Last Friday brought a steady stream of visitors to Westlake Park as one person after another took their five minutes to ring the One Night Count gong 3,117 times. That’s how many people were counted outside in King County after the shelters had filled this year.
This, a 14 percent increase over last year, signifies a growing problem in an increasingly unequal city.
A man named Jason, rail thin, fortyish, with a plug of tobacco in his front lip, stood by watching. “I was out there last night walking around,” he told me. “You have to keep moving to stay warm.” ...