Seattle (still) looks awful (Vancouver, Bremerton: 2013, apartments, mortgage)

[MechAndy]

I think a good portion of the people suffering from mental health issues can be stabilized and return to being functional once they get back on their meds or start meds.

Most are schizophrenic.
Meds, counseling and social programs do help.

[thatguy950]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Homelessness isn't due to anything "the Left" is or isn't doing. Much of the homelessness is generated by Wall Street investing in housing, bundling it up into investment packages, and selling those on the stock market. Voila: the Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

They took over most of the foreclosed properties after the mortgage loan bust in 2008, they've been capitalizing the construction of rows of cheap-looking apartment buildings in boom cities like Seattle, then charging what they deem to be "market rates" even though many of their buildings remain half-empty, they've been taking over the last bastion of housing affordable to those pushed out of REIT-acquired apartment complexes: trailer parks, and are pursuing their formula of cutting services and raising rents in that environment. And now they're building housing developments in places like Bremerton and Seattle suburbs, and presenting the homes (with minimal yard space) as high-end rentals. When they over-invest in an area, as they did in Seattle, where you can see in some corridors block after block of their junky-looking apartment buildings lining both sides of the street, mysteriously, rents don't come down to reflect the glut of apartments they create. They disregard the basic law of supply-and-demand, keeping rents high, because they have hordes of investors depending on their earnings.

As to Vancouver BC, the city notoriously condemned several buildings of subsidized housing to make room for their Olympic facilities, then handed out tents to the displaced residents, and changed city laws to allow them to set their tents up in parks. What happened to those tent cities, I don't know. It seems like they'd be hard to miss. Maybe a later mayor figured out a solution. Or maybe they were moved to parks in parts of the city where visitors rarely go.

As to why a significant segment of the homeless are mentally ill, you can thank President Reagan for that. He closed the mental health hospitals, then failed to approve sufficient funding for community mental health clinics and affordable residential facilities or subsidies for the patients told they would be living independently thenceforward.

You can't compare the US to highly-taxed nations like Scandinavia and Canada. And Norway is floating on oil money, in addition to tax revenues. The US, meanwhile, keeps cutting taxes to people who don't need tax cuts, and closing down entire government functions, or cuts them back to the point of near-uselessness. Yet, the Right blames the Left for the resulting fallout, while the Right laughs its way to the bank as the nation crumbles.

You can't solve homelessness, reduce fire risk on federal lands, build an infrastructure that can withstand destructive weather phenomena and move existing roads out of the way of coastal tide surges and rising seas, with an ever-shrinking federal budget.

You’re not wrong about the scummy investment firms screwing with the housing market, but to think socialist leftists are on “our” side is silly, Liz Warren has our back:


https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/eliz...te-change.html

She also deemed them “too big to fall,” famous last words


In any case, the late, great George Carlin said it best:

[Jacconn]

The homeless problem is fraught, for sure, but the tent cities just aren’t popping up in non-hyper-progressive cities. Boston has a 98% sheltered rate if it’s homeless, and the one (very) bad district recently got cleaned up and it never sprawled around the city. These West Coast cities do have a reputation for being enablers and easy on this lifestyle, so in some ways you reap what you sow. This doesn’t exist in St Louis, SLC, etc.

[Guineas]

Originally Posted by uniquetraveler

I seriously don't understand how some of the largest and most developed cities in US (Seattle. San Fran, Los Angeles) have such a huge homelessness issue.

From most of the posts in the forum and news media, it seems that the primary reason for this is the progressive lefts running the cities. But I have been to Canada, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and many other countries that are much more left leaning with scores of social initiatives like free healthcare, high minimum wage, gun control etc. but none of those have such issues with homelessness, graffiti, trash, tents etc. Even crime is very low in all those nations. In fact our neighbor to the north, Vancouver BC is run by a Mayor from New Democratic party (which is to the left of the Liberal party), but the city is so beautiful, clean and nice! So what gives?

