(Updated: I asked the candidates several questions, and posted the answer to the wrong question for all the candidates. I have corrected it below.)
I invited all candidates running for the District 4 Seattle City Council seat to share their thoughts on the crisis around homelessness that our city is facing, and offered to reprint their answers here. I heard back from Alex Pedersen, Emily Myers and Cathy Tuttle, who’s answers I share here.
(Reminder: Ballots must be in by Tuesday, August 6th. The ballot dropboxes will close at 8 pm.)
Question: There is a growing frustration in the neighborhood with the rise in petty theft, vandalism and property crime, and a perception that police are either indifferent, under-resourced or both. What policies would you advocate in your role as City Council representative to address this?
Alex Pedersen
The common ground on the regional homelessness crisis is the desire to solve the problem. Compassion requires results. As someone who worked at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) during the Clinton Administration and has over 15 years of experience preserving low-income housing, I believe I am the candidate with most relevant experience to address homelessness. The City Council must (1) Cooperate with our Mayor to consolidate efforts with King County and measure outcomes on this regional crisis and (2) Fund only programs proven to work.
- It’s high time for a comprehensive regional plan with relevant performance metrics and outcome goals visible to all, so that we ensure we are truly helping the most people experiencing homelessness. Unfortunately, this City Council failed to prioritize the homelessness crisis like they should have over the past few years, instead spending too much time on divisive land use / zoning changes. Just this past week, the City Council was still arguing about which performance outcomes to measure and how residents should report unauthorized homeless encampments. I will work collaboratively and persistently with our Mayor to achieve the necessary coordination with King County on mental health and drug addiction programs. This accountability from both the city and the county can rebuild the trust not only of frustrated city residents but also of the business and philanthropy communities.
- As the chief funder of programs that provide services and create low-income housing, City Hall must be held accountable for how it spends your tax dollars to address this crisis. I will use my extensive background in low-income housing and commitment to accountability to fund only data-driven best practices proven to prevent and reduce homelessness as we have seen in other cities. Other cities have reduced homelessness because they adhered to evidence-based strategies and applied them across their entire homeless response systems. These solutions have been highlighted for years by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness under the Obama Administration and the National Alliance to End Homelessness such as:
- Housing First
- Permanent Supportive Housing, including less expensive but high-quality modular housing
- Enhanced, low-barrier emergency shelter that exit people to permanent housing
- Diversion for the newly homeless
- Coordinated Entry
- Homeward Bound
- “By Name Lists”
- Rapid Rehousing
- Long-Term Stayers focus
- Landlord-Liaison (which is being reinvigorated into the “Housing Connector”)
We should also stop demolishing existing, naturally occurring affordable housing or ensure it is immediately replaced.
To be truly compassionate toward people experiencing homelessness, our government leaders must get results. It’s time for a change.
(Learn more at Alex Pedersen’s campaign website.)
Emily Myers
In a city with growing wealth and rising wages, it is a failure of our systems that we have so many people living unsheltered and without stable homes. A plan to address homelessness must be multi-faceted and evidence-based, recognizing the diverse needs of people in our city facing homelessness. We believe in solutions that provide housing first, protect the dignity and property rights of all people, and, when possible, prevent people from entering homelessness to begin with.
We have to build permanent supportive housing with wraparound services including case workers, occupational therapists, and peer support groups. We must better monitor and track population of people experiencing chronic homelessness to facilitate transition into permanent supportive housing as it is built. In the short term: we must employ case-workers not navigators to support transition out of homelessnessm provide adequate garbage services and restroom access to encampments until we have sufficient permanent housing, expand tiny house village and housing first apartment models which provide 24 hour access and allow families to stay together, legalize lot use and provide restrooms for those sleeping in cars, and ensure safe shelter options for LGBTQIA+ people experiencing homelessness.
We should also increase the options for homelessness prevention and diversion: providing legal and financial support to people about to lose their homes, provide rent subsidies or downpayment support to divert people from homelessness, and add caseworkers to support teens and young adults facing homelessness and connect them with potential long-term housing options with friends or family. Finally, we have to be addressing our affordable housing crisis with zoning reform and permanently affordable public housing, including deeply affordable housing.
(Learn more about Emily Myers’ campaign website.)
Cathy Tuttle
In my 35 years in Seattle, I ‘ve never seen so many people in tents, lean-tos, and boxes along our freeways, in parks, along our streets. As a Seattle Parks planner, I was aware of homelessness while planning park maintenance and design. As a community activist, I volunteered for Family Works, Solid Ground, and the One Night Count. My understanding of the causes of and solutions to our homeless crisis have grown exponentially running for council.
