‘We cannot move forward’: Kettle says Seattle must confront homelessness epidemic

Point-in-time numbers, a collection of data gauging a city’s homeless population, have risen by nearly 7,000 individuals in King County since 2016.

The stark increase led John Curley to ask Seattle City Councilmember Bob Kettle if he was wrong to believe that it feels like Seattle is funding homelessness and footing the bill for out-of-state homeless seeking resources.

“You’re right, this is something that we need to acknowledge; this is why I made my statement that we have a regional homelessness problem on our streets of Seattle,” Kettle said on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “If we don’t acknowledge the basic facts on the ground in terms of who’s here and who’s not, we cannot move forward. We need to address this problem, and we need that support. It is a regional problem on our streets in Seattle.”

Kettle says current approach isn’t working, calls for clearer enforcement path

Kettle concluded that what is currently being done regarding Seattle’s homeless population is not working, and he provided a roadmap for what should be seen going forward as a remedy, rather than doing “nothing.”

“We need to move away from what’s been happening thus far,” Kettle said. “Often for different reasons, we’ve had to do nothing. Move along, or let be, and we can’t have that. The big issue is the lack of clarity and alignment with our ordinances. What I want to get to is the point where officers make their decision post-arrest to either divert for those who should be diverted into services, but for those who need to go to jail, they go to jail. We need to have that clarity. What’s happened is we don’t have it.

“Seattle is of two minds, we kind of get caught between two approaches, and we get paralyzed by it,” Kettle continued. “There’s a certain perilous parallelism that comes from it, and groups acting in opposition basically cancel each other out, and we don’t make progress. We need to clean up these laws, bring clarity, and align. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening.”

Curley shared his admiration for Seattle’s compassionate approach toward homeless individuals in the city, but drew the line for taxpayers once they began migrating from another state.

“I really commend the fact that the people of Seattle, if you’re homeless, and you’re in Seattle and you became homeless for whatever reason, we’re going to try to help you,” Curley said. “But if you’re coming from California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, that’s a problem that came from there. You can’t ask the people of Seattle to continue to pay. You may be homeless, but you’re not dumb. If you get somebody that provides some services for you, you’re going to go where those services are.”

Rainier Beach shooting exposes gap between Wilson’s campaign promises, reality

Bringing up Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, Kettle recommended that she look to the wants and needs of Seattle’s residents and how they see crime and homelessness being dealt with day-to-day. After a recent shooting that rocked the Rainier Beach community, Kettle found that residents were clamoring for more cameras in the area, something Wilson campaigned against.

“We have to address the whole problem, and it starts with being in community,” Kettle said. “Most of my colleagues, we’ve been on the streets for so long, we have all these stories. It’s being in the community and hearing directly from the voices of those concerned. For example, the mayor, during the course of her campaign, was hearing that nobody wants cameras.

“After the shooting in Rainier Beach, she was meeting with families, next thing you know, they’re saying, ‘Hey, we need cameras, what are you doing?'” Kettle continued. “It’s about being on the ground, understanding the true facts, and not listening to those trying to push a certain narrative. It has to be on the ground, talking to families impacted.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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