sit outside all day. So homeless people from everywhere else in the country gravitate to these places.
These cities don’t have a municipal homeless problem; they’re sacrificial goats for entire nations’ homeless problems.
This is largely a myth. It's hard to get exact numbers, but from a recent Seattle Times research project...:
"To sum it up: There are homeless people who migrate — somewhere around 15 to 20 percent of all homeless people — but there aren’t many who migrate far beyond their home state and region. While research hasn’t definitively answered the question of how many homeless people migrate [here from outside Washington State] just to get help, we know that in King County, 3 percent said they did."
I would argue that this does happen in SF specifically. Being a magnet for people with no leg to stand on (whether because of a lack of resources, prejudice, etc.) is San Francisco's whole thing, and has been since the 60s. They wrote songs about it!
But okay, in the case of Seattle and Vancouver, maybe the arrivals are not from the opposite side of the country, but there still is a constant influx of people from the region. There are huge native communities in both Washington state and British Columbia, and they're falling apart in about the same way as the rust belt. There's no support system in those small towns with enough resources to help the people who are worst-off, so they have to leave and go somewhere else.
Look closely at the questions those surveys are asking. "Where were you living at the time you most recently became homeless" isn't the right question as there are temporary housing options (crashing with a friend, living in a vehicle) under which many do not consider themselves homeless.
From your own link, only 25% were born / grew up in King county.
Haven't checked your link, but I know several of the recurring studies for Seattle area ask "where was your last residence" or something. If you dig deeper, a lot of the "locals" are "local" because their last residence was the King County Jail.
Bingo. Though they try to convince us otherwise, that the homeless are all from Seattle, and when asked where they lived previously, they mostly say Pioneer Square....
If you don't mind, I'd be curious to hear your take on the controversy around whether the west-coast homelessness problem is aggravated by people moving there from other places with colder climates and less 'support'. I'd also be curious to hear what you think about the degree to which the worst of this is a drug abuse problem vs. something else.
Studies show that most homeless are "locals," but some percentage do travel to more desirable areas, plus some towns and other institutions will just give a homeless person a one way ticket to get rid of them.
However, I'm skeptical of the usefulness and accuracy of the official data we have on the homeless.
Homeless lives are lived largely in secret. They may have no address and no phone.
This is a vulnerable population and the system does not serve them well. I imagine even a lot of self-reported data is unreliable because vulnerable people will lie at times to protect themselves.
In the US, a lot of homeless data is based on the annual Point In Time count which occurs in late January. I recently tripped across an article that explicitly stated it occurs at that time because it's the coldest part of the year and homeless individuals do their best to seek shelter, if only temporarily.
So it seems to me that this count is likely an undercount and it's an undercount entirely on purpose.
I participated in planning meetings for the local Point in Time Count last year. I've also seen anonymous questions online from people participating who had concerns about various populations being overlooked by the count, such as post-hurricane victims still living in hotels after their house was destroyed.
I traveled to the West Coast while homeless. I intentionally returned to California because the West Coast is better for my health. I then spent about 5.5 years homeless in California before leaving the state to get back into housing someplace cheaper.
California is exporting poor people to other states and has been for years. If you are a waitress or trucker or similar, you will be better off elsewhere.
But homeless people can end up stuck in place in California. The weather in large parts of California make it fairly tolerable to sleep outside. This can become a recipe for long term homelessness.
Data does suggest that California has more homeless who are unsheltered and more chronic, long term homelessness than most places. Off the top of my head, I think California has 8% of the US population and an estimated 25% of our homeless.
So either California is incredibly broken or it's a de facto dumping ground for the nation's homeless. I suspect there's some truth to both interpretations.
Re drugs:
I think generally think drug abuse is usually a symptom of other problems. I'm not someone who believes in the Twelve Step model of addiction. Research and first-hand experience with users suggests that's not an accurate model.
The history of Alcoholics Anonymous is that it began with a few hardcore alcoholics whose alcoholism was literally killing them and they still could not stop, so they gave it up to God and that worked. Now, every college student who goes on a bender is at risk of being called an alcoholic and sent to AA. Reality: Older people typically drink less than younger people with absolutely no outside intervention whatsoever.
Given that general mental framework, I see our national drug crisis as a statement that there is something very wrong with our overall social fabric. If you fix that, then the drug crisis will die down.
It will never go away entirely. There will always be people trying to drown some of their sorrows for one reason or another. But the levels we are seeing speaks to something rotten at the heart of our society.
