This article is disingenuous at best. I don’t support the war on drugs, but Seattle’s handling of the situation isn’t close to a model for other cities. As someone who lived here all my life, it’s been a complete disaster. I’m frankly really disappointed in the NYTimes for publishing this garbage.
He doesn’t go into the negatives of what the policies in Seattle has done to the city until so far later in the article. The local officials are very lax on drug use, homelessness.
We have entire tent cities. Petty crime is pretty high. The police won’t bother to respond if you report a car break in, for example. There’s trash littered on practically any street that has tents. Some of these folks are addicts and some aren’t but to say Seattle has solved this problem - you mean we just ignore laws and allow anyone to do whatever they want. Repeat criminal who was arrested last week? Here, we’ll keep you for an hour maybe and you’ll definitely be out by tomorrow.
I’m not advocating jailing all drug use so private prisons get rich, but Seattle’s extreme leftist take on pretending like the problem hasn’t been a disaster for the city is just absurd.
If you think the west coast has insane policies, then you should really try living elsewhere for a bit of perspective.
I've lived in WA, CA, VA and TX. No state has sane policies and the more I've moved, the more I've realized this. WA still ranks at the top of my list for states to live in.
Noted! Though I've lived in NYC before, and I think it has, at a glance, pretty sane policies for a giant diverse city (though I could be totally wrong!). It felt a lot safer there than it does in SF on a day-to-day basis. That's where I was planning on going.
Why can't this person be a serice worker, a gig worker or a white collar worker? What about living in a camper with a generator tells you this person is "a drug dealer, fence or pimp"? Are there not other explanations other than labeling this person/these people as groups you do not like?
Since his camp was isolated (not in a tent city) I figured he would have to stick around all day to prevent the theft of things like his generator. Or, maybe homeless don't steal from each other?
Also, I guess he could be a remote SWE for google or something like that.
He doesn’t go into the negatives of what the policies in Seattle has done to the city until so far later in the article. The local officials are very lax on drug use, homelessness.
We have entire tent cities. Petty crime is pretty high. The police won’t bother to respond if you report a car break in, for example. There’s trash littered on practically any street that has tents. Some of these folks are addicts and some aren’t but to say Seattle has solved this problem - you mean we just ignore laws and allow anyone to do whatever they want. Repeat criminal who was arrested last week? Here, we’ll keep you for an hour