September 14, 2016

Seattle’s Homeless Camp Removal Protocol: If They Refuse to Obey, Let ‘em Stay

How’s this for a government vagrant removal “protocol?” As I understand it, as explained on a morning radio talk show, the city of Seattle has set into place a system to remove “homeless” encampments from city streets. One of the city’s many homeless hovels is currently blighting 2nd Avenue, Downtown.

Seattle’s protocol for sidewalk encampment removal requires all agencies involved in the cleanup, police, DSHS, solid waste, etc., be present at the location to complete a removal. All of them for the entire time.

Since the police had to leave—you know—to do real police work, and some of the lovely “beneficiaries of liberal largess” refused mother city’s request to stop defiling Downtown sidewalks, the “eviction” ended.

This protocol is insane and is designed to appear as if liberal city leaders are doing something about the vagrancy problem when they are doing the opposite: making it worse.  

 

Liberal government has been the rule in Seattle forever

Except for a few respites with a conservative city attorney, liberal government presided over Seattle during my police career. Over more than two decades, the city hasn’t solved the “homeless” problem; they’ve made it worse—much worse.

This is not a new problem. Several years ago, shortly before I retired, I remember walking on the sidewalk northbound on Broadway between Madison and Union Streets. I was in uniform, on duty. Someone had set up a tent on the sidewalk next to a city telephone pole.

Even many Seattleites driving by looked at me incredulously, as I did nothing. What could I do? My city had de-policed me. If I had rousted the occupant, the city might accuse me of a civil rights violation. Why would any cop risk that?

Ironically, it’s illegal to camp in a city park. At least, it used to be.    

The above lunacy recently led to the death of a 19-year-old street-camper run over by a car at an I-5 off-ramp in the U. District.

 

Liberal policies have never been and never will be successful—by design

The liberal’s attempts to solve Seattle’s vagrancy problem has been a disaster and will continue to be. The people living in tents along freeways and on city sidewalks are not the homeless families and mentally ill folks Seattle’s bleating hearts would like you to believe. Not most of them, anyway. Most I’ve dealt with were chronically inebriated criminals who eschewed civil society and reveled in their make-believe, makeshift communities. 

 

Seattle: no respect for “homeless” as people responsible for their lives

The situation will not be resolved until Seattle’s liberal, political power seekers begin to respect these people as human beings, not children, by holding them responsible for the state of their lives and for their actions.

There is nothing wrong with also offering these folks any services available. However, if they are not held accountable for the condition of their lives or their irresponsible actions, why not choose the handouts and false sympathy that keep these folks perpetually contemptuous of civil society and dependent on liberal government?

It’s an insult to those who have courageously dragged themselves out of the mire of drug and alcohol addiction, crime, and the resulting poverty, to give the sidewalk campers a pass.

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