The difference is how drug addiction is handled and how easy/cheap it is to get meth and heroin in the US compared to other countries. In the US we are rapidly decriminalizing drugs in the major West Coast cities, but without any mandated treatment or rehab. So we have the worst of all worlds when it comes to the decay and destruction of drugs. The West Coast cities are massive enablers of vagrants and the drug-addled, in a way that places like Boston and Northern Europe are not. So yes, the blame can absolutely be placed on the progressives leading these policies.

Minimum wage in Seattle is high and there is a massive shortage of labor across the metro area, but the people living in tents aren't getting jobs, they can't hold a job because they are high on hard drugs.

[Guineas]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Homelessness isn't due to anything "the Left" is or isn't doing. Much of the homelessness is generated by Wall Street investing in housing, bundling it up into investment packages, and selling those on the stock market. Voila: the Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

Nonsense. Open your own eyes, walk around some of the encampments in Seattle. The visible homeless in this city are largely drug-addled able-bodied white men high on meth in a city with historically low unemployment rates and where a burger flipper at Burgermaster starts at $21/hr. Yes, housing in Seattle is expensive. So is London, Vancouver and Copenhagen; and in comparison, Portland OR is dirt cheap compared to those cities yet has even worse homeless problems than Seattle. Nowhere is drugs as easily and cheaply available as in the US. Only the West Coast has total enablement and decriminalization of open drug use and open air drug markets (12th and Jackson, 3rd and Pine) without any strings or treatment requirements attached. Even Norway with drug decriminalization has forced addiction treatment centers. The drug enablement policies of the far left in this country absolutely is to blame for our massive tent populations along the West Coast.

Home prices and rent can drop 50%, and the vast majority of the visible homeless in this city will still stay homeless. Their brains are so beyond fried by drugs that they will never hold a job and pay rent on time or stay long in their apartment without trashing it (I mean just look at the trash heaps along I-5 and in Ballard). Those who blame this on REITs aren't looking to solve this problem, they are grifters using the misery of these people rotting off our highways and in our parks for their own misguided political agendas. Basically drug pimps. How's that for your truth?

[jabogitlu]

New Zealand, Norway, etc. are countries. LA, SF, Seattle are cities.

Comprehensive social reform must be centrally planned. Residents of Seattle send a huge portion of our taxes to Washington, DC and a very small portion of it gets returned as social program planning.

There's your answer.

[tdougan]

Lots of great analysis here and I only wish it would lead to action. My wife and I lost hope and are leaving the Seattle metro after 28 years. To be fair, it’s the weather and the suburban house gained enough value to make a nice exit. Seattle was a beautiful place and I wish it well ... some of us will vote with our feet

[happygrrrl]

Ruth is ABSOLUTELY correct regarding Reagan...his "cost-saving" methodology for mental health services, i.e., eliminate them, began before his presidency, it began when he was governor of California, & other states followed suit...

There are many instances of exploitation of resources & policy practices that were put into place long ago, & this country is just now feeling the end result of reap what you sow.

It's so all-encompassing that I continue to be stunned...I have no ideas regarding a solution.

[uniquetraveler]

Originally Posted by jabogitlu

New Zealand, Norway, etc. are countries. LA, SF, Seattle are cities.

Comprehensive social reform must be centrally planned. Residents of Seattle send a huge portion of our taxes to Washington, DC and a very small portion of it gets returned as social program planning.

There's your answer.

Replace New Zealand with Christchurch, Norway with Oslo.. the situation is still the same.

[Guineas]

Originally Posted by happygrrrl

Ruth is ABSOLUTELY correct regarding Reagan...his "cost-saving" methodology for mental health services, i.e., eliminate them, began before his presidency, it began when he was governor of California, & other states followed suit...

There are many instances of exploitation of resources & policy practices that were put into place long ago, & this country is just now feeling the end result of reap what you sow.

Reagan was over 40 years ago! Many of the people in these tents aren't even 40 years old. We can't do anything about mental health services now? Nearly all levels and branches of government in WA and CA are run by Democrats. Even if you build mental health institutions now, surely it would be better than still whining about Reagan 40 years later in two of the richest states in the country with state revenues surpassing most countries and tech wealth that Reagan could have only imagined in the 80s? The modern day reason for why we don't have mental health institutions and forced rehabilitation has more to do with ACLU lawsuits. But much better to blame Reagan.