Seattle’s Homeless Sweeps Are Starting Back Up Again

Today we’re talking about a little bit of local news (at least local to me!). Mark Horvath is a wonderful advocate for the houseless, and in this video, he is interviewing people who are working with those folks here in the Seattle area who are living in RVs and vehicles.

During the pandemic, the city allowed certain streets to be used by those living in RVs and cars to live. However, now that the pandemic emergency has passed, the city is trying to clean-up many of these sites. On my street, there are derelict cars where people have been living off and on for three years. There is much pressure right now for the city to clean things up. But one question remains, where do these people go?

The state of Washington has committed to cleaning up state land, and trucks from Olympia are arriving to help with the effort through the department of transportation. That said, while I advocate for the clean-up, there really isn’t anywhere for these people to go, and that problem has to be solved so that we can solve the problem rather than just shuffling it around town.