In 2017, nearly 40 million tourists visited Seattle, spending more than $7 billion. However, this income is not immune to the growing homeless pandemic. Homeless encampments have sprung up next to tourist attractions, businesses, and populated downtown areas. Most visitors to the city are very surprised by the amount of homeless overtaking the city. “This is a tourist spot, I don’t know why the city would let this happen.” states Glen Commins, the father of a family who is visiting Seattle. His wife, Denise, also was astonished. “I just don’t understand. Isn’t it trespassing? How can they stay there, and the city puts up with it? If I camped in a public space, I would be arrested. And the smell is horrible.”
A recent documentary, Seattle is Dying, brought to light how misdemeanors have stopped being enforced in Seattle. Urinating on the streets or smoking a joint will not lead to anyone being arrested.
Before, you would be issued a civil infraction and a $27 fine for urinating in front of a store. A civility charge would become a criminal charge if you didn’t pay the fine. Now, civility cases are no longer filed; sleeping in parks, urinating in public, obstructing sidewalks, and failure to pay infractions will not be reprimanded. The police have stopped issuing tickets altogether because they feel like it’s pointless.
The lack of enforcement on the homeless and drug dealing population has directly affected local shops and restaurants, a strong source of Seattle’s revenue for tourists. Bob Donegan, the president of Ivar’s Restaurants, says that these are not acceptable circumstances for a major urban city. Shoplifters are stealing every day and costing stores millions of lost dollars. “The amount of money lost due to theft downtown is staggering. Unfortunately, the businesses take the hit and the person caught stealing rarely have to deal with any consequences.”
Karan Danenburg has run her boutique downtown for many years, but when she saw a man shooting heroin on the sidewalk, she decided she couldn’t take it anymore. She never thought she would want to leave Seattle, but her boutique was struggling to survive. She has since moved to Bellevue, which she claims is “calm, quiet, and none of that stuff is going on. It’s a joy being over here. I never thought I would be ready to leave but I was.” Her new boutique in Bellevue is thriving.
Uwajimaya, the shopping hub of the international district, has been hit by countless shoplifters. Denise Moriguchi, the CEO of Uwajimaya, thinks that the system is broken and is giving the shoplifters a sense of security that is causing them to be bolder. “They are bold when they get caught, and they don’t care, they just walk back in.” She called the police 599 times over a 19 month stretch. There were 599 reports of shoplifting at her store, and only 8 ended in some form of prosecution, mostly just because they involved assault.
There must be some sort of intervention to break the cycle or people will continue to do what they have been doing. The addict won’t quit because it has become too easy for them to use, and the dealer won’t quit as the consequences of getting caught are minimal. The Seattle police are just as frustrated with this situation as the civilians, shop owners, and tourists. One anonymous police officer implores the city government to “spend millions of dollars on mandatory inpatient treatment programs instead of making excuses for their addiction and crimes. The option should be treatment or jail, the cycle has to be intervened on or it will never end.”
The homeless population of Seattle have been living in squalor, filth and despair. They are stealing for money to feed their addictions for life ending drugs. The laws in Seattle have made it almost impossible to help improve the lives of these people or reprimand them for their detrimental actions. They need help, and they need more help than Seattle has been providing them.