Seattle council president praises Wilson’s homeless plan, but warns city could ‘go backwards’

As Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson prepares to leave office after being defeated by progressive challenger Dionne Foster, she appeared twice this week on “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio to discuss her concerns about the city’s direction on homelessness, drugs, and crime.

Nelson sounds alarm on homelessness and drug crisis, questions Wilson’s approach to encampments

Nelson addressed a growing encampment in the shadow of the Space Needle and what she sees as signs the city may be backsliding on issues she worked on during her four years in office.

“We can’t go back,” Nelson said. “This looks like what you saw all over the city in 2020, 2021. What I will say is that what I also see is people living in inhumane conditions, and that is unacceptable.”

Finding common ground with Katie Wilson

Nelson, a moderate Democrat who served as the only small business owner on the council since 2009 and was unanimously elected council president in January 2024, lost her Position 9 seat to Foster in November as part of a progressive wave that swept Seattle politics. The shift culminated with Democratic Socialist Katie Wilson taking the mayor’s office.

Despite their political differences, Nelson found areas of agreement with the incoming mayor’s platform.

“On the campaign trail, Mayor-elect Wilson did focus a lot on expanding shelter. And that is what we need to do,” Nelson told KIRO Newsradio. “We closed a lot of our shelters during the pandemic, the congregate shelters, et cetera. And the cities that have had the best success in dealing with unsheltered homelessness have done so by increasing shelter, because we have to remove people from the inhumane conditions of living in encampments. So if she makes good on that promise, that is a good way to go.”

Concerns about Wilson’s approach to encampments

However, Nelson said shelter expansion must be paired with action to move people out of encampments. Wilson has said she will end encampment sweeps.

“If there is not a commitment to that, it is bad for everyone,” Nelson said. “It’s bad for the people that are living in those conditions and bad for the city in general. So I am concerned if that is the policy direction that holds sway going forward.”

Nelson said the term “sweep” itself has become politically loaded.

“For the past four years, the city has been doing extensive outreach prior to any relocation of encampments,” she said.

Nelson said people living in tents may not understand potential policy changes coming with the new mayor.

“What we see is what happens when we take our eye off the ball, when we take our eye off the responsibility that we have to ensure that people aren’t living in encampments,” she said. “Because it’s not just about the aesthetics, it’s about the terrible conditions that those people are living in, and also the vulnerabilities that we’re setting them up for. They are now subject to violent actions, drug dealing, etc., that goes on around encampments.”

Fentanyl changed the equation

Nelson said the fentanyl crisis requires a different approach than traditional harm reduction models.

“Fentanyl has changed the game,” Nelson said. “And when I hear that we have to ‘meet people where they’re at’ and that’s it, that doesn’t work anymore because fentanyl is so deadly, ubiquitous, and cheap. We have to help people out of situations where they can fall into addiction or be preyed upon by dealers that make their addictions worse.”

Nelson described visiting parks in North Seattle and other locations around the city where foil used for smoking fentanyl littered the ground around encampments.

“I hate to see that. I hate to see us going backwards,” she said.

During her final budget drafting last month, Nelson passed a budget amendment prohibiting city funds from being used to purchase pipes and foil for drug consumption, a practice supported by some harm reduction advocates, including Wilson’s allies.

Nelson said she still supports needle exchange programs because they prevent disease transmission, but drew the line at pipes and foil.

“This does not apply to needles. I fully support needle exchange because that is reducing the harm of spreading human disease. But we’re talking about pipes and foil,” she said.

‘Pretend you love them’

Nelson described how she thinks about people suffering from addiction on Seattle’s streets.

“When you’re walking around downtown, past people that are bent over from fentanyl, pretend you love them, pretend they are somebody in your family, your brother, your sister, your mother, whatever, how would you want the city officials to deal with them?” Nelson said. “And I believe that everybody wants the best for their loved ones. And so the answer is, get those people help.”

She pushed back against the idea that urging people into treatment or shelter is dehumanizing.

“These are people who are loved by their families. Their families want to get them help. These are people deserving of love and care,” she said.

Nelson said that allowing encampments to persist makes the city complicit in harm.

“Every time we turn away from the responsibility of getting people off the street and into shelter, we are complicit in their potential demise because of what’s happening on the street,” she said.

Nelson’s treatment-focused record

Nelson spent her four years in office focused on expanding addiction treatment. She used her final budget cycle to secure $2.8 million for expanded addiction treatment services.

Her record includes creating the Pathways to Recovery plan dedicating public safety funds to addiction treatment, expanding a $300,000 Lakeside Milam rehab pilot to $1.6 million in the current budget, passing 24 public safety laws during her tenure, securing $450,000 for mobile medication services in high-overdose areas, and overseeing 14 public safety bills in 2024, the most since 2015.

“For the four years that I’ve been in office, I’ve been trying to focus on the need to expand addiction treatment services,” Nelson said. “Because until we do, we’re really not going to make a big difference in unsheltered homelessness or in so many of our public safety problems. Because addiction drives both.”

Nelson said overdose deaths have begun tapering off thanks to widespread Narcan distribution, but warned against stopping there.

“We can’t just let people repeatedly overdose,” she said. “That is still not fixing the problem. We need long-term solutions that are available to people, and those include everything from opioid use disorder medication to inpatient treatment, and then fundamentally, recovery-based housing, sober housing where people can live after they get out of treatment in an environment that supports their recovery. We don’t have much of that.”

Advice for her successor

When asked what advice she had for incoming Councilmember Dionne Foster, Nelson focused on the treatment resources she secured.

“There are a lot of resources that I was able to get into the budget this past season, the past budget deliberations for 2026, for treatment, for rehab, for methadone and buprenorphine. And I want to make sure that she takes advantage of it,” Nelson said.

She urged Foster to maintain the policy of “resolving encampments” through outreach and shelter offers.

“We’re not talking about sweeps. Just that very word is politicized, because what we’ve been doing for the past four years is resolving encampments by offering shelter, places for people to go. And that is, that’s always been the policy priority,” she said.

Nelson said continuing this approach is essential.

“We have to keep that up because, as I said, it’s not fair to the people that are living outside. If we don’t do that, we’re basically giving up and complicit in increasing numbers of people who are suffering from substance abuse disorder, victims of violence in encampments, et cetera,” she said.

Economic impact

Nelson also noted the economic consequences of visible homelessness and drug use. Microsoft moved its Build conference out of Seattle, citing open drug use around the convention center as one reason. With a new encampment growing near the Space Needle, one of Seattle’s premier tourist destinations, Nelson said the city is moving in the wrong direction.

“That is not helpful. That is going backwards, and that’s what I campaigned against,” Nelson said.

She said she hopes for good faith from the incoming Wilson administration.

“I really, really hope that with this change of administration, we don’t go backwards to just being numb to what’s going on around us,” Nelson said. “I have to assume good faith in the incoming administration that they care about the people that are living like this. We cannot just turn our backs on these people.”

With just weeks remaining in office, Nelson is working on final legislation, including ethics reforms for city consultants who work on policy or political issues like ballot measures, while saying “a lot of goodbyes.”

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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