Seattle is putting its money where it’s mouth is on homelessness. The city’s action plan surpassed its goal of identifying 2,000 units of shelter and supportive housing. The city counted a total of 2,065 units of housing for the homeless. The city is spending $153.7 million on homelessness response this year. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is allocated the biggest portion with $96.9 million in 2023. The big deal is the drop in the number of tents.
The latest data from December 2022 shows there were 712 verified tents in Seattle. That is a 13% drop from 814 documented in June. The South Downtown area had the most verified tents and RVs amongst all Seattle districts with 171, according to the action plan’s statistics. December’s statistics revealed there were 449 RV encampments in Seattle. There were 426 RV encampments in June and 273 in September.
Mayor Harrell formed the City’s Unified Care Team to deliver on key priorities and ensure critical civic teamwork. The action plan states, “It is inhumane for us to turn a blind eye to people who are forced to live in parks and on sidewalks. These areas are often unsanitary and unsafe for living. Mayor Harrell believes we cannot accept this as the status quo. We have allocated significant resources to conducting outreach to people experiencing homelessness, improving the quality of services, and coordinating efforts to better track shelter capacity and ensure beds do not go unfilled. We set a goal to offer shelter with a bed ready and waiting to every individual residing at an encampment in advance of closures.”
The cost associated with dealing homelessness is major. For instance, there were 12,138 emergencies medical response calls to individuals experiencing homelessness, an average of 33 per day; 1,617 fires at tent/RV encampments, an average of 4.5 per day; 116 shots fire, or shootings that are near a known encampment site, or the victim or offender is experiencing homelessness, an average of two per week.
Homeless people are often exposed to fentanyl. This drug has a huge death toll connected to it among other things. Last year saw 310 deaths of homeless persons in King County. That was 65% more deaths than in 2021 and over 100 more deaths than in 2018. Out of the 310 deaths recorded, 238 (77%) were deemed accidental, which includes cases of drug overdose.
