‘There will forever be service-resistant people’: We Heart Seattle says Katie Wilson’s approach is ‘same set and release’

Seattle crews swept a large homeless encampment in Ballard last week, but the executive director of We Heart Seattle, Andrea Suarez, explained there will always be people who don’t want to accept housing.

Suarez told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio that many people from the encampment had just moved down the street.

“There will forever be a group of service-resistant people that do not want to go to shelters or tiny houses; they’ve already been there and done that,” she said. “And that’s the call to action to the mayor, is, what about the service-resistant folks that just moved 200 feet along the Burke-Gilman Trail in Ballard by the Fred Meyer?”

After visiting the encampment, Suarez said the situation on the ground told a different story.

“I just talked to a lady who is here. She said that one man named Marcus got housing at DESC out of that camp, and there might have been another person or two that got housing, but she’s saying they weren’t actually from that controversial camp; they might have been from a nearby tent dwelling of sorts,” Suarez explained.

“But what looks like there might be 30 people, 40 people, or 50 people. I mean, it’s a revolving door of people coming and going in these encampments. Often, people will say, ‘I just hang out here,’ or ‘I have housing,’ which is the exact situation we have,” she continued.

Mayor used ‘phone-a-friend power’ to house man in Ballard sweep

When asked whether the homelessness response has changed under the newly elected Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, Suarez said not much has changed.

“It’s the same set and release. And I think that Mayor Wilson used her executive phone-a-friend power,” she said. “I’ve done it as well. I’ve called Sharon Lee, I’ve called the directors of programs, and asked for a favor, maybe a pregnant woman during winter or some situation like that, to get access to a tiny house or a hotel room. She called Dan Malone at DESC and got this guy an apartment at a brand new building up the road.”

“That probably is going to burn a bunch of people who may have been in line for years or weeks or whatever that looks like. There really is a proper system, although bureaucratic and full of red tape, and what she did demonstrate is when you just pick up the phone and call people and get people indoors, maybe it isn’t as cumbersome as it actually is,” she continued.

Affordable housing conditions drive people away

Suarez noted that many people don’t want to live in affordable housing because it is often an unsafe and disruptive environment.

“The affordable housing occupancy rate is low because people don’t want to live in these houses where their neighbors are probably a drug addict or were placed there on rapid rehousing,” she said. “And unfortunately, the original intent of permanent supportive housing was to be for the most gravely disabled, co-occurring mental health, physical limitations, and now they’re just full of people addicted to fentanyl.”

According to a post by Wilson, the city is working to improve outreach to encampments, expand shelter services, and add 1,000 new emergency housing units this year.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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