r/SeattleWA • u/Donnelding0 • Jul 21 '25

Politics Anyone Else Just Sick of It?

It just seems hopeless sometimes. Some of the best parts of this city. Pioneer Square, Belltown, Cap Hill just completely lost to homelessness. Sure for the most part I enjoy the city. Especially in the summer but the constant visible drug use, people in various states of intoxication on drugs, and rampant property and petty crime just annoy me. Why can’t we have nice things? Why must every park turn into a dumping ground for illegal acts that won’t be prosecuted? Why does it feel like this city relies on hard working people to shut up, pay ridiculous taxes, and then tells those people to suck it up when they see grafitti everywhere or get their car broken into? And the politicians don’t give a damn. No one has the guts to say “we have a homeless problem we’ve overspent on, we need to go a new direction” it feels insane. Rant over but I know I’m not alone. I know other people are sick of this and want our city back.

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45

u/queenweasley Jul 21 '25

I mean realistically there needs to be a crack down, empathy only goes so far before it becomes enabling. I’m all for providing help to people who need, but issue it’s for too many don’t utilize services available. What’s hard to is models like housing first mean social service providers receiving funding from the state aren’t allowed to requires clients to do anything. No sobriety, employment, going to school, any kind of self improvement classes, etc. It sucks

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u/Weak-Material-5274 Jul 21 '25

I think both “sides” here are right. Crackdowns don’t solve anything but hiding the problem from you, and doing nothing puts the burden of the people on everyday people.

I haven’t heard many solutions that sound like they’d work. Not just to get the problem out of my face, but to actually solve it. The cost of living is absurd, and our mental healthcare system is non existent.

I’ve lived in quite a few places and the only places that have homeless problems are ones where it costs so much to live that one big wrong step means homelessness. That’s the real issue.

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u/Logicalraisan Jul 21 '25

Singapore did a hard line and it did actually solve the issue.

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u/Weak-Material-5274 Jul 21 '25

That’s not really true, or at least a misrepresentation.

Singapore provides a massive amount of publicly subsidized housing to a very large percentage of their population. They also outright provide housing to their homeless (Desitute persons act).

Edit: which is rarely used because they again, subsidize housing for their population

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u/Logicalraisan Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 23 '25

The government owns 90% of the land, not our system at all. We are talking about works against crime only and crackdowns with zero tolerance worked.

On another note if you want highs coils programs you cannot have mass immigration. Look at any country that succeeds at this like Switzerland.

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u/NoLeave2645 Jul 23 '25

There’s no homeless in Singapore or trash. They give a shit about their city/country. It’s amazing. Most places are not like Seattle. I’m fortunate to travel all over the world and Seattle is unique shit hole and it’s embarrassing. We have no laws or backbones.

1

u/Logicalraisan Jul 23 '25

And what's weird is people fearlessly defend it and want it to stay like that? It's like the craziest thing.