The 8,000+ figure quoted is not the number of those found outside in Seattle. It's those found outside, in shelters, and in transitional housing in the King County areas counted (not all areas are counted) on January 25.

I'm afraid that Mayor Nickels was not that good an advocate for homeless people. Unlike in Portland's Dignity Village, Nickels' administration refuses to allow encampments that are a pragmatic half-way transition between greenbelts or mat-on-the-floor shelters and actual housing, transitional or permanent. The word from DC during the past 8 years, including the National Alliance, was housing only, with no more resources given to shelter, and the emphasis was further focused on "chronic homelessness" (i.e., homeless men, often substance-addicted). This hasn't worked because it's too narrow an emphasis. Not everyone is re-housing-ready, especially this population, nor is the housing supply adequate. There's only one 1811. Ask local shelter and service providers; they are at least as authoritative sources as city or CEH officials because they actually do the work. And the sad thing is that even considering what units have been built and are in the pipeline, we are behind because more have been destroyed than have been built. You can't simply count what's coming; you must count what's been lost to give an accurate figure of where we are. And almost five years into the Plan, we are behind. Time to stop being purist and allow some halfway measures until we can catch up. When you don't have housing, a Hooverville is better than a tent; a tent is better than the street, and a shelter is better than the greenbelt. Aiming straight for permanent housing leaves a lot of people literally out in the cold.

Thanks for a good piece, Judy. I'm convinced that ending homelessness requires a national effort or at least nationwide implementation of housing solutions.

If one city or county makes notable headway in ending homelessness in their jurisdiction, word gets out and their reservoir of homeless people only gets refilled.

If one of our local experts has a response to this point, the problem of one locale getting too far ahead of the curve, I'd like to hear it. I'm a believer in local solutions, but I'm also practical.

I like your story, too, Judy. One question, though. I checked the Edinburgh info and it looks like they have a far larger number than 4 homeless. Here's their homeless strategy: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/Attachments/Internet/Housing/Housing_policies_and_strategies/HomelessStrat08.pdf

Looks to me like the numbers of homeless -- charmingly called "rough sleepers" -- is around 2,000 - 3,000. I'm interested in your point about Edinburgh and wonder what your numbers are based on. In my travel experiences I've seldom seen homeless in certain large cities of the world and was hoping Edinburgh would be an example I could use when I talk about homelessness. Can you shed some light?

Judy Lightfoot here:

My thanks to Sarah and RevSandy, and my apologies for two statistical errors:
(1) The total of 4 that I gave for the count of homeless people sleeping on Edinburgh streets is wrong. A 2008 one-night count in the Edinburgh city center found 39 "rough sleepers" (http://www.hopuk.org/documents/headcountpressrelease2008_000.doc).
(2) In Seattle last January the number of homeless people sleeping outdoors was not 8,349 but 1,977. 8,349 is the number of people in King County who were sleeping outdoors, in a shelter, or in transitional housing.

The reason why the number of Edinburgh "rough sleepers" isn't higher, given their large numbers of homeless people, is as I said above - that Edinburgh's city policy brings more of its homeless people indoors, placing a priority on the "housing first" principle of finding them permanent housing.

I so very much want to vote for the Seattle housing levy, but am unable to do so because of SHA's outrageous goal of developing a mix of housing types in the recently vacated portion of Fort Laughton that includes MARKET RATE SINGLE FAMILY HOUSING. In Magnolia, that means houses that go for $500K and up, and that is just wrong. It is made even more wrong in light of the fact that in carrying out this housing development scheme, the City of Seattle is defying its own Discovery Park Master Plan, which mandates addition of this land to the park. It goes without saying that chances to add 40 acres to any of Seattle's parks--especially its flagship park and the only one that has been left in a largely natural condition, will not be repeated. SHA claims that their low income housing development in Fort Lawton will only "pencil" if high end SF units are included by the private developers with whom they are "partnering" on this deal.

Similarly, the redevelopment of Yesler Terrace will also include high end condos and townhouses, as if there isn't already a massive glut of these types of units being sold at auction all over town.

Last night riding my bike home from work I encountered at least 15 people sleeping under the Yesler bridge. My heart goes out to these folks, but SHA doesn't seem to target them as clients, and in fact blames them for not sleeping in shelters, even though some shelters are hellholes. I hope when Mayor Jowly is gone this issue will get sorted out, but I'm not holding my breath.

Local organizations that are better advocates than SHA for people in need of shelter and low income housing include Share/Wheel, the Low Income Housing Institute, Plymouth Housing Group, Lutheran Compass Center and other NGOs.

