Maybe it’s time for the Seattle Mayor to get himself a mentor, former homeless person says

Huffington Post writer Carolyn Ossorio knows what it’s like to be homeless as a child in Seattle. She told KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don that the worst thing leaders can do is not have a plan. She says it might be time for Seattle Mayor Ed Murray to find a mentor on homelessness.

“We need to go back to the drawing board,” Ossorio said. “That’s what really good leaders do. They look at what works, they look at what doesn’t work – they talk to people who don’t agree with them, they talk to people who do agree with them. And that is what we’re missing: We need leadership.”

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Ossorio wrote about her experience as a homeless child in Seattle and how leaders focusing on what the “Jungle” homeless encampment is called, rather than solving the problems, has created a “Spinal Tap” kind of reality in the city.

Ossorio said it’s important for people to realize that homeless people are “not just a bunch of losers” and described the difficulties of always being at the mercy of people in positions of power.

“You just hope you get somebody who cares,” she said. “And if you don’t… “

Don O’Neill noted that the homeless issue is a multi-faceted and difficult issue with no concrete solutions. Mayor Ed Murray had a plan and money set aside to remove people from the Jungle and into assistance, but that plan fell apart when he left for China. Ossorio says the mayor and city council need to get their acts together.

“It’s almost like parents fighting or something,” she said. “The city is looking to you for leadership, let’s get it together.

“We are just reacting, not being proactive,” she added. “And that is so missing in that we need to have people who are thinking outside the box, to have these leaders come together in a room and say – we’re not going to leave here for 24 hours. We’re going to get some Top Pot donuts in here, we’re going to get some Starbucks, but we’re not leaving until we have a plan. We can all agree there is a problem and what we have now is not working.”

Ossorio credited Paul Allen for pushing the creative pace with his $1 million donation to help a Seattle nonprofit build a new community for homeless people out of shipping containers.

“This is a really innovative idea,” she said. “He is doing what the city has been unable to do, which is part of the reason the Jungle hasn’t worked.”

It’s that kind of thinking, Ossorio says, that Murray needs to learn from.

“The mayor maybe needs a mentor or something,” she said. “Where he can talk about how he really feels when he’s not having a press conference.”

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