KOMO News
10 HN recommenders · recommended in 15 months, 2019–2024
1:00:36 · 20M views · Mar 19, 2019
A one-hour 2019 KOMO News documentary hosted by Eric Johnson on Seattle's homelessness and drug crisis, with interviews and looks at proposed solutions including a drug court program in Rhode Island. It argues addiction and mental illness are at the core of the problem.
HN commenters cite it in homelessness threads about San Francisco and Seattle as an eye-opening, widely viewed argument for treatment-first policy, though some see it as pro-law-enforcement framing.
20 comments from Hacker News
I don't have any experience with the housing issue in California, but got involved a while back trying to find pragmatic solutions in Seattle. The situation is a mess and there is an entire "homeless industrial complex" complicating matters here, rife with fraud, misspending and cronyism. Every year it seems like many millions of dollars more are spent on this issue but it keeps getting visibly worse. At first I was in the "Housing First" crowd, but after my experiences I would say I more firmly believe in "Rehab First". A local news station released a great documentary called "Seattle is Dying". It has 10 million views since released a couple of years ago. this video The sequel is "The Fight For the Soul of Seattle". [LINK]
“Seattle Is Dying” is a great investigative report about the problems and potential solutions to homelessness. Also applicable to SF. this video
Some jurisdictions do, particularly in smaller cities like suburbs, where police staff aren't fully occupied with higher priority calls. However, many bigger cities are simply too understaffed compared to the past, and ignore property crimes as you say. This is especially true in West Coast cities like SF, Portland, and Seattle. For example Seattle has lost hundreds of police officers in the last year due to the push for defunding, hostile attitudes towards police from activists/local politicians, and the opportunity to have a less stressful/better paying job elsewhere after a very rough year dealing with near-daily rioting. At present, the city has only around 1000 officers and it is expected to lose some more due to the vaccine mandate. This is around half of what the average city has per capita, and in the last decade the effects of a lenient city attorney, crime-friendly local government focused on "restorative justice", and falling per capita officer counts has led to a massive increase in crimes. Just like in SF, people have given up on even reporting them since even if someone is arrested, the city attorney will just release them anyways, and insurance claims require a deductible. Even businesses have given up on crime reporting (example: [LINK] ). A good overview of the Seattle situation can be found in a couple documentaries, "Seattle is Dying" ( this video ) and "The Fight for the Soul of Seattle" ( [LINK] ). The city's transformation from a safe clean city to what it
> This is GP's entire point. Given the freedom to choose what to do, "do nothing" is not a common choice. In a world where everyone has the option to say, "I don't want to work", most won't actually say that, especially in the long term. Absolutely wrong? The U-3 unemployment rate always lags 3-7% behind the U-6: [LINK] To suggest up to 7% of people just not looking for a job is "not a common choice" is terribly misleading. Even during good periods for the economy, the number sits around 4%. I don't expect that number to get smaller by adding UBI. Do you? > Why fairness? The system we have now is incredibly unfair. UBI would at least provide more fairness by removing wage slavery. Why not fairness? How many individuals can you speak to who have done _literally anything_ to invest in their career skills who are earning "wage slavery" levels of pay? If you're 30 years old, and the best thing you can do is make Subway sandwiches... what are you doing with your life? > 2. Addictions are already putting people in poverty, and the best solution is recovery from those addictions. That recovery requires access to healthcare. Access to healthcare and UBI are different discussions entirely. And often "access to healthcare" by itself is not sufficient to get people to stop being addicted. You actually have to hold them accountable. I recommend watching a documentary called "Seattle is Dying" [1] to see why just being nice is not a solution. > 3. Children are people who can't really mana
Rhode Island (where I used to live before Seattle) is a blue state with functioning prosecutors that actually prosecute charges for misdemeanors and crimes, but they offer sentenced individuals the alternative of entering the drug court system for mandatory interned rehab, or the mental health system. People going through the system say it saved their life. Intervention works. West coast states do have similar drug courts, but since crimes are not prosecuted and misdemeanor charges are routinely vacated there is no incentive for people to actually be helped. For helpful information on Rhode Island's program I recommend the last 20 min of this documentary: this video