Harger: Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson on the defensive over homelessness, dodges on KCRHA and Spencer Pratt at Civic Cocktail

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson walked onto the Civic Cocktail stage Wednesday night, likely expecting a friendly evening with the Seattle CityClub crowd. What she got was a sustained grilling from FOX 13 Seattle anchor Hana Kim, a rowdy audience that wouldn’t stop reacting, and a night so “spicy,” as organizers put it, they had to remind attendees of the rules of decorum before intermission.

The first flashpoint came when Kim asked Wilson to respond directly to Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, the former reality TV star who has accused Seattle of opening its arms to Los Angeles’s homeless population.

“Well, I’m not going to respond to him, but I will respond to you all,” Wilson said.

It was the first of many times the mayor would dodge a direct question on Seattle’s homelessness crisis. And the crowd let her hear it every step of the way.

‘Was that a cheer? Uh-oh, that was the first one’

Pratt, who appears headed for the Los Angeles mayoral runoff, has built his campaign around the idea that homelessness is fundamentally a drug problem.

“They’re not homeless, they’re drug addicts,” Pratt said in a recent ABC interview. “These people have been bused in by scam rehabs, scam NGOs, scam homeless nonprofits. They’re all going to Seattle, where the mayor will welcome them.”

When Kim mentioned Pratt was heading to the runoff, the room reacted loudly. The cheers and murmurs were unmistakable, and Kim stopped to acknowledge what she was hearing.

“Was that a cheer?” Kim asked. “Uh-oh, that was the first one.”

It would not be the last. Kim turned back to Wilson: “He specifically brought you up. I think it’s only fair that you get to respond to that.”

Wilson didn’t.

Katie Wilson punts, and the crowd erupts

Instead of addressing Pratt’s claims, Wilson pivoted to a talking point about housing costs.

“What is driving homelessness is housing costs,” Wilson said. “Drugs make everything worse, but the real driver is housing costs.”

Kim wasn’t having it. She pressed Wilson on whether Seattle had been too lenient.

“Is Seattle too lenient in giving people who are addicted to drugs housing first with no requirement of drug treatment and rehabilitation? Why is that not something that is combined together?” Kim asked.

Applause and audible frustration filled the venue, a hometown audience telling its hometown mayor exactly where it stood.

Wilson defended the low-barrier model, the policy that allows people to access shelter and services without being clean first.

“If you create a high-barrier model where you say, ‘In order to access shelter or housing, you need to be clean,’ some people will get there. But what you’re doing is creating a very narrow funnel, and then the other people just stay outside,” Wilson said.

Kim let the answer sit, then cited the crowd directly.

“From the reaction that you’re getting from this room, we’ve been at this for more than a decade, where it’s been a homelessness crisis, and you can see it on the streets,” Kim said. “What needs to happen for you to say, ‘I need to take a stronger stance to get these people into treatment’?”

Wilson did not answer. She circled back to talking points about individual circumstances. The crowd, by now, was reading the moment as clearly as Kim was.

The 500 units by FIFA promise collapses on stage

During the race for mayor last year, Wilson committed to 4,000 new shelter units over four years, with 500 before the FIFA World Cup arrives in Seattle next month and 1,000 by the end of the year.

Kim asked directly: Would the 500-by-FIFA mark be hit?

“No, we’re not going to make 500 by FIFA,” Wilson conceded.

Kim asked how many people Wilson would confidently say will be housed by the end of her term.

“It is hard to project numbers with confidence because there are so many things out of our control,” Wilson said, pointing to federal funding at risk under the Trump administration.

It was the answer of a mayor six months into a four-year term, asking the public not to hold her to her own numbers.

Should KCRHA be dissolved? Wilson won’t say.

The sharpest exchange came over the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA), the agency now under fire after audits revealed millions in unaccounted-for spending. Some local leaders have called for it to be dissolved.

Kim asked Wilson, plainly: Should KCRHA be dissolved? Yes or no?

Wilson refused to answer.

“There is a reason why we are doing the shelter acceleration that we’re doing at the city and not through the KCRHA,” Wilson said. “As for the future of the KCRHA, you’re going to have to stay tuned.”

Kim pressed again.

“So no ‘yes’ or ‘no’ yet,” she asked.

“I’m not saying yes or no to that,” Wilson said.

“OK, we will hold you to it,” Kim replied.

A mayor of a major American city, asked a yes-or-no question about a publicly funded agency that may have lost track of $13 million, told the audience to wait and see.

12th and Jackson: ‘It’s gotten worse under your watch’

Kim then turned to 12th Avenue and South Jackson Street, the open-air drug market that has become a symbol of Seattle’s struggle with public disorder.

“That area has gotten worse under your watch, I’ve seen it,” Kim said. “So what are we doing about it, really quick?”

“Well, there’s nothing really quick about that answer,” Wilson replied.

She said her administration is preparing a new effort at 12th and Jackson in partnership with the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program and the Seattle Police Department (SPD), and said she supports clear public-space rules and enforcement, “but being willing to enforce those doesn’t mean that we think that just arresting everyone and putting them into jail is going to solve anyone’s problems.”

It was, again, an answer designed to thread a political needle in a room that had stopped buying it.

A spicy night and a mayor on the defensive

At the intermission of Kim’s interview, event organizers had to remind the audience to behave when the interview resumed.

“I know everyone’s having a really spicy evening,” they said. “We will remind everyone of the rules of decorum when you get back.”

Civic Cocktail crowds are typically polite, attentive, even reverent. Wednesday’s was not.

The scoreboard wasn’t subtle. Wilson refused to respond to Pratt. She dodged on drug treatment requirements. She conceded her FIFA shelter goal was dead. She declined to give a yes-or-no on KCRHA, even with $13 million unaccounted for. And she acknowledged one of Seattle’s most visible drug markets has gotten worse on her watch.

Wilson is asking Seattle to be patient with pallet shelters, low-barrier access, and a slate of policies she struggled to defend in front of a hometown crowd that, on Wednesday night, wasn’t acting much like a hometown crowd.

Kim kept asking for answers. The mayor kept asking everyone to stay tuned.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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