Winds of Change?
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Hi from West Seattle Mutual Aid Party!
Our operations have continued to hum along into the rainy season as our teams have been contacting around 100 people a week. All of our tireless efforts have been set against the backdrop of an election that has been posited by some as a significant shift in the local political landscape, particularly as it pertains to the housing crisis and the approach our city has taken over the last 4 years regarding sweeps of the unhoused (sweeping at record levels with almost all sweeps not required to include an offer of resources), so this author would like to take an opportunity to look at what we know thus far and how things may play out.
Mayor-elect Katie Wilson has generated a lot of enthusiasm among those who have taken issue with Bruce Harrell's approach to homelessness and that is not without some level of justification. Under her leadership, the Transit Riders' Union had a Ballard-focused mutual aid program that ran for a few years and did much of the same kind of work that our team at WSMAP does which can potentially ground her policy direction on a far more relational basis with the unhoused than past mayors have.
For anyone who hopes that she will fully stop the sweeps though, I would urge them to temper their expectations. While on the campaign trail, she advocated for a city-wide sweep program that emulates the state's Right of Way Encampment Removal Program. This program, which has since been defunded under Bob Ferguson's ongoing austerity measures, was the most successful sweep program the state has seen with regards to actually moving people into housing. If she is able to implement such a change in the city's program, it will undoubtedly slow down the sweep machine as one of the hallmarks of this program was prolonged site outreach rather than the Unified Care Team's current program, which looks like one or two visits to a site before sweeping it, in the best of circumstances, and most typically no outreach at all prior to an obstruction sweep occurring. This goal will be complicated by the fact that the city's shelter set-asides (emergency shelter beds and tiny homes) on average only have 7 openings per day and that currently much of the actual housing that people would enthusiastically accept to get themselves off the streets in the face of a sweep is locked behind contractual obligations to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) and their much-maligned Coordinated Entry system. Fortunately, Mayor-elect Wilson has stated a desire to examine and revisit Seattle's relationship with the dysfunctional KCRHA which could potentially lead to some positive changes on that front, but only time will tell.
Beyond her own policy goals, Mayor-elect Wilson is also going to be working with a city council that will still have a majority that will likely be an obstacle to many of her policy goals on this front. The even more reactionary current council is currently pushing through a variety of budget amendments such as a proviso that bars city funds from going to any kind of harm reduction activity other than needle exchanges, and that prevents her from reallocating any of the now $30 million that we will be spending on the Unified Care Team to conduct sweeps. Additionally, our outgoing mayor Bruce Harrell took a budget that was already at a deficit due to COVID money evaporating and blew it wide open in excess of $200 million all while raiding the Jumpstart tax that was originally intended first and foremost for affordable housing to plug holes that he himself has been creating. There are also efforts underway led by Dick's Drive In burger prince Saul Spady (whose father sits on the board of the Project 2025-affiliated Discovery Institute) to collect signatures for a county-wide ballot measure to ban sleeping outdoors across the entire county and failed Republican city council candidate and Capitol Hill crystal saleswoman Rachel Savage is pursuing a similar effort at the city level. A veritable rogue's gallery of some of the most simultaneously ridiculous and politically connected to the far-right individuals will undoubtedly continue to coalesce around these efforts, happily aided by many who count themselves as enlightened centrists, all while pushing to achieve the stated goals of the Heritage Foundation and president Trump's malicious Project 2025 program.
All of this amounts to an incredible uphill battle for Mayor-elect Wilson if she wants to make good on her campaign promises to slow down sweeps and start working on changing how they are conducted so that they actually begin moving people indoors at scale. No matter what happens within the hollowed rather than hallowed halls of power, our work will continue apace as we collaborate with you and the rest of our neighbors to show up every single week to materially support those in our neighborhoods who have the least.
Thanks as always for your support,
F