Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell talking to reporters during a news conference on Thursday at City Hall
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell went on the offensive Thursday as the city council considers his budget request for more money to fight the homeless crisis.
“What we’ve seen in Seattle is a significant decrease in tents in parks and on sidewalks” it’s a plan that’s working he said, “we also increased staffing for homelessness outreach and relationship building by 150%.”
The progress is visible: almost half of the Seattle’s 1500 homeless encampments have been shut down in the past year, people living in cars and RVs are being moved to new parking areas and there’s now a system for responding to complaints.
“We launched the unauthorized encampment service request form” said Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington “our goal is to respond to all incoming encampment related requests in three working days; and send out crews to inspect as necessary withing ten working days.”
The mayor’s budget includes $38M to continue what was supposed to be a one-year project “Our design on this budget is to make sure the moneys we did have is sustainable.”
It’s drawing rave reviews from businesses owners in places like SODO, “They are demonstrating change in real time” said Erin Goodman, executive director of the SODO Improvement Area “allowing the services they provide to lapse would negatively impact our local businesses, neighborhoods and those living unsheltered on our streets.”
Going forward the city planning to breakdown Seattle into six homeless districts managed separately by outreach workers: like cops on the beat. “They can be subject matter experts in their particular areas,” the mayor said, “working with people, working with community-based organizations, working with advocates and they can sort of take ownership in a geographic focus.”
Crime and violence remain a problem around homeless encampments and the struggle is real, “Since the beginning of the year we have seen over 1,200 fires at tents or rv encampment sites,” said Deputy Mayor Washington “(This) has resulted in an untenable situation that cannot continue.”
The Seattle city council is currently vetting the mayor’s budget proposal.
