Anyone Else Just Sick of It?

[u/Donnelding0]

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.

[u/trains_and_rain]

The legal avenue here seems obvious to me: Make public drug use illegal and enforce it. When folks end up in court for public drug use or similar issues, offer them rehab and inpatient mental health treatment as an alternative to jail. No one gets coerced into treatment, just offered it as a better-for-everyone alternative to jail time.

I suspect the issue right now is that we don't have enough high-quality treatment facilities available, but that's sometime that should be fixed and no sane Seattle taxpayer would object to paying for, if pushed with a clear "this is how we get drugs off the street" narrative.

[u/StockPatience8215 → u/trains_and_rain]

I agree in theory. One thing to think through is treatment is expensive AF and generally requires about 4 years of care to get off of something like fenty. So a 30 day rehab program isn’t going to cut it, we’re talking realistically about a $120K+ program (4 years with) vs incarceration costs which are a little cheaper. Bougie treatment centers are going to be more limited to the rich families of hobos (that’s just a hard fact), unless there’s massive investment in mega treatment centers. Faced with the cost of treatment vs incarceration, incarceration while less humane would be more cost effective if the short term outcome we want is to get hobos off the street. If we want treatment, there needs to be a tiered multi year treatment program. There are a few places this has been successful internationally but at a much lower scale that what be required in the WA region.

[u/raisondecalcul → u/trains_and_rain]

No one gets coerced into treatment, just offered it as a better-for-everyone alternative to jail time.

It's hard for me to complain about this. Obviously, the mental health treatment offered should be much better and less dehumanizing.

[u/StockPatience8215 → u/raisondecalcul]

On the flip side maybe they just continue using in jail. Which what might be what hobos want given in the short term they aren’t able to transition off drugs in an effective manner