Wasn’t it alleged to get higher?
It’s been practically a yr since Seattle City Hall agonizingly passed an ordinance making open drug consumption a misdemeanor, and the blocks round Third Avenue and Pike Road are simply as horrible as they’ve at all times been, maybe worse.
“I’ve seen many cycles within the lifetime of this road, however I’ve by no means seen or felt this a lot despair,” stated a girl who has lived within the space for 41 years. She spoke throughout the public remark interval at a Metropolis Council assembly this week.
“Whether or not for lack of coverage or enforcement, the Third and Pike-Pine hall has grow to be the area’s largest open-air drug market and residential for sellers, fencers, carriers and tons of of individuals capturing up in doorways and handed out on sidewalks surrounded by the stench of urine.”
She continued: “Nobody has accountability for Third Avenue, and it reveals.”
Amid this apparent, ongoing, slow-moving disaster, a Seattle City Auditor’s report earlier this month made an astonishing statement: “The Metropolis doesn’t at the moment have a system for coordinating all of the Metropolis departments, Metropolis-funded applications, and different authorities companies centered on overdose prevention and crime prevention at places the place these occasions are concentrated.”
The auditor advisable that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s workplace title a “undertaking champion” to coordinate all of the completely different efforts and implement “place-based problem-solving.”
Say what?
How is it attainable that the Mayor’s Workplace doesn’t have already got such a champion?
Seattle police and fireplace division knowledge present that there have been 352 overdoses and incidents of crime on simply three blocks alongside Pike Road from July 2022 to July 2023. On the encircling downtown streets, there have been greater than 1,000 such incidents in the identical interval.
In the case of imposing public drug consumption legal guidelines, Seattle police are instructed to information violators to drug therapy. Those that refuse to take part are then referred to the Metropolis Legal professional’s Workplace for misdemeanor prosecution.
Thus far, simply 252 circumstances have been despatched to the Metropolis Legal professional’s Workplace for the reason that legislation went into impact final October. The workplace declined 114 of them. A spokesperson stated there was no main cause why practically half of those circumstances by no means moved ahead.
If Seattleites have been anticipating extra constant and vigorous legislation enforcement after making public drug use unlawful, they should be sorely upset.
A part of the town’s technique has been to contract with outreach organizations resembling We Ship Care to have a presence within the space and join folks to housing. However a big a part of the job of its road ambassadors, in keeping with We Ship Care officers who spoke at a latest council briefing, is to de-escalate battle.
We Ship Care engaged with 4,083 folks from January 2023 to Might 2024 — over 90% have been residing unsheltered. In that point, it documented 261 “de-escalations” and 151 overdose reversals. It made 116 housing referrals, and 51 folks moved into everlasting housing.
Alongside Third Avenue from Virginia to Battery streets, 10 of 11 deadly overdoses occurred in or exterior of the three everlasting supportive housing buildings there. Because the auditor concluded: “Though housing is crucial for addressing homelessness, new analysis means that housing alone doesn’t sufficiently deal with overdose danger.”
How We Ship Care operates with different outreach teams is an open query, as is the group’s general effectiveness. With a scarcity of different choices, it could be one of the best the town can do to maintain issues from devolving into complete anarchy. However We Ship Care is clearly failing on certainly one of its key targets: “We intention to create a visual impression between Stewart and College on Third Ave.”
If something, the road life grows extra disturbing by the day.
“We are able to have a thriving and vibrant downtown or we are able to have an open fentanyl market — however we can not have each,” stated Jon Scholes, president of the Downtown Seattle Affiliation, after the auditor’s report was launched.
For its half, the Mayor’s Workplace concurred with the auditor’s advice to create a “undertaking champion” to supervise the town’s efforts on overdoses and crime.
Seattle residents ought to maintain Harrell’s toes to the hearth on this.
Downtown has at all times had its challenges. However a scattershot, disconnected, inconsistent response leaves the Mayor’s Workplace open to expenses that it isn’t sufficiently engaged and centered.
If confidence is to be restored, that impression should be shortly banished, and tangible progress forthcoming.