Generally speaking, I think we need single payer national healthcare and we need to fix our housing supply issues. Those two things would go a long way towards restoring a healthy social fabric to the US.
> So it seems to me that this count is likely an undercount and it's an undercount entirely on purpose.
I would think it's easier and more accurate to count people in shelters than outdoors. Shelters presumably already keep track of usage, while it would take a small army of people to count homeless outdoors.
That's a reasonable point, but the reality is that a lot of people actively avoid the shelter system. (Including me.) So some people seeking shelter will be visiting a relative or staying in a hotel temporarily, not handily corralled like penned animals in the shelter system so they can be conveniently counted by the powers that be.
It's a myth that homeless people are all entirely penniless. Many of them have income, they just don't have enough income to support a middle class lifestyle.
Homeless individuals may have alimony, social security, disability, a retirement check or similar income. They may also work.
When housing is expensive enough, it's possible to have a full-time job and be unable to cover rent. Homeless individuals often have various personal challenges that make roommates even less desirable than average, and there are plenty of roommate from hell stories even without such issues.
My last two years on the street, I managed to go to a hotel periodically. Towards the end, this was about once a month.
When the drought in California finally broke with record-breaking deadly storms, I got up, saw my usual "safe from the storm campsite" was probably under 6 to 10 feet of water, and decided to take out a Payday loan to seek shelter in a hotel for three nights. This was, "coincidentally," late January.
You know, the part of the year when these counts get done.
The support is great, as I understand it anyway, unless you are addicted to drugs.
The places for the homeless to go to do not accept people with drugs, which seems reasonable but then you create this situation with lots of addicts on the streets not getting the help they really need.
Clearly the support is fucking terrible if you still have large homeless populations of mentally ill people defecating in the street and committing criminal offences.
We are saying essentially the same thing, just that what's there isn't all bad, just not good enough and ignores a group of people because we've decided that we don't like people who are on drugs.
Which places? Unfortunately in the US we have decent homelessness support, but we have extremely poor or non-existent mental health support which is what this problem really is
Because being homeless does not mean that you are suffering from mental issues. It's also much harder to address the real problem of not addressing mental health, when you lump it all into the same category of homelessness.
I know it first hand because I used to be homeless (but not "visible homeless") at one point.
> Because being homeless does not mean that you are suffering from mental issues.
A relevant part of them do, or we wouldn't have this discussion. That all sounds like "we have good help systems for some homeless" at most, which then somehow gets generalized into "we have good help systems for homeless" when this obviously isn't the case for a part of them.
If you are homeless but able to contribute to the economy if you weren't homeless the programs are very good. If even after getting off the streets, you still require additional help, the support available to you is significantly less good.
Put another way, if it was likely you could get yourself out of the homeless situation there's plenty of support in place for you. If you require help, there's little that is in place.
So, whether the support is good depends almost entirely on what type of homeless you are. It can be good for some while being abysmal for others.
The support is pretty good in Vancouver, but there's two big compounding problems.
1 - drugs, which is a massive complication modifier
2 - capacity, which is stressed a LOT by other areas of the country. For example, other provinces have a policy of buying one-way bus tickets to Vancouver for any homeless person who asks (or is slyly convinced to leave). Vancouver can't do anything to stop it, for good reason - freedom of movement within the country is a guaranteed legal right.
Also non returnable warrants, you get pinched for something in another province like theft or drug crimes in Alberta or elsewhere, flee to another province like BC to avoid jail and police don't want to pay to send you back. Then you end up a homeless criminal in the downtown eastside of Vancouver.
Not really the types of people cannot be normally housed. You would need to build specialized housing made out of cleanable and indestructible material. Regular housing would just be damaged at extreme cost to the taxpayers
Nbd, at least they won't die of exposure. In any case, many people are "dirty" outside, but when they have stable conditions miraculously get somewhat better.
Housing has rules which disqualifies many. Drug use, loud noise, bothering neighbors. When you are housed, your neighbors don't move (and you don't often either). This can be a high barrier for some, unfortunately.
I didn't mean "good" in any absolute sense, but rather in comparison to other places in the country. Homeless people are coming to these places to get something they can't get where they are. Maybe it's still not enough, but it's enough that they want it.