I’ve spoken with experts working to reduce homelessness across the country, and in Seattle, to pinpoint the most effective actions we can take to comprehensively address homelessness in this city. This is a complex problem that requires many different solutions. Homelessness is visible on Seattle streets and in parks, but we often don’t think about the 10% of Seattle school children who do not have homes, or the hardworking parents who had to fix their car, fell behind on a week of rent, and were evicted onto the street. This is where I will use my decades of experience as an effective city advocate to identify what solutions work and, most importantly, put plans into action. Over 11,500 people have no homes in the Puget Sound region: homelessness has become a regional crisis that has worsened into an emergency.
Here are some of my plans to respond to the homelessness emergency:
1. Meet World Health Organization guidelines for refugee encampments: provide drinking water, handwashing, toilets, sharps containers, and waste containers. We must provide regular public health services to homeless residents and identify public land (not parks or school yards) where temporary sanctioned encampments can be set up. This isn’t a permanent solution, but a public health solution that provides immediate relief.
2. Diversion. I will expand diversion programs. The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program has proven a success at diverting our homeless population from the streets or jail into the mental health or substance abuse programs they need. This is compassionate, practical, and evidenced-based.
3. Address root causes. The best way of addressing homelessness long term is preventing homelessness in the first place. Many people end up on the streets after they miss just a month of rent or mortgage payments.
Seattle rents are skyrocketing, affordable old apartments are torn down and replaced with pricey condos. More people will end up on the streets. That’s why, as a simple first measure, I’m calling for the extension of eviction notices as well as more legal support for renters. Many people, especially our neighbors living on fixed incomes, cannot afford to pay mortgages and property taxes. I will expand programs of tax and mortgage offsets.
4.We need more housing. Our nurses, teachers, baristas, and firefighters simply don’t have enough housing options within their grasp. Our retired population is pushed out of the homes they grew up in because of rent and property tax hikes. We need to build, build, build more housing of all types for all of our neighbors.
Most importantly, throughout this process, I will continue listening to you. That’s why, when elected, I will have an in-district office so you do not have to come all the way downtown to bring up your concerns. I have knocked on doors for 6 hours in District 4 every day, rain or shine so I can hear from you. I promise to keep listening.
(Learn more at Cathy Tuttle’s campaign website.)
Well, the ballots have been sent out, now we get to have our say. If you’re frustrated with the growing crime and blight, and feel like the city isn’t listening or doing anything meaningful about it, now’s your chance to tell them what you think in no uncertain terms. If you’re fed up with campers taking over our parks and leaving needles and human waste, the choice couldn’t be more clear. Vote for Alex.
On the other hand, if you think the current city council’s been doing a bang up job by enabling these behaviors and you don’t mind having filthy illegal camps near you, and getting your property stolen for drug habits, vote for any of Alex’s opponents. Because more of that is what you’re going to get.
You do know that crime rate is at historical law, and Seattle wealth is at historical high? What growing crime and blight?
“Historical low?” That must be some good meth you’re injecting. THIS growing crime and blight:
Violent crime is downtown is up 43% percent in the last two years:
https://komonews.com/news/local/crime-up-43-in-area-where-seattle-triple-stabbing-occurred
Or that we had more homicides this year than in the past decade:
https://patch.com/washington/seattle/seattle-2018-homicides-highest-10-years
Or that the violent crime rate in the North Precinct has increased significantly compared to five years ago. Just as it has throughout the city. Select the years 2018 and 2013, and then “North” precinct, and then “all” precincts:
http://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/crime-dashboard
Or that we have the highest property crime rate out of the twenty biggest cities in the nation.
Or that we let prolific offenders continue to walk our streets after literally dozens of convictions:
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/seattles-persistent-crime-problem-demands-change/
And let’s not overlook the fact that you can’t even trust the city’s stats. They tried to tell us there was no crime increase in Licton Springs until a friend of mine went over their data and they had to retract that and admit that crime had actually increased 103%. And thanks to slower response times, if SPD comes at all, people are giving up on reporting crimes. Furthermore, the city is no longer prosecuting most low level crimes like shoplifting, drug possession, open drug use, etc. And then voila! See voters? crime isn’t going up!
So please, TJ, tell us more about how we’re just imagining what we’re seeing and experiencing and that crime is at a “historical low.”
It’s pretty simple: no matter how you look at it, the crime rate these days is about half of what’s in the 80s and 90s. We are in an era of low crime rate.
And I go to your link and compared the stats between 2013 and 2018. There is no crime rate increase. The crime count increased from 40,431 to 43,397, a 7% increase, but you have to take into account that Seattle population changed more than that in the same period of time. So crime rate went down from 2013 to 2018.
