The key to fixing homelessness is lowering your expectations, Tangney says

During Memorial Day of 2015, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray made the lofty declaration that by the end of 2016 “there will not be a veteran who is homeless in this city or in the United States.” With just six months left to go this year, that guarantee seems unlikely. Especially because just weeks ago, Murray acknowledged that, “We’re actually making this up as we go along” when it comes to cleaning up the “Jungle,” an illegal homeless encampment that was the site of a fatal shooting earlier this year.

KIRO Radio’s Tom Tangney said it’s become quite easy to jump on the Murray-bashing train, but that it’s also important to take a step back and realize that the city is trying something new.

“I think it’s so easy and so many of us already are taking potshots at everything we do as it being wrong, that I tend to come to the defense of people who are making an effort,” he said. “ … We’re trying something. It’s better to try than do nothing.”

Related: Dori: Seattle Mayor spending our money on homelessness with no real plan

Tangney applauds the city’s efforts of opening safe-lots for homeless people living in RVs, even if it doesn’t pan out. He points out that Denmark is time and again anointed as the happiest nation in the world, and he says it’s because the Danes are good at lowering their expectations. He thinks Seattle residents could benefit a bit from taking that perspective.

“If you lower your expectations you don’t feel as defeated,” he said. “The thing is, that may seem counterproductive, but the idea is if we are making a good effort at it and we are making some improvement, I think you can’t just throw up your hands and abandon it. You have to keep working at it. Eventually, we’ll figure something out.”

KIRO Radio’s Ron Upshaw says he believes that defining the metric of success is key. If the goal is transitioning someone into stability, then the city’s mission has been a “horrible failure.” But if the goal is to contain or make things “less bad,” than the city is closer to hitting the mark.

Upshaw also struggles with rewinding back to the point where the city is responsible for finding everybody a house.

“In the sense that mentally ill is a category and drug dependency is a category. But people who are simply collecting Social Security, or whatever, that is a different category,” he said. “This premise that we owe it to them I struggle with sometimes.”

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