Review: Faith and mental illness on Seattle's streets

Craig Rennebohm provides a refreshing look at compassion and caring for Seattle's outcasts in Souls in the Hands of a Tender God: Stories of the Search for Home and Healing on the Streets (Beacon Press, 2008 194 pages).

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City budget road show

Chapter 4: During May, Seattle City Council members listened to hours of public comment on how tax dollars should be allocated by the 2009-10 budget. Now what happens? Not much until autumn — then a flurry of activity.

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Energy and desperation on the streets of Seattle

A foreign tourist sees this as a place where citizens and the bureaucracy have in many ways abandoned each other, resulting in individualism, survivalism, and capitalism.

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Social progress in White Center

The neighborhood is the focus of several programs designed to boost test scores, encourage early learning, improve living conditions, and provide a positive example of community pride and success that can be applied elsewhere. Part 2

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One Seattle chaplain's story of homelessness

A chaplain whose pioneering work to end homelessness is recognized worldwide shares the story of encountering the limits of the city's mental health system.

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Birthing behind bars

Reading the recent article in The Seattle Times about doulas in the state prisons, I wasn't sure whether to feel proud or ashamed of my state. It's a horrible thing for babies to be born in prison — horrible for the mother and boding horribly for the child — made worse by the inhumane ways most prisons treat laboring women (some states actually handcuff women to the bed during labor, and prison health care is rarely good).

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Gentrifying White Center

White Center is an unincorporated neighborhood and cultural melting pot, sandwiched between Seattle proper and the suburb of Highline. Despite grappling with urban crime and the difficulties of providing subsidized housing for low income residents, both Seattle and Burien believe there is hope. Part 1

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Hey, hey, LBJ

For some reason, the best route for getting elected is still to run against government, making one wonder if a scientist, say, would ever think of applying for a research job by pointing out how much he or she hates science. This curious distrust of politics, running high in the Obama mania, also leads to a lot of historical injustice. Take the case of Lyndon Johnson, the forgotten president.

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The long leash of the law

Domestic violence, custody, malpractice, wrongful death: Today's animal legal issues and challenges are not unlike those of humans.

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Responding to her readers on paid family leave

When I recently wrote about Washington state’s landmark paid family leave legislation (only the second in the nation), Crosscut readers’ responses were striking. Two-thirds of comments expressed the same feeling: The legislation is “a token for the irresponsible,” a “confiscation of my tax dollars” for “social parasites.” One reader even called the legislation morally depraved.

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Another mayoral spokesperson departs for the same nonprofit

Martin McOmber, senior communications and policy advisor for Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, will leave city employment on Wednesday, April 30, to join Casey Family Programs as communications director. McOmber will feel right at home at Casey, because the managing director of communications there, Marianne Bichsel, was herself spokesperson for the mayor before joining the foundation in Seattle last fall.

Alex Fryer, communications advisor at the Office of Sustainability and Environment, will fill in until the mayor names a new comm director — though the official City Hall announcement today sure makes it sound like the job is Fryer's to lose.

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Washington stumbles toward landmark paid family leave

One of only a handful of states to enact such a program, it remains to be seen if the state can actually fund it. A 2009 ballot measure might be necessary to impose a payroll tax to cover the cost.

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Chopp, Chopp! The method in the speaker's maddening ways

How Frank Chopp rules Olympia, and why he left the Sonic saviors sputtering. He's become a classic political boss, but he also remains true to the values of helping the poor.

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In Seattle, umbrella funds are adapting to the new philanthropy

An important organization in Seattle, the Alliance for Education, has announced changes in the way it will be distributing money. There will now be more targeting and accountability, and more meshing with the district's emerging strategic focus. Similar changes are going on with other umbrella agencies, including in the arts and social services.

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Not just the Sonics want those stadium taxes

The showdown in Olympia over the Sonics is much more than a shoving match between Speaker Frank Chopp, a populist who likes to defy bailouts for sports owners, and the Seattle establishment, which wants the team to buttress Seattle Center and tourism interests and for reasons of civic pride. A bigger issue is the years-long clamoring for a taxing source that might get away. Those are the so-called "stadium taxes," a mixture of taxes on car rentals, restaurants and bars, hotel rooms, and local sales tax. The money is all generated locally in King County, but instead of going into the Olympia general fund, it gets rebated back to pay off construction of Safeco Field and Qwest Field. And they are supposed to expire as the stadiums are paid off in the next decade.

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A first-person report from the One Night Count

By day (usually), Yazmin Mehdi runs the Business/Marketing side of Crosscut.com. Last night, however, she was one of the 975 volunteers who fanned out across King County to count the homeless. This is what she discovered:

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Homelessness: Read about it, act on it

When in Seattle, I peruse Real Change; in Portland I keep up with Street Roots. Both newspapers, of course, are by and for homeless folks, and they regularly serve up readable news not found elsewhere. The Rose City version is particularly tireless in hanging on to sticky constituent issues — like badly crafted loitering laws or under-trained private rent-a-cops. The paper's terrier-like persistence is wonderful to behold.

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The insurance commissioner will make his case

Quick update about something we're keeping an eye on. Using the state’s premier trauma center as his stage, Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler on Wednesday, Dec. 12, will unveil a new report detailing costs taxpayers absorb to care for the uninsured and underinsured. With officials from Harborview Medical Center by his side, the commish will lay out a county-by-county breakdown showing a growing economic burden. The new report will add momentum, he hopes, to a universal health-care proposal Kreidler is drafting for the upcoming legislative session. Earlier this fall, Crosscut outlined the framework his plan to take care of more than 600,000 people who are without health insurance.

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From CNN, big kudos for an immigrant UW student

A University of Washington grad student was given Oscar-like treatment on a two-hour CNN special last night, Dec. 6, honoring humanitarian entrepreneurs. Peter Kithene, a native of Kenya and a resident of Mountlake Terrace, was selected as one of seven humanitarian "heroes" doing noteworthy work in difficult circumstances in various spots around the world. Update: CNN Heroes will air again today at 5 p.m. Pacific time. Kithene (Kih-THEE-nee) was cited for his work in creating a health clinic in southwest Kenya. Orphaned at age 12, he managed to secure a scholarship to an elite secondary school in Nairobi. A chance meeting with Seattle residents led to his applying to UW, where he combined studies with a fundraising effort to create the Mama Maria Clinic in his home village.

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Tacoma's panhandling ban: Where did they all go?

It's not clear, but the begging has stopped in the City of Destiny. Could it work in Seattle?

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