Damn!
that AOC
just keeps on
getting HOTTER.

and Thanks for
the Musical Laffs!

The only "Days" I really take seriously are National Maritime Day (22MAY) Day Of The Seafarer (25JUNE) and International Whisk(e)y Day (27MARCH)

Days we should have but don't Marry Harris (Mother) Jones's Birthday (1AUG), Joe Hill's Birthday (7OCT), Andrew Furuseth's Birthday (17MARCH), Harry Lundeberg's Birthday (5MARCH) Harry Bridges Birthday (28JULY), Stonewall Day (28JUNE).

And the 30th of April should be a national day of reflection to U.S. folly

All of the above should be paid holidays

how much is
Fair Taxation?

tax the Fucking
Billionaires til there are
NO peeps living in our Streets

brooms are for Detritus
Not Human Beings

[but one'd hafta
be Humane
to even
Know
it.]

ask
Bezos's
homecleaner
if She agrees.

Yeah, throw more money at the homelessness problem, ‘cause that always gets results.

How fucking boring is
Kristofarleyan’s
Schtick

@6 And yet you come here everyday to read it, interesting insight into your mind.

@Uranus:
well you can
Suck on it
and find
Out

Ok, how come the city workers outside my place didn't sweep the sidewalk and street?

I thought you said they were doing sweeps ...

Chapelle and Rock rock. I often wonder how many of his trans critics actually listen to Chapelle in context rather than cherry picking the bits they love to hate.

“To do that, he said the state will need to change our very bad zoning laws and allow for faster permitting. The man is speaking my language.”

Having the state steamroll a one size fits all approach to zoning and permitting is not going to fix anything. Upzoning alone won’t increase density, and cutting corners on permitting will only result in bigger developer margins and crappy buildings.

@12: "Upzoning alone won't increase density."

The hell it won't. What don't you get about the difference between a multifamily building with 100 units and one single-family house? Plenty of other things will help, but start with zoning.

15: “What don't you get about the difference between a multifamily building with 100 units and one single-family house?”

It doesn’t matter what I get or don’t get, upzoning alone will just allow the market to build what the market wants, regardless of the intent of upzoning. Several cities in the area have upzoned and seen much less than the maximum density because that’s what the market wanted.

My point is that as much as Ms. Krieg and The Stranger want to be in the Vanguard of the Proletariat, they preach a very Reaganistic line about housing and how everything will be just wonderful if the government would just get out of the way of all those poor developers that just want to produce housing for us.

"You
will never
solve a problem
by constantly cleaning up after it."

wasn't that the Lesson
from Whack-a-Mole?

they need to Teach
that shit in Preschool.

@10 -- speaking of Cherry picking:
Good Nite Dave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IrB1OE9Blo&ab_channel=Movieclips

portland made street camping illegal because people with disabilities could not even get by on the sidewalks - so yeah it is important to sweep the streets. They should be forced into rehab centers first then housing. It's a drug issue, not an affordability issue. Homeless don't run Seattle. It's time to put the resources toward drug treatment first Get the criminals off the streets who are posing as homeless. And welcome Dave and Chris Rock - the 1st amendment still applies in the country. Sorry SJW

@18: "You will never solve a problem by constantly cleaning up after it. "

Actually you can. We do that every day. We sweep our kitchen floors, constantly? Right?

An inhumane comparison? Sure. But keeping human beings living in an intolerable situation is inhumane.

It must be awful trying to sleep in the cold wind and rain under a battered tent on the sidewalk. I'd want to be as stoned out as possible so I could make it through the night. Give me crystal meth! Fentanyl. I don't blame them.

I'd need to pee and crap, but no place to do it. So I'd just go in the bushes.

No blip. This is intolerable. It is infuriating gaslighting to keep saying the obvious that sweeping just makes the problem go somewhere else. So let all encampments just stay there and grow? How does that help anyone?

They grow, and the ramifications for disease, crime, rats, and damage to the environment continues unabated. But you seem to think that waiting for theoretical change of public housing is the answer for the problems now so the NIMBYs should just shut up.

Sweeping brings change, change forces decisions, better decisions can lead to opportunities. That's what the liberal and progressive position on sweeping actually is.

@14,

That's patently false. There's nowhere NEAR the beds, staff and resources necessary at psychiatric hospitals to accommodate the need and demand for them. In fact, I'm pretty sure you've mentioned this point quite a few times previously.

@25: "constantly harassing people who have nothing to lose"

And a lot of those harassed people are stealing and vandalizing from people who have everything to lose.

Sorry you're a metaphor bigot, so answer this:

What about public safety and health problems that exist now but can't wait for long term solutions?

@28 this is exactly the nuance that gets lost in the homeless conversation every single time. There is a big difference between homeless and vagrants. Everyone supports providing help to homeless to get back on their feet and become contributing members of society. The "mutual aid" folks and those on the progressive left also seem to think however that we should let vagrants do whatever they want until we can "meet them where they are". That includes petty crime, victimizing residents and other homeless, shooting drugs into their system and generally destroying their environment and/or public spaces as part of their occupation. As Toby stated these type of encampments should be swept every single time because they are a blight on the city and they have a large impact on the community around them. It really doesn't matter that they have no where to go or you are pushing them around. The point is if you make people comfortable they have no incentive to actually change their asshole behavior. We need to make it uncomfortable to lay around on the sidewalk shooting drugs and shitting in doorways and if they don't like it they can move on to somewhere else or they can accept the help being offered to them and work to get cleaned. You may call this cruel but the progressive solution of no sweeps, safe injection sites etc basically boils down to government assisted suicide and is entirely more cruel.

