Talking about Homelessness

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Bieze Appeal withdrawn circa 6/11/19

Gerald Bieze withdrew his appeal of the City's decision to allow the Union Gospel Mission's proposed modification to the Conditional Use Permit and Zone Change for the new Men's Mission on NE Commercial Street NE (700-800 block) this week.

The Bieze appeal, like the Glennie appeal before it, was concerned with "likely adverse impacts" of the new mission on adjacent property owners, and, like the Glennie appeal, it was a loser.  Good for everyone that it was withdrawn.  But, no one should make the mistake of thinking this signals anyone's learned anything.

In April, almost a year after Glennie lost his "likely adverse impacts" appeal to City Council, he sent a mass email to his fellow downtown property owner buddies with a link to the KOMO polemic, "Seattle is Dying", saying it had been "many months since I’ve offered anything relating to the UGM mega-shelter."  

Glennie told his friends the show was "very much worth your time", as it was "[b]alanced, thoughtful and offering pragmatic solutions."

He also said that it "[o]ught to be mandatory viewing for City Council and management staff", suggesting that they were "oblivious the damage caused by refusing to enforce existing statutes."

We wrote Glennie, and asked him what in his mind was the connection between the "Seattle is Dying" video and the new Men's Mission, and what did he think were the "pragmatic solutions" the City should be implementing?  He replied with several assertions, none of which was responsive, followed by a rehash of his unsuccessful arguments on appeal.  After a week's correspondence, we were able to identify Glennie's primary concern as "the 20-30% of the chronic homeless population'...[who] commit crimes, and are likely to be suffering addiction issues."  Glennie believes that "based on what was represented in ["Seattle is Dying"], money spent on incarceration and the M[edicated]A[ssistance]T[reatment] program appears to be money better spent than the other alternatives that have tried and failed."  He stopped short, however, of advocating for the adoption of "section 35" type laws like Massachusetts', featured in the video.  See, Wood, J. "Massachusetts' contentious tactic to fight opioid epidemic: jailing addicts."  (23 April 2019, The Guardian.)

The "Seattle is Dying" video is, of course, not in the slightest "balanced, thoughtful [or] pragmatic."  See, e.g,  "DRW's AVID Program Responds to KOMO's 'Seattle is Dying'" and Hill, K. "'Seattle is Dying' prompts political response to homelessness in Spokane."  (31 March 2019, The Spokesman Review.)  But, despite its being roundly criticized and debunked (Disability Rights Washington called it "sensational, inaccurate and exploitative"), it resonates with people who, like David Glennie, experience property crime and "unsafe" public places, and conclude the problem is lax law enforcement.

Some segments of the population, Eric Johnson (author of "Seattle is Dying") included, have long seen law enforcement as the ultimate bulwark against petty anti-social behavior of the sort perpetrated by some chronically homeless individuals.  Upstanding citizens themselves, they tend to view modern law enforcement's adoption of a "harm reduction" approach to "quality of life" crimes as misguided "political correctness."  They tend to believe zero-tolerance, "broken-windows" policing is what's called for, and they haven't tried to wrestle with the resource and other issues that led law enforcement to change its approach.  "Fix it", they tend to say.  "I shouldn't have to deal with this."

Ultimately, the philosophical and practical divide between "harm-reduction" and "broken-windows" policing gets cast as a political left-right, liberal-conservative divide, with the crisis of homelessness falling into what Johnathan Martin (Seattle Times "Homeless Project" editor) calls the "mushy middle." 

Public conversations about homelessness, we've observed, tend to take place in this "mushy middle", and get bogged down with emotion and personal anecdote, wherein "the rights" of people experiencing homelessness are consistently pitted against "the rights" of the rest of society not to be affected by their experience, and the guilty speak of choice, and caution against "enabling."  "Not in my front yard", as they say in San Fran.

If Salem is to make progress in this area, public conversations about homelessness will need to avoid that "mushy middle."  Settling on the most humane, most effective methods for ending homelessness needn't involve "progressive" versus  "conservative" politics, but it does require, as a starting point, a commitment to principles of harm reduction, which does not equate to lax law enforcement.  If that's a hard concept for you or someone you talk to, consider the what Sgt. (now Lt.) Jason VanMeter of the Salem Police Department told the Salem Homeless Coalition in February 2016: 

We as a community need to embrace the Harm Reduction Model which is successful in Seattle. The Harm Reduction model meets people where they are.  This enables us to supervise and manage illicit behavior versus a zero tolerance model. The best example is the mission and shelters in Seattle allow their people to drink and smoke in the shelter, because it's better to supervise and manage the inevitable versus kicking them onto the street where I get called by business owner to deal with them.

Concept two -- Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion. (LEAD). This is what  I'm passionate about, pre-booking access to social services. Instead of taking people to jail I can call a case manager that meets me on the street and takes it from there, this program is a collaborative effort between prosecutors, defense attorneys, social service workers, and medical professionals (people with letters behind their name). If some one is admitted to LEAD and relapses, applying the harm reduction model, we just get them more help versus a stiffer sentence.  Unlike current programs where if a person has a dirty UA they are kicked out of the program. Doesn't make sense. 

Harm reduction is a less expensive model -- art-a-johns for example, we know people will urinate and defecate in public without public access restrooms. I'd rather meet them where they are at, versus legalizing urinating in public, defecating in public, and trespassing. I've spent several years living in Africa and the Middle East and I want that behavior regulated in the US because it's not pleasant when it is not.  It lacks depth of solution when it comes to mental health and chemical dependency. Housing as we know is the key, not a shelter, housing (transitional and permanent).

Harm reduction equals tiny town or legal camping areas. Having been an infantry Marine on multiple combat deployments I assure you a large tent with sections for privacy can soon become a welcome home.  A place to live and store things, this is a harm reduction tactic that eliminates the need to adjust laws or take tools away from police and business owners.

As far as the shelters, allowing beer contributing to relapse, let's just say there is no lack of meth and heroin in the shelters right now. It's well known on the street.  I get dope off a majority of my custodys.  Beer is the least of our community worries. However, getting stores to stop selling high gravity malt beer would be a great start.  It's a soft balance between treatment, tolerance, realistic expectations, and our desired end state.

    

In a couple of weeks, the Urban Development Department will reconvene a portion of the Downtown Homeless Solutions Task Force (DHSTF) (Cara Kaser, Salem City Council; Neal Kern, CANDO; Kevin Hill, SPD; Nicole Utz, SHA; Dan Clem, UGM; Paul Logan, NWHS, Ashley Hamilton, The ARCHES Project; Tom Hoffert, Salem Area Chamber; and a rep from the Salem Main Street Association) for "ongoing coordination and collaboration on homeless issues in follow-up to the Downtown Homeless Solutions Task Force", and meet quarterly thereafter.  The DHSTF last met on August 8, 2018.  For more about their work, and to see where they left off, see the list of topics below under "CANDO Archive task forces."

CANDO's Michael Livingston with Sgts Hill and VanMeter, October 2016