Mudbaby, please don't let SHA's questionable (at best) policies deter you from voting for the renewal of the Housing Levy. SHA's emphasis is not on building or maintaining low-income housing and it cannot be considered as an example of the use of the Levy money.

The Housing Levy is absolutely necessary for non-profit housing providers to keep punching out units in this ever-increasingly difficult time, and to enable already-built housing to be maintained so that it can continue to provide homes for low-income people. There are many projects around the Seattle area built by LIHI, Plymouth and others, as you say, that can take advantage of Levy money. That's what I'm voting for; that's what you can vote for; that's what we MUST vote for or there will be more homeless on the street.

Side note on homelessness in European countries: Rev. Craig Rennebohm traveled to Western/Northern Europe about 4 years ago and everywhere he went, he was asked, "Why do you allow homelessness in the US?" In England, as in other UK areas, it is the legal responsibility of municipalities to provide housing for homeless people -- the "rough sleepers". That term alone says something about the difference in attitude. We say "the homeless", as though they are a category of human being rather than human beings in a certain situation. That push-away categorization allows us to also push away any feeling of responsibility for our neighbors.

Permanent housing is a necessary service and we fully support our region's goals to ensure that we have enough to take care of the homeless in our community--but there are other service models along the pipeline of ending homelessness that we cannot ignore. There will always be a need for emergency shelters, regardless of an increase in rapid return efforts. There will always be family disputes, domestic violence, and unexpected cases of homelessness, and we need a place for these individuals to find shelter when they least expect it.

Furthermore, transitional housing fills a niche as well. Many people are situationally homeless and need a place to stay while they go through one of life's turbulents--while they make progress and get their lives back on track. Effective transitional housing programs provide hands-on case management which eliminates barriers, promotes behavioral changes, increases confidence and job skills – and ultimately, facilitates stability over the long-term, producing high success rates. This is evidenced in Jubilee Women’s Center's program, where 88 percent of residents moved from transitional housing into stable permanent housing situations last year. Some residents moved into government subsidized permanent housing while many others moved back into market rate housing.

In addition to permanent housing, emergency and transitional housing are also necessary. Many people go through unexpected situations and need temporary assistance on their way back to stability. We can’t forget that there's a range of housing needs in our community; we must support the continuum of housing services.

In response to R on Beacon Hill, who is afraid that "If you build it, won't they come." That just doesn't happen. In the last One Night Count, 80% of the people in emergency shelter and transitional housing were from King County, 6% were from elsewhere in Washington State, and only 15% were from outside Washington -- a much higher Washington presence than the general population.
This is because people who are homeless come from two major groups. The first is people with deep ties to their community. It is where they grew up or where their cousins are or where their friends are. When you ask homeless people in Auburn why they don't go to Seattle where the services are, they respond "but I live here." It may be a car, but it is their community.
The second big group is people who are severely disabled and who work 24/7 just to hold it together and stay alive. They are not going to go to a different town where sleeping under the wrong overpass might result in their not waking up.
There are certainly some "travelers" -- especially among young adults, and there are a number of people who came here with money and housing looking for work and ended up homeless when they could not find work, but doing the right thing and giving people the opportunity to become housed and stable is not a magnet, it is just the right thing to do.

Reading the "related stories" column at the righthand of Judy's article, my eye hit on "managed campground" and I remembered that there were government-managed campgrounds in California during the 30s, housing the many people escaping the dustbowl who found that the hope of great jobs in California was a fiction. Such campgrounds, in contrast to those that were run by private parties, encouraged collegiality and sharing of tasks and resources, and treated campers with respect. Unfortunately there were too few of them because the local officials and growers didn't want them there; they wanted people desperate enough to accept constantly-lowered hourly wages. They didn't care about saving lives; they knew there would be plenty of others coming to take their place.

Such campgrounds--very much like Share/Wheel's tent cities but funded by government--would relieve much of the misery of those who can't immediately move up to housing, either because it doesn't exist or they don't fit into the various criteria for that housing. The campgrounds would not have to move at least every 90 days, as tent cities do. Most importantly, such campgrounds would demonstrate to the public that municipalities recognize their responsibility for helping residents stay alive until housing is available. That recognition of responsibility is not now evident.

Judy, thank you for covering this important topic. The passage of the housing levy shows that Seattle voters believe ending homelessness is important. Of course, this is just one of many steps that we need to take as a city, county, and state.