@31: Na, I've always suspected you're a Marxist, if not a commie. Now I'm certain.

@38 - Well, if you addressed current issues (@33) maybe you wouldn't be repeating yourself. More specifically, are you saying let encampments just remain as long as its inhabitants desire? Do you favor any sweeps at all?

Oh, and nobody's mad. Just exasperated dealing with condescending pontificators who only answer in the abstract.

@36: Well, I suggest you'd have to ask Buddha about such things instead of disparaging Christianity.

Nevertheless, your sentiment is matched by Matthew 19:24:

"I'll say it again-it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!"

@38 one could say the same about the progressive point of view. It's amazing we can agree there is a problem but think we should not do anything about it until the perfect solution is available.

@13 -- I feel the opposite. I've seen some of Chappelle's recent standup and thought it was very funny. It is also clearly controversial -- Lenny Bruce level. For example "Space Jews". That is a very clever and funny joke, but bound to upset someone. You can just imagine folks saying "First of all, not all Jews are Zionists ...". Chappelle knows this, of course. But the joke is funnier if it is tighter, even if that means it is offensive as hell. He is also playing on the shock value. Maybe too much, but there is a cleverness there -- it isn't all about the shock.

If you don't like offensive jokes, don't watch South Park or Chappelle (or for that matter, Chris Rock). Stick to Bob Newhart -- he is funnier than shit, and not at all offensive. So is Bill Cosby, he just turned to out be a racist asshole. I'm sure there are plenty of very good new comedians who aren't offensive -- I just can't think of any off the top of my head.

The evidence is clear: Homelessness is a housing problem (https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/). If we want to reduce homelessness, we need to have cheaper housing. The easiest way to do this is to change the zoning code (as well as various rules which delay housing construction). There is plenty of evidence to support this rather obvious idea as well (https://furmancenter.org/files/Supply_Skepticism_-_Final.pdf). To quote from that paper " there is a considerable body of empirical research showing that less restrictive land use regulation is associated with lower prices.".

By liberalizing the zoning code, we will get cheaper housing, and fewer homeless. But that doesn't mean no homeless. Every city on earth has some homeless. People are homeless for various reasons (the biggest being poverty). Even in backwards America we have agencies that are designed to help people find homes. But in a city like Seattle, which has lots and lots of homeless (because housing prices shot up) the agencies become overwhelmed. It is like complaining about the fire department not putting out fires when there are fires on every block. Or like when the Republicans complained about the V. A. after starting two stupid wars. Many studies showed that V. A. health care was as good and cost effective as any in the world (not U. S., world!) and yet a few months later, it sucked. They doctors and nurses were simply overwhelmed. Same with homelessness.

Just think it through for a second. Some young woman gets kicked out of her apartment because they raised the rent right after she paid to have her car fixed. Her kid is staying with her sister in her studio apartment, while she sleeps in the car. She applies for help. At the same time, there is an opioid addict that is poor, and living on the street. Which one do you help first? Clearly the woman -- there is a much better chance of success. The junkie needs to wait (stupid junkie -- don't become an addict unless you are rich). Spread out over the whole region, with thousands of homeless and dozens of agencies, you get the situation we are in now. Sweeps won't help -- they will be back, somewhere, because there aren't enough places to handle them.

Seattle really isn't special. We are average. The agencies handle homelessness roughly the same as every other city. The only thing that is unusual is that our rent is so fucking high, which in turn causes so many people to be homeless.

I think part of the problem of understanding the situation is perspective. Firstly, yes, more housing in theory will help get people off the streets. But until you provide free or maybe $200 rooms where people can do pretty much whatever they want, you will not get everyone off the streets. Seattle used to have those rooms. They are gone. But, can we recreate them?

Secondly, if we did, that does not mean these communities would be sound and safe and nice. They will likely be the slums that parts off Seattle used to be.

Most importantly, sweeps will not solve homelessness. But they will solve encampments, if done enough. You argue that that is treating a symptom, not the cause? I'll take it, just as I don't mind lotion on my rash to stop the itching. Homeless is merely a symptom too.

"The overall number of 'homeless' (vagrants) in this country has been in decline, but it's skyrocketing in liberal West Coast cities."

o please Unwakable
with Pandemic Protections
getting cast to the Wind like Rentors
unable to come up with all the Back Rent

do you Seriously think this Homeless
Disaster's on the Downslope?

oh and Not to Mention
Catastrophic Climate
Collapse causing
MASSIVE Mi-
Grations &
a Billion
Home-
Less?

peeps get Desperate
shit gets Broke

by the way
the West Cost
doesn't typically
Freeze in the Winter

so who wants to Move
into the Freezer?

tho a LOTTA
peeps AND
THEIR KIDS

cannot Afford to head
to Better Climes
and Many
will Die.

Housing
as Commodity*
is NOT Sustainable

see: OUR Streets

*nor is
Commodifying
the dang Citizenry but
Unbridled Capitalism's unFuckingsatiable