‘Rinse and repeat of what we’ve seen’: We Heart Seattle says Wilson needs new plan for homeless who refuse services

Two months into her term, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has yet to change course on homelessness despite pledging to be different from predecessor Bruce Harrell, We Heart Seattle Executive Director Andrea Suarez contended.

Suarez told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio that Wilson’s approach is just a “rinse and repeat” of the last four years.

Suarez: ‘Half the people in those encampments have housing’

In the State of the City address last month, Wilson highlighted sweeping a Ballard encampment. Although six people were placed in housing, Wilson acknowledged the city lacks enough housing, shelter, and services for every transient. But Suarez said a lack of housing and services isn’t the issue; it’s the people who refuse to accept help.

“Based on my experience over five years, half the people who are in those encampments have housing,” she said. “Any social outreach worker will tell you people have housing or had housing. And so we have to have a new plan for the service resistant.”

Suarez noted Harrell didn’t have a plan for those who refuse services either, adding that if people are left in the parks, there is still the issue of drug use.

“For argument’s sake, keep people in the parks. Keep people in the parks, except for no drugs in parks, and then you have to start talking about the drugs,” Suarez said. “And she didn’t manage to mention drugs once in her State of the City address, which is very disappointing.”

KIRO host John Curley mentioned the World Cup coming up this summer and how events have pressured the city to sweep the area. Suarez responded that unless the city enforces laws against open-air drug use, the issue will just return.

“The open air use of fentanyl and methamphetamines in our parks and shared spaces is out of control, and it is dangerous for people who live here year round, and yes, it’s great to use an event to provide some extra care, but I don’t know how you’re going to do it, unless you make crime illegal again and actually enforce the open air use and the loitering laws that we have in place,” she said.

Suarez, Davison point to San Francisco as model

Suarez believes San Francisco’s new policy of arresting drug users and putting them in the city’s Rapid Enforcement, Support, Evaluation, and Triage (RESET) Center is a great way to go.

“I love that program, 100%, the sheriffs are in charge of the diversion program, as it should be,” Suarez said.

Former Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison also backed the program, urging leaders to act on a recent episode of “The John Curley Show.”

“It isn’t arresting your way out of it, but you have to say accountability is a different form of compassion,” Davison said. “When someone is not able to be their own guardrails for their own behavior, what they’re doing to themselves, to the public, in our shared resources, when they cannot be that for themselves, we should give a damn.”

When Curley asked what advice Suarez would give Wilson, she pointed to San Francisco as a model.

“Follow what San Francisco is doing with the RESET program,” she said. “Two, champion a similar proposition that San Francisco did a few years ago called Prop F, which required people to pass a urine analysis for illegal substances to come into the city and get services — that stops the inflow.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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