Mayor Murray: Seattle is ‘third-most generous’ in US for housing homeless
Mar 7, 2016, 11:31 AM | Updated: Mar 8, 2016, 5:37 pm
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray says the city cannot sustain its current support of the homeless population alone. (City of Seattle)
(City of Seattle)
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is convinced the national attitude will change when it comes to homelessness.
He believes the presidential election will give politicians and advocates the chance to bring the issue to the “national agenda.”
“I realize there are cynics who claim the dysfunction of Washington DC gives us little hope that any difference can be made,” Murray wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian.
Murray points out that just in his lifetime, he’s seen the federal government take a more proactive approach to HIV-AIDS. He saw communities come together to change “the agenda” in state capitols, he writes.
“We successfully pushed federal and state governments to change policy and fund programs that are still saving lives today,” he writes.
From what he sees on a daily basis in Seattle’s homeless shelters, Murray believes the same can be done for people living on the streets. It’s why he continues to plea for help from the state and federal governments while an estimated 3,000 people sleep without shelter in Seattle.
But some believe that the City of Seattle could be doing more. City Council member Kshama Sawant has called for an additional $10 million in funding for homeless services.
“I hope that now … the scale of the crisis is clear to all elected officials,” Sawant wrote on her blog.
In addition to requesting more local funding for homelessness, she called out the city for spending a portion of the $5 million that came from Murray’s emergency declaration on homelessness during the People’s Assembly at the end of February. A summary spending plan shows that $1,089,037 is being used for cleanups of non-permitted camps and outreach and case management.
Others have criticized the city’s approach to helping homeless individuals. That includes experts that have said that sanctioned encampments or tent cities are not the answer, and providing access to housing opportunities is the right direction.
In his op-ed, Murray points out that the city is “already the third-most generous” in the nation when it comes to housing for the homeless. Seattle is responsible for more than 60 percent of homeless investments, Murray writes.
The question remains, how long can the city holdout as it works to combat one of the largest homeless populations in the country. Murray says the course the city is on an unsustainable course and Seattle’s “actions alone are not enough, nor should they be.”
