‘You’re so full of it’: Gee blasts Seattle’s ‘performative’ homelessness politics as city loses nearly 700 shelter beds

Seattle and King County are trailing behind the pack of cities working to cut down on homelessness numbers, highlighted by a recent report that found homelessness in King County is up 9%.

Despite the troubling progress report, Seattle lost roughly 700 shelter beds in 2025, while cities like San Francisco have added shelter beds, crisis centers, and other programs to get people off the streets.

Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin, co-hosts of “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio, pointed toward a lack of effort from local politicians, where they claim they want to enact change, but in reality, it’s all just “performative.”

“I was shocked. No, no, seriously. I was shocked,” Gee said. “Then I thought, you know what, it tracks. And what tracks is there’s so much performative politics that’s happening in this city and around the county. There’s so much, ‘Oh, I care about the people.’ You’re so full of it. You’re telling me there are fewer shelter beds by almost 700. We’ve been talking about this for so long, and there’s less?”

“And then, one of the reasons why Seattle is struggling so much with the unhoused is because of the affordability issues, but you see the statistics, and every city that is starting to do better than Seattle, their cost of living is higher than Seattle,” he continued. “Boston is getting better, San Francisco is getting better, San Diego, everybody is improving except for this damn place.”

Cities like Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego are improving while Seattle continues its free fall

A recent column by Danny Westneat in The Seattle Times found that the number of people living outside in Seattle has increased 21%, and countywide, the number of people living on the streets has jumped 54% over the past four years.

Ursula questioned Gee on why he believes every other city is improving while Seattle continues to struggle with homelessness.

“Performative politics. They sit there, they kick the damn can down the road, and they tell you, ‘Oh my goodness, I care so much,'” Gee said. “Then you go and look at the numbers and say, ‘Well, if you care so much, how are we decreasing the shelter beds?'”

Ursula pointed to a number of reasons why Seattle has continuously struggled as of late, asserting that the mismanagement of funds within the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) played a massive role.

“One of the things that we came up with was the whole KCRHA, and what has happened in recent months that we’re finding out about this particular agency,” Ursula said. “It was set up for failure, and it has been a complete failure. We still don’t know where a lot of the money that was given to that agency to solve this problem has gone, and the statistics are worse.

“The other thing is we keep trying the same things over and over again,” she continued. “Housing affordability is a big issue, but there are other things that go into homelessness as well, including drugs and mental health issues. It’s not all of it, but you have to address those things, and there have to be repercussions when people say I don’t want to move into a shelter. The disgusting part is the lack of shelter units and the lack of spaces after all this talk and all this money. We’re going backwards.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.