Just another day in Rural Western Washington (Seattle, Bellevue: real estate, apartment complex)

[CalWorth]

Today I headed to town for a Dr. appointment. In my case, "town" is Port Angeles.

While waiting my turn, I perused the local social media. There I learned that the local Dollar Tree experienced an armed robbery on Monday night around 8 p.m. This genius made off with about $1,800 after dropping his 9mm bullets all over the floor. This is the same Dollar Tree that just got a new a/c system, over 2 years after the tweakers ravaged it.

Then I read a link that my kid sent me to a NY Times article. The article was titled "The Most Profitable Places to Own A Short-Term Rental", and there was Port Angeles, listed #8 out of 25 communities. I know a little about this as I have seen real estate & rentals skyrocket in price since the start of the pandemic, & every other place seems to be a airbnb or VRBO. The PA City Council knows about it, too, and they just can't seem to decide whether to put a cap on the number of SFH used solely as short-term rentals, even though 40% of short-term rental SFHs are not locally owned. And this is just within PA city limits, not the rest of the county. And a constant topic of conversation here is lack of affordable housing.

I finished my appointment & returned to the car. Spouse told me that while I was gone, a Rivian & two high-end Teslas had entered & left the multi-use parking lot. We laughed & said to each other, "Where are we, Seattle?" Then we came rapidly back to reality when we carefully drove around a screaming "houseless" man & his overloaded, tarp-covered shopping cart.

[Hemlock140]

With a brother in Sequim and parents on Blue Mountain for many years (now deceased) I have spent a lot of time in your area. When I was there last June I was amazed to see the number of pot shops. There had to be at least a dozen, for 20,000 people. We have none in Sammamish with 65,000 population, and only one in nearby Issaquah with 40,000.

Even 20 years ago up the road from my parents there were very expensive homes with water and even Victoria BC views, some with Seattle millionaire owners. Then there is the little Diamond Point airport in Sequim where the people fly in for the weekends. I suspect that since Covid more of the "work from home" tech people have moved there for the still less expensive home prices. My brother's for example is at about $476k now, up from $250 when they bought in 2017. The same house here would be worth about $1.1 million.

Your screaming "houseless" guy is in the thousands in Seattle, and now also some in eastside cities like Bellevue and Redmond.

[rantiquity]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

With a brother in Sequim and parents on Blue Mountain for many years (now deceased) I have spent a lot of time in your area. When I was there last June I was amazed to see the number of pot shops. There had to be at least a dozen, for 20,000 people. We have none in Sammamish with 65,000 population, and only one in nearby Issaquah with 40,000.

I googled 'pot shop' in the general area of Sammamish and came up with eight.

Your screaming "houseless" guy is in the thousands in Seattle, and now also some in eastside cities like Bellevue and Redmond.

Get with the program... 'houseless guy' you should know the left is now calling them 'person without a home'.
But since the Jamestown tribe constructed a drug treatment center in Sequim the 'persons without a home' (AKA homeless) population has exploded. Beggars on a lot of street corners right next to shops with 'help wanted signs' in their windows.

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by rantiquity

I googled 'pot shop' in the general area of Sammamish and came up with eight.
But none are in Sammamish, the nearest 5 miles away. Not a problem for me, I gave that up about 1972.
Get with the program... 'houseless guy' you should know the left is now calling them 'person without a home'.
But since the Jamestown tribe constructed a drug treatment center in Sequim the 'persons without a home' (AKA homeless) population has exploded. Beggars on a lot of street corners right next to shops with 'help wanted signs' in their windows.

Yes, I remember them being around my Mom's senior apartment complex a few blocks away on 5th.

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

Your screaming "houseless" guy is in the thousands in Seattle, and now also some in eastside cities like Bellevue and Redmond.

I've seen the occasional screaming "homeless" guy in Ballard, but the "thousands" you refer to must be somewhere else.

[Diana Holbrook]

Originally Posted by rantiquity

But since the Jamestown tribe constructed a drug treatment center in Sequim the 'persons without a home' (AKA homeless) population has exploded. Beggars on a lot of street corners right next to shops with 'help wanted signs' in their windows.

Explain how this works, because my instinct is to want MORE drug treatment centers. We have to. The homeless problems we're having (nationwide, I might add, this is not just a rural WA problem!) are so inextricably linked to the prevalence of powerful addictive drugs, more treatment centers are desperately needed. What planning is necessary to make them a net positive, rather than a negative?

I would have thought drug treatment would be inpatient, not outpatient, and therefore I'm not sure what would draw addicted homeless to places around the centers. Are they waiting to get IN? Is that it? What is it?

[jabogitlu]

I am not sure what type of treatment center the tribe has built or what services they provide, but I live across the street from a clinic that provides methadone/suboxone access and the impacts are real. I'm not shrill about it because these services have to go somewhere, but there is absolutely no denying that the location of the clinic has a tangible effect on the neighborhood. I wish the city (Seattle) would recognize these outsized impacts and come behind with appropriate supports (daily litter cleanup and curbside can emptying, better bus stop maintenance, better landscaping maintenance and replanting, wider sidewalks around the bus stops, etc.)

[Diana Holbrook]

OK - I can easily understand why methadone/suboxone access clinics would have major impact on the neighborhood.

These kinds of things definitely need to exist, and/but need to exist where the people and problems are, and where they have a chance of being able to live. I am curious about the treatment center size and draw. Locating major treatment centers out in rural areas like Sequim seems questionable to me, if the result is to draw disproportionate numbers of these people out to an area that would be much less able to provide the other supportive services and options that will be needed for the long term success of people and programs.

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by CrazyDonkey

I've seen the occasional screaming "homeless" guy in Ballard, but the "thousands" you refer to must be somewhere else.

I have family in Ballard and go there often, and there are hundreds there, especially around Safeway 15th/M Market, in parks, RVs on 14th, on Leary, and look at Ballard Commons Park. I think Woodland Park got cleared out.

Yes, the thousands are in other areas like Westlake/Pike-Pine, Beacon Hill, north Greenlake, Pioneer Square, Sodo, and more.

https://experience.arcgis.com/experi...209/page/Page/

[jabogitlu]

Originally Posted by Diana Holbrook

OK - I can easily understand why methadone/suboxone access clinics would have major impact on the neighborhood.

These kinds of things definitely need to exist, and/but need to exist where the people and problems are, and where they have a chance of being able to live. I am curious about the treatment center size and draw. Locating major treatment centers out in rural areas like Sequim seems questionable to me, if the result is to draw disproportionate numbers of these people out to an area that would be much less able to provide the other supportive services and options that will be needed for the long term success of people and programs.

I'm not trying to be argumentative necessarily, but I think there is probably need for this kind of service in a place like Sequim. I grew up in a small town in the opioid belt (Southern Appalachia) and relative to the overall population, a huge percentage of people were/are addicted and need major intervention to even have a slim chance at a normal life in the future. Those folks (in my hometown) didn't come from somewhere else - their lives fell apart due to a combination of no jobs, pressure to conform to crazy and antiquated religious norms, and cheap and easy access to opioids. That sounds like a generally similar combination to PA/Sequim. In short, most of the folks using these services are probably homegrown.