On Jan. 26, 2018, between 2 and 6 a.m., the weather was about 42 degrees with a light rain. Volunteers counted 6,320 homeless people outside in King County.
Huddled in tents and doorways. Living in cars, vans and RVs. Riding buses and walking around for warmth.
For the first time in the history of the annual one-night count, the unsheltered homeless outnumbered those in shelter and transitional housing. This is a horrific tipping point that should surprise no one.
In 2014, we counted 3,123 people outside, a 14.1 percent increase over the previous year. The next four years saw 20.8, 19.4, 21.8 and 15.2 percent increases, respectively. We’ve doubled the shame. Doubled the pain.
And yet, three years into Seattle’s homeless State of Emergency, our city is more divided than ever as to the solution.
No. Scratch that. Reasonable people agree that the solution is to expand both the affordable housing stock and the supply of emergency shelter. The disagreement is over who should pay, and whether those who survive in misery should even be here.
We’ve doubled the shame. Doubled the pain.
For some, Seattle is a place of affluence and ease. Our city has led the nation for 19 months straight in appreciation of property values. As rents have tripled over the past two decades, so has the number of homeless people.
Despite our best efforts to bail water, the conditions in which homeless people live have continued to deteriorate. The number of chronically homeless took a big jump this year. There was a surge in vehicle campers, and more homeless people live outside than in.
It’s a dismal trend line that has deepening poverty and growing wealth at odds. As if one had nothing to do with the other.
In 2016, Seattle rose in the GINI index, a measure of inequality, and settled in right next to San Francisco. Our richest 20 percent rank third in the nation for average annual income, just behind that city and Washington, D.C.
For the richest among us, it’s raining money. Hallelujah. They have only to cup their hands, and the cool water soothes as it overflows into opulent rivers of wealth.
For the richest among us, it’s raining money.
Maybe Billie Holiday’s depression-era “God Bless the Child” song said it best. “Them that’s got, shall get / them that’s not, shall lose / so the Bible said, and it still is news … ”
For our poorest, there is no happy metaphor. The rain is only rain. It soaks their tents and sleeping bags and blankets, and turns to ice when it freezes.
Meanwhile, Seattle hometown start-up Amazon is an engine for high-paying, lightly taxed tech jobs. The latest available data on income shows that average annual income rose $40,000 in a single year for the top 20 percent of earners in our city.
“Yes the strong seem to get more / while the weak ones fade.”
Our city worships at the altar of Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing and Google, and our growing radical inequality seems almost preordained.
Our city worships at the altar of Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing and Google, and our growing radical inequality seems almost preordained.
And the best immediate solution we have, a progressive tax on those businesses that are doing best, is mired in Trumpian political backlash.
The rich, this story goes, are already doing their share.
After all, Amazon did lend that hotel they weren’t using to Mary’s Place. And they gave away more expired Amazon Go food than the family shelter can even process. That, we are told, ought to be enough.
“And rich relations / may give you / a crust of bread and such / you can help yourself / but don’t take too much.”
In the first six months of 2018, we are on track for beating last year’s record number of homeless deaths in King County. Another dismal trend line.
There is a solution, and I’m proud of our Mayor and the Seattle City Council for outing Seattle’s elephant of who’s got and not. The employee hours tax was, at the end of the day, a 9-0 vote against radical inequality. There’s hope in that.
The misery and death we see on our streets is not, like Seattle rain, something that just is. It’s a political choice. It’s time for that to change.
Tim Harris is the Founding Director Real Change and has been active as a poor people’s organizer for more than two decades. Prior to moving to Seattle in 1994, Harris founded street newspaper Spare Change in Boston while working as Executive Director of Boston Jobs with Peace.
Wait, there's more. Check out the full June 6 - June 12 issue.
Real Change is a non-profit organization advocating for economic, social and racial justice. Since 1994 our award-winning weekly newspaper has provided an immediate employment opportunity for people who are homeless and low income. Learn more about Real Change.