Are homeless people flocking to Seattle to smoke marijuana?

Dave Ross heard whispers that there is a link between an increasing homeless population in Seattle and legalization of marijuana.

The KIRO Radio host on Seattle’s Morning News said that there’s a theory that because people aren’t hassled for smoking marijuana in public &#8211 at least as much as other places &#8211 homeless people are gravitating toward the Emerald City.

There is no hard evidence of that in Seattle, however. That’s why Dave reached out to the director of St. Francis Center to find out what what’s happened since Colorado legalized pot. There have been stories out of Denver, which has seen an increase in homeless people after pot was legalized, Dave explained.

Related: Seattleites are stuffing stockings with pot

Tom Luehrs, executive director of St. Francis Center, told Ross he’s surveyed the people that have entered the center. He found 15-25 percent of people were in Denver because marijuana is legal; but there is also more job opportunity in the city.

“So it’s jobs and (marijuana) use were kind of mixed in there,” he said.

But it isn’t too much of a surprise because “many” of the people St. Francis Center serves have some sort of disability, Luehrs explained. That can be physical or mental; both seem to have a direct effect on people becoming homeless, he continued.

“The stories we were hearing were very reasonable and making sense to us,” he said.

So, it’s not a case of Colorado’s marijuana law attracting a bunch of pot smokers then? Dave asked.

“It would be incorrect from our vantage point to say there are people who are just living the high life and using marijuana to get there,” Luehrs said.

Therefore, the effect of the law may be that homeless people who smoked pot and once felt the need to hide it, just don’t any more.