KOMO News Special Seattle is Dying KOMO (illegal, illegals, Montana)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's not just drugs; it's also mental illness. Despite being a 100% progressive-controlled area, we have badly underfunded mental-health care. Western State Hospital, the state's largest mental health facility, lost federal funding after being repeatedly cited for violations. Numerous other similar problems have been reported the past several years.
We have money for 5 or so tax-funded pro sports stadiums, and money for billions in tax-funded art, but not enough to care for the mentally ill.
Plus the local government spent nearly 3 billion for a new tunnel that would replace the Alaska Way Viaduct.
I work in downtown Seattle and see this every day.
There are a few different things contributing to the problem.
1. 20 years ago Seattle had thousands of rooms in cheap hotels and rooming houses where transients etc. could rent weekly or monthly with no application or deposit necessary. Those days are gone and not coming back.
2. Even if the cheap rooms were available, many if not most of the homeless would still choose living rent-free in a tent to allow a larger budget for drugs because ...
3. Seattle has legalized urban camping, drug possession under 1 gram and pretty much any crime short of murder for this population. Here is a disturbing story from today's news:
Stories like this appear in the local news media almost daily.
There is a lot of complaining about Seattle's mayor and city council but the root of the problem lies with the city attorney and municipal court judges who refuse to prosecute or jail offenders.
Good points 3 Wolves. Seattle needs to pull its head out.
Just a few days ago I was sitting at the table with my daughters and I said I could take the GKs to Seattle if the weather stayed nice. They shot it down right there. They hadn't been to Seattle much lately but they apparently had heard things. They flat out don't want the little ones in this environment. They don't want them to think this is NORMAL.
I get down in Seattle proper and the southern parts regularly and no one is going to tell me it isn't becoming a pit.
The reasons are many but the 2 biggest reasons are an apparently INSANE city council and the police are completely neutered.
The drug problem is OUT OF CONTROL.
Just TODAY I was in Belltown. There was a Seattlite WHO WAS NOT HOMELESS who was wearing a very expensive dress and jacket so stoned out of her mind she couldn't punch in the right code to get into her condo complex. Me and a guy (an equipment operator) watched her try for 5 minutes before someone from inside the building came and let her in, or more like helped her in. He said she's been passed out in front of the door the other day. She lost her eyeballs and fell over trying to find them.
Just out of curiosity I walked down to 2nd ave and around the block past the Army Navy Store, that area. I saw 3 very obviously high people, one passed out in a doorway.
I'm listening to John and Ken on KFI AM 640 playing clips from that documentary. The cities which don't tolerate this don't have the problem. Mentally ill people have to be forced into treatment centers. Bring back mental hospitals. Now the streets are one big mental hospital endangering the public.
It’s an accurate portrayal of what’s happening in Seattle as well as other cities across the country. There’s not enough shelters but this issue is more complex as many of us know from other threads. I think what’s changed is over the past ten years or so the homeless don’t hide anymore and just flop or set up tents wherever they care to, and in addition due to all the PCism abounding law enforcers have limited options to enforce loitering laws and panhandling. There also seems to be a lot of support for actually encouraging this drug and sleeping on the ground and tent city behavior like it’s a badge of honor or something to be walking all over feces and syringes everywhere.
"Worth watching. Free-attle: Another beautiful American city the Left has destroyed."
America is starting to look like a third world country. So sad.
If the Right is so correct, then how come Austin and Raleigh-Durham, the most liberal cities in the South, such high-tech hot-spots while no city in highly conservative Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is such a place? But last I checked they're hemorrhaging young college-educated people, and have been for decades. If conservatives have what's wanted by the young educated ambitious people who really change the world, then why aren't any of those state's cities more dynamic than Austin and Raleigh-Durham?
Listening to one guy now saying he takes meth everyday and steals. It's so much fun stealing and he was arrested 34 times but he doesn't expect to get arrested any more because the cops show him 'a lot of love and deference.' He sounded very happy.
No punishment!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
