SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Homeless here for weed shouldn’t get our tax dollars
Jan 26, 2015, 11:26 AM | Updated: 1:14 pm
Dori Monson says the numbers of homeless are up because our state legalized pot. He wonders if in that case we should be rushing to give them more resources. (AP Photo/John D McHugh)
(AP Photo/John D McHugh)
Taken from The Dori Monson Show on KIRO Radio.
People want more of your money to help with an exploding homeless population in King County.
A one night count of homeless across King County found the number of homeless up 21 percent over last year.
Teams from the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness found 3,772 people on the streets last Friday, says coalition director Alison Eisigner.
Related: Homeless count increases by over 20 percent in King County
Here’s what one of the volunteers had to say about the count to KING 5:
“We are really documenting and bearing witness to the scope of homelessness in our community and the unmet need that we strongly believe must be met with more shelter, affordable housing, and services for our neighbors who are spending tonight cold and wet and scared.”
In other words, they want more of your money for more shelters. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray says he wants three more tent cities. They want to provide Wi-Fi in those tent cities. They want more shelters, and all of this would come on the back of the taxpayers.
We all have compassion for those who are homeless through no fault of their own. But the reason the homeless population has increased so dramatically here in King County is because we have legalized marijuana.
I am not using that as hyperbole. A news report citing a similar increase of homeless in Denver says they’ve found homeless people who report they moved to the area because of the state’s stance on marijuana.
According to the report, a shelter did an informal survey of the roughly 500 new out-of-towners who stayed there between July and September and reportedly found as many as 30 percent had relocated for pot.
We’ve passed laws that have encouraged the losers in our society to come here and then we say we need more tax dollars to pay for shelters, to pay for tent cities, to pay for Wi-Fi for people who are on the streets because marijuana is the most important thing in their life.
We see that the more you attract people who just want to smoke weed all day, the more the homeless population goes up. That is why homeless numbers are up so far and so fast. And with an increase in the homeless population, the solution always is more tax dollars.
But maybe that portion of the population doesn’t need more of our tax dollars. Let’s help the truly needy. Let’s help the people who are on the streets through no fault of their own, not the people who have chosen to give their life over to smoking weed.
Taken from The Dori Monson Show on KIRO Radio.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
JS