Also, where I live, at least (Vancouver BC), there is a huge amount of free public housing, constantly being built. There are far fewer visibly-homeless people here now than there were even a few years ago. (Drifters who hang around out on the street during the day because they have nothing better to do, yes; people who wander through alleys every night because they take drugs instead of sleeping at night, sure; but people who just want to sleep, but are forced to do so on the street? Not often seen, any more.)
As far as I can tell, in this city, the only people who are still visibly homeless, are people who either are 1. recent-enough arrivals that they haven't bothered to find a shelter, let alone gone through the public-housing application process; or 2. they're people who prefer being homeless. (There is an interesting local phenomenon of aboriginal people taking over the unceded land of one of the city's parks as a pseudo-reservation—translating to "tent city.")
> How do people living in a place like that not look inwards and wonder at what turn they committed a colossal fuckup that got them where they are now?
Drugs. It's pretty hard to get yourself out of a bad situation when literally the mechanism in your brain that rewards smart behavior has been taken over by heroin and meth.
Ultimately, we do what our brains chemically reward us for doing. If heroin feels better than getting off the street and living a decent life then being a homeless drug user is the best achievement you can have. Heroin is fucked up.
I'm with you, because I've walked to work right through 3rd and pike/pine and 2nd for ~5 years now every day and, yeah, it's not ideal, but I also don't live out this post-societal collapse fantasy in my head every time I see a needle or crazy person.
Huh, I also work in downtown Seattle but have never experienced any of this. I very rarely see shit/vomit, have never seen a needle on a bus, have never been spit at or attacked.
I've worked in downtown Seattle for the last 10 years, and frequently use the bus system. (caveat: I'm a white male, so generally in less danger, and may be more oblivious):
* I've seen a few brawls (~5) in all that time; generally (all?) swiftly broken up by police
* Haven't experienced weapons (or items used as them), whatsoever
* I've seen (a handful of) needles in that time, but never on busses
* Lots of panhandling, people yelling things, etc.
* 2nd/3rd around Pike/Pike is _definitely_ sketchy, and will make you feel uncomfortable walking around there; but it's also where I work atm: so I frequently am in that area, and haven't encountered much.
My wife (who is from Oregon) and I were seriously thinking of moving to Seattle a few years ago. We flew over to go to a few job interviews and see friends. She was attacked by an aggressive (luckily slow) drunk person within 12 hours of being back. I love the city, and would love to move there, but she gave it a hard veto after that experience.
I have coworkers who are lucky in this regard. Their particular situation affords them the opportunity to live in Magnolia and takes the commuter buses which are always packed with people in the morning and evenings; these are typically commuter buses which don't run during the rest of the regular bus active times. Plenty of lunch walks and 1-on-1 walks around the city and nothing unfortunate has every happened to them, though they have seen the occasional needle and poop trail. Most of downtown is fine, the gradation of sadness increases as you walk towards Pioneer Square. The often under walked areas are the real areas of concern.
When working by the viaduct and Ferry Terminal our build slept a large number of people in the evenings on the sidewalk. One instance in particular stands out- someone had taken a shit into a 7/11 tall plastic cup, and I can only assume mixed it with some liquid adhesive, then flung the shit into a huge splatter against the sidewalk under the metal stairs down from the walking bridge. It stayed for quite a while, as the incentive to clean it up had passed- the building was being emptied to be demolished and security and other services had been stopped. But don't think this was a lone incident, as the back of the building would resemble the trope of the underside of a desk with boogers, except someone (or some group of people) were throwing shit (literally) against the back of the building.
> Huh, I also work in downtown Seattle but have never experienced any of this.
You are fortunate and very lucky in this respect. But I would encourage you to stay situationally aware because the city is getting more dangerous and shit-filled.
I’m glad to hear that, and I genuinely hope it stays that way.
I have been, twice in the last years. Spit on and punched at (the attacker was frail and tweaking, disturbing and menacing but physically unable to hit hard). Other good friends have gotten black eyes and so forth. This is in sf which has a more severe problem (though it is serious in Seattle).
This is to say nothing about day to day issues. Last time my wife ride Bart, a man got on and ranted angrily about “bitches”, though to nobody in general. In this case people just avoid eve contact.
Same. I read things like this all the time here and on reddit and shrug every time. Homeless problem in Seattle is certainly worse than the midwestern suburb I transplanted from but come on, statistics are at play here; it’s definitely going to be worse than the suburbs by virtue of their being more people.