TJ, you said a “historical low.” That means the lowest point in history and I have proven with multiple sources that that is not the case.
People don’t care about what happened back in the eighties or nineties. The reality is, as I’ve demonstrated, that crime, and especially crimes against people, is significantly worse now than it was 5 years ago. That is the much more relevant statistic. The situation is trending worse, and quickly so. That should be cause for concern for everyone.
Lastly, you are looking at the wrong totals. I said, “Or that the violent crime rate in the North Precinct has increased significantly compared to five years ago. Just as it has throughout the city.”
You are including property crimes in there to get those figures. The “person crimes” figure for 2013 was 3,523. For 2018, it was 4,693. That’s an increase of 1,170, or a 33.2% increase over a 5 year period, which is far more than our population growth for the same period.
Next?
If you are trying to cherry pick numbers, you can pretend anything to be true. It’s very obvious that we are seeing historically low crime rate in Seattle for more than a decade now, and there is no upward trend.
What’s interesting is that actually the crimes that went up are mostly the types are are typically committed by non-strangers. Homicide, rape, and aggravated assaults are all crimes that are more likely to be committed by acquaintances instead of strangers. Those are the ones with rate going up. Robbery and theft are the crimes by criminals, and you can obviously see those are not growing or even trending down. So by looking at this data, it’s very obvious that law enforcement has been doing a good job at preventing random criminal acts.
The crimes committed by acquaintances are more likely to be caused by social stress. For example, a family with money problems are more likely to have family problems, leading to crime against each other. So to tackle the issue you are complaining about, we should push for things like affordable housing instead of the same old crime/punishment/police/prison story.
This is the part most people who fail to realize: the most likely person to kill you is yourself, then your spouse/ex-spouse. The person who is most likely to assault you is also your family members.
“People don’t care about what happened back in the eighties or nineties.”
I would say people who lived here in the 80s and 90s care about it quite a lot, because we remember those days, and are quite pleased things are so much better.
Wow – I guess by this logic, we don’t need anymore police because our crime rate is much less than it was in the 80’s and 90’s. Even though our population has increased by a huge amount and we have more shootings now than I ever remember growing up here. Something must be wrong with the data. They must be counting crimes differently than they did in the 80’s and 90’s.
Thanks for doing this, Jordan. It’s disappointing that only three of the ten candidates in D4 responded to your question.
Alex Pedersen’s favorite word in this campaign is “accountability,” but the moment he didn’t show up at a bike and transit meeting (where he knew he would need to back his support for removing bike lanes from NE 35th Ave) was when I realized that he only wants to be held “accountable” by a certain segment of this district.
I’m voting for Cathy Tuttle. She shows up for the forums, answers the surveys, and has knocked on thousands of doors in this district. If it’s accountability you’re looking for, Cathy is the candidate who deserves your vote. Especially if you live in Wallingford, Cathy’s neighborhood for over three decades.
Funny thing about Tuttle: Every time I’ve seen her try to answer a question at a forum, she has to read from her notes. She doesn’t seem to be someone who can think on her feet all that well.
There was even one time in a video where candidates from all over the city were asked, “How do we grow the economy?” Although the other candidates who chose to answer the question often gave silly answers, at least they took a stab at answering it. Tuttle, otoh, chose to make a statement about said a statement about “traffic violence” and safe streets. Perhaps she somehow didn’t understand the question? And even when she had a chance to prepare, she still had read from her notes. Hard pass.
Shocked, Phil.
😉
What you are describing is actually one of the biggest problem with current form of democracy. Essentially, we are often using the criteria to choose public relationship directors on all the elected roles. “Seems to be able to react to questions quickly” is not important most of the time for most roles, yet with the way the system is designed you kind of have to choose people on that. Many countries have very limited campaign period with very limited campaign activities outside of those period, so people are more chosen by their resume as opposed by repeated public appearances and how they handle the public appearances.
Based on your second paragraphs, you are essentially saying being able to recite soundbite is a critical skill for the job. That’s why more and more politicians are empty suits with limited political knowledge that just knows how to say words enough voters will like.
Clearly Emily Myers feels the police are the problem, not the criminals who commit the crimes – hope no one is foolish enough to vote for her!
Yup. And I think the flier we are discussing downthread is fair game. After all, Myers aligns with Sawant on most issues, she should be proud to be associated with her.
Everytime Emily talks, I hear the song “Feelings” playing in the background…
I was really shocked at the sleezy flyer that arrived on my doorstep this weekend from Alex Pedersen attacking Emily Myers. It was a level of nasty negative campaigning not generally seen in a Seattle city council primary race. I am not a supporter of Emily Myers and am planning on voting for Cathy Tuttle, but it was quite distasteful. I distrust Mr Pedersen’s lack of support for public transport and Dutch style bike lanes which have been great improvements to our city.
