Voting NO.

Stupid stupid dems, tackle the fentanyl and the meth first. Then we'll talk behavior.

@1 how would you propose the county/city actually do that? The drug problem is by and large a federal issue. I’d support this with some caveats. One, there is a space allocated for the chronic offenders in the criminal justice system. No more skating by for them. Do the crime and at best you are getting treatment then enforce the law. Two, no out of area. Yiu have to prove you’ve resided here for at least a year before you can access treatment otherwise we’ll ship you back to oregon/ca or wherever else you come from.

That will be a tough sell in any election, but there's not many alternative revenue sources to turn to. Schools and Emergency Services are one thing...

@2, “shipping” people sounds pretty constitutionally shaky and what’s to stop other jurisdictions from doing the same? I’m in favor of leveraging jail for intervention, but jail alone isn’t going to scare addicts straight. We’re not going to fix a problem without fixing the problem.

@4 agree but you need to have some treatment while hopefully getting some help from the state/feds to stem the flow of drugs. What I would expect to happen is that when there is no longer free reign to sit around all day getting high a percentage of the druggies will move on. Those that want help can enter treatment and those that are not capable of making rational decisions can be put someplace that is not jail until they hopefully sober up enough to make decisions. I agree it’s hard to put a restriction on who can use it but it will be a capacity constrained resource so deference needs to be given to residents over transplants.

@5 absolutely in favor of implementing conduct standards in public places. But I don’t think solving for residency is possible, especially if we want folks to voluntarily commit - what ask for IDs, utility bills? I doubt folks are willfully travelling across the country for behavioral health services anyway?

I think the biggest challenge here will be building up infrastructure. There are only so many qualified behavioral health specialists and building up a pipeline through credentialing etc will take some time.

@1!

I’m not going to reject this out of hand as there are far too many wackadoodles free roaming the streets.

It will depend on the details. If this goes towards building county run inpatient facilities capable of institutionalizing those who evidently can’t control themselves then I’m all in favor.
However if it just funnels money into nebulous nonprofits, with no metrics or standards for success then no way.

Just this Saturday I got my postcard from the county that the assessed value of my property has gone up 20%. That in and of itself will increase revenue for the county, why can't they use that. for this? I'm not trilled with the prospect of voting in an even higher tax bill for myself right now.

"The region also lacks any urgent care facilities where someone in crisis can walk in to get help without a referral from a first responder or law enforcement, and we only have one 46-bed behavioral health crisis facility operating in the entire county. Without adequate care facilities available, many people in crisis cycle through emergency rooms, the jail, and living on the street simply because there's nowhere else for them to go."

Pathetic, across the aisle. The callousness and abdication of the Reagan Restoration, writ large.

@9 can you explain to me what the heck it means to be “in crisis” is it just a polite way of saying “acting like a crazy asshole?”

And the number of lunatics running around our streets can’t be only attributed to Reagan policies. The ACLU and courts share some blame for adjudicating that lunatics have a right to refuse treatment.

@11 I'd also add those places were horrific by today's standards and if they were still around there is no way anyone would be advocating for their continued use. They needed to close and still blaming Reagan some 45 years later is pointless. Both parties have had numerous chances to propose/build something new to manage mental illness/addiction and have failed to do so.

@11, @10, etc.: If the United States would just join the rest of the industrialized democracies already, and build a national health service, then it would not fall upon liberal coastal cities with mild weather to provide services for a national population with Substance Use Disorder. (Such a national service would also make patterns of drug abuse easier to identify and address.) Had we built such a service when back when Seattle sent Dr. Jim McDermott to Congress to do just that, there might never have been a Homelessness Crisis in Seattle. (Hey, we tried.)

@12

Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama all tried to enact some type of universal healthcare system.

They all faced intense opposition.

The opposition to Obama’s plan was so intense it gave birth to the very MAGA assholes currently threatening our democracy.

So don’t hold your breath waiting for this country to get some form of universal healthcare.

Also don’t forget some (not all, but some) of the opposition to universal healthcare has come from labor unions who have negotiated health insurance into their contracts and don’t want to lose that value.

If Seattle becomes the city most ST writers want it to be, that is, very few single-family homes and predominantly multi-family buildings with 'affordable' rent - who will they tax then?

And I'm sure if you ask reaaaally nicely, all those park dwellers are just going to jump at the chance to fill those new beds. LOL