To add another data point: I've lived in capitol hill for 22 years. I know zero people who have been attacked by homeless people. That's not to say that Seattle's homelessness problem isn't grave, but I suspect that there's a sampling bias in this comment thread.
Yes, we actually can. People like to talk about Prohibition as being a failure, but Prohibition actually resulted in a substantially lower rate of liver cirrhosis. People drank less and suffered less as a result. I'm not saying we need prohibition, but the idea that making drugs illegal doesn't work is absolutely ridiculous.
Yes, if we ignore all the other effects (e.g.: financing of organized crime, bringing people in contact with said organized crime) then sure, the prohibition was a sounding success. If we include all of these it doesn't look so great anymore.
One other pro-tip from my time in Seattle: Don't walk under the protected wooding scaffolding they put over sidewalks adjacent to construction after dark. At best you'll be literally stepping over multiple people on the ground - at worst you'll be threatened with nowhere to run.
I was downtown waiting for my bus the other day and a burly unwashed man wearing nothing but pants hanging down to his ass crack walks up and starts getting in the face of a young woman standing next to me. I told him to take a hike. A few days later, three people get stabbed downtown at 10am.
I worked at 3rd and Pine McDonald’s as a college student in the mid 90s (while commuting from the Ave to boot). It’s always been like this (as far as I can remember in the late 70s), but way worse these days.
I was recently trying to convince my wife that we should live in Seattle rather than downtown Bellevue, but for the kid it’s still a no go.
I lived on 2nd and Pike for 2 years, walking to work at Marion every day along the 2nd. It was nothing like this for me - no dangerous incidents, no needles. Agree on panhandlers tho.
I actually quite enjoyed it - the waterfront, fresh produce at the market, my favorite cafes. What drove me away was noise and air pollution.
> there are the "my family needs help" folks who beg with kids in strollers and at the end of the day get back into their cars in the Target parking lot
Someone can own a car and still be in desperate need of help.
I always check their shoes so far every one of them had good expensive footwear. The last one I saw the lady had a shiny pair of brooks similar to mine that go for -100 a pair.
It’s likely got something to do with incentives, money earned panhandleing is at least the same as minimum wage probably better, then no taxes and it’s all cash so doesn’t count against government benefits so you can double/triple dip.
there are the folks crying on the street begging for any money to get food, but don't want food directly even if you've already bought it for them with no strings attached
Most homeless people have serious health problems. Dietary restrictions are the norm for people with serious health problems.
No, you aren't doing a diabetic or someone with life-threatening allergies a favor to act like they should eat whatever the hell a random stranger bought them because "beggars can't be choosers."
Plus, you know, people have preferences. Acting like you should stop having food preferences because you are dirt poor is straight up classism of the worst kind.
Nope, not buying this excuse. They don't want food directly because they want cash to go buy other crap.
Hey look, I get it, being homeless sucks, but the situation the OP is describing is not working. Seattle, SF & LA have all become shit cities because of the way the govt handles homelessness. They enable not assist.
My experience interacting with homeless people agrees with DoreenMichelle. "They" are not all the same, many of "them" would tell you some food they'd be grateful for if you'd only ask what they like. I would imagine, even if you're hungry or just feeling horrible, that it's too humiliating to simply accept whatever random food a passing stranger offers you.
They may also want cash to go spend on "other crap."
But I'm kind of a subject matter expert here. This is not an excuse. This is reality.
I spent nearly six years homeless. I have very serious health problems. When people gave me food instead of cash, a lot of it went directly into a trash can because I am literally better off going hungry than eating certain things and my dietary restrictions are quite numerous.
I've observed the end result of panhandling in various situations: there are the "my family needs help" folks who beg with kids in strollers and at the end of the day get back into their cars in the Target parking lot; there are the folks crying on the street begging for any money to get food, but don't want food directly even if you've already bought it for them with no strings attached; there are also the rare case of someone who was just mugged now trying to get on the bus.
The end result is any compassion I had has been slowly whittled away. Actively avoiding human shit or fresh vomit every morning on the sidewalks and keeping an eye out for needles everywhere (watch where you sit on the bus) really just leaves you tired and unsympathetic.
Pro Tips: avoid 3rd & Pine / Pike, avoid all of 2nd Ave. in general; avoid parks and downtown after dark; do not touch the needles unless you have to (bus seats); do not go into tall grassy or ground obscured areas as there may be needles; avoid the park beaches as they are toilets for the homeless early in the morning (4-6am).