Did it look like this? If so, Alex had nothing to do with it. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f5aef0adf219a1d002142321abec9d309c3b87a8e9054d6b269bee9ff3f5943f.jpg
Speaking of Emily Myers, it appears she edited her statement from this morning. Her opening line had read,
“Our justice system both criminalizes being homeless and releases people directly back into homelessness, vulnerable to further contact with the police.”
Yes, we certainly wouldn’t want them to be “vulnerable” to further contact with SPD for repeatedly breaking the law. Myer’s mentality is what gives us prolific offenders like Francisco Calderon, who has been convicted 73 times, many of them for violent assaults on people. The most recent was just a couple of days ago when he threw a cup of coffee on a two year old boy who was visiting downtown with his family.
Yeah, villifying the police makes soooo much sense – it is the hardest job on the planet and risking one’s life makes you less than a Seattle computer programmer. Is no one paying attention to the fact that Seattle police officers are resigning en masse as they are moving to other areas where people like Emily Myers don’t attack them. The homeless are made up largely of drug addicts who CHOSE to consume addictive substances, no one held a gun to their head. We law abiding citizens are the ones who are’vulnerable’, vulnerable to being attacked by people crazy off their heads from the drug they are on.
I would love to ask Emily what she is going to do when she and her ilk have driven off our police. If she was attacked, who’s she gonna call then – Ghostbusters? Hah!
She’ll just give them a hug and “listen to their story.”
This mailer was paid for by Tim Burgess’s PAC, People for Seattle. Alex Pedersen was a Burgess legislative aide and is endorsed by Burgess. The dots aren’t difficult to connect, Phil.
The green section of the flyer explicitly shows the Times’ endorsement of Pedersen, too, so it’s pretty obvious.
Wow it’s a conspiracy! So you admit that this was indeed the flyer, and that you know that this did not come from Alex’s campaign. As I’m sure you are aware, it is illegal to coordinate in that way. Alex has made no secret of the fact that he was Tim Burgess’s legislative aide.
So now that it’s obvious you tried to mislead readers by claiming the flier was “from Alex Pedersen attacking Emily Myers,” can we look forward to an apology?
Tick, tock…tick, tock…
Right, you can connect the dots with a sort of smearing stroke.
Whatever you think of the attack mailer, Pedersen’s campaign wasn’t responsible for it, and to assert otherwise is considerably worse than the mailer was. At least, as far as I’m aware, the mailer contained nothing that wasn’t true.
Clearly Pedersen is the real victim here.
If you like to think about things in those terms, apparently so. Do you find anyone else to occupy this cherished position?
If you guys are going to falsely accuse Alex of putting out these mailers, then be prepared to get corrected on that. Get it through your skull that Alex had NOTHING to do with it. And btw, Alex has denounced the mailers; feel better now?
For what it’s worth, if you got the Moms for Seattle pro-Pedersen mailer today, know that the cover image is heavily Photoshopped. Both tents are stock photos from Getty Images. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12a4e934575e53a1785105a1fccae9a1baa0fbacf0f3239715db9341db0f38aa.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ab0d61b3ee113f37be299cd6640b6732de1712f0e402620273dd7bd10c162ed.jpg
Wow, another damning bit of investigative sleuthing. Yeah there’s no tents in our parks and playgrounds, what are you pearl clutchers talking about?
Tell you what, go across to the the other side of I-5 to University Playground and tell me there are no tents there. No, you don’t feel like doing that? OK I’ll tell you there are at least 5 there right now, some of them right in the way of foul balls, and probably more
And yet they used an image from Cowen Park in the Photoshop compilation. I wonder why?
Beats me. It’s not like Cowen Park doesn’t get campers either. Maybe they just wanted one with a toddler swing in it.
They may have preferred not to publish photos of local campers or their tents, in a mailer like that – wouldn’t be surprised if there is some ethical issue there.
Yeah, right, “ethics.”
OK, I see what you mean – moms and ethics, not likely in such a notoriously corrupt group. But for me it will have to do, until someone can present an alternative theory. Maybe you can do it, go ahead – bust this scandal of the Moms graphics wide open.
Simple: Because if they’d used a current picture, blowhards like “Spek” and Brett Hamil would holler to the Heavens that MfS is putiing those peoples’ lives at risk.
When you can’t refute the basic premise, go after the photos! #butwhatabout
Thanks for editing this so the answers are updated; I’ve been mad for a few days that you asked a question about homelessness and got answers about public safety and policing.