By Walter Hatch and Mark W. Garrett in Post Alley (thanks to Mary M)
Just about everyone in Seattle knows why we have a homelessness crisis. Or they seem to. In fact, these confident observers don’t just have vague ideas; they have firm convictions informed by what they see on the streets, what they hear from housed neighbors, and what they gather from TV anchors and Talk Radio Jocks. We, however, think these armchair quarterbacks are wrong, and we write to offer an alternative explanation that Seattle homeowners won’t instinctively embrace.
But first, why do we reject the conventional wisdom?
First, very few of these local pundits seem to have read any of the academic literature on homelessness, and even fewer have ever bothered to talk with someone who is unhoused. In addition, and perhaps more telling, they have wildly different answers to the “why” question. It’s like watching a Jackson Pollack painting: What will stick to the canvass?
On social media, we hear that the primary cause of homelessness is:
- Substance abuse. Repeatedly we are told that rough sleepers in Seattle are drug addicts and alcoholics. The evidence is visible: “open air drug markets,” needles, bottles, tin foil left in camps, homeless people behaving erratically.
- Mental illness. Almost as often we are told that unhoused folks are crazy or unhinged and cognitively impaired. This, too, we see with our own eyes. They don’t behave normally.
- Parents. Some folks tell us that folks on the street have been abused or neglected by their parents. The unhoused didn’t get a proper upbringing.
- Poverty. The poor, we hear, are naturally going to end up on the street, regardless of underlying conditions. They are the have-nots, after all.
- Weather. Temperate climates on the West Coast, some argue, are amenable to campers, while harsher climates are not.
- Lavish services. We live in “Freeattle,” it is often said. The unhoused congregate here because progressive churches in Seattle (deemed enablers) provide a free breakfast of meat blanquette on mashed potatoes, even though it might be overcooked. And because left-wing politicians have brazenly agreed to finance some shelters and tiny homes.
There are other reasons offered, but these are the ones we hear most often. Why do we reject them?
The primary cause of homelessness, according to almost all the experts who have studied this issue, is lack of housing. When a local jurisdiction fails to supply sufficient housing, someone is going to end up unhoused. And it should not be surprising that those who end up unhoused are those who are disabled or vulnerable, for whatever reason (substance abuse, mental illness, family trauma, poverty, racism, etc.). (continued on Page 2 or here)