Seattle and the Puget Sound is a beautiful place but horrible place to live. They have an absolutely useless government that has no idea how to solve any of their problems. So they end up with stuff like this.
I lived in capitol hill for a decade, 3 blocks from CHAZ, and recently moved a mile away. The city is not even remotely overrun with homelessness.
Sure, there are people without homes. Do they seriously impact the lifestyle of others? Hardly at all.
This characterization of the Puget Sound feels way out of touch to me. It's a wonderful place to live.
Sure it's not "overrun," but there are a lot of them, and not enough jobs or affordable housing.
People complained about homeless people coming into the city for the benefits and I thought that was just a myth the Amazon employees would spew, but I talked to a social worker who told me that's true and that her office dealt with a lot of people who came to Seattle because of their programs and benefits.
I occasionally saw a homeless person, but that was about the worst of it. And I was out on the town a lot. Oh my car got broken into once as well. Once in 11 years.
I never had any bad interactions with them I guess, but I broke my heart to see that many of them, especially in the downtown areas and further out towards the Interstate and underpasses.
I dunno, maybe I'm too sensitive, but it broke my heart. It's one of the many reasons I left Seattle.
Consider: if you don’t see homeless people, it might not be because there’s less homelessness. It might just be that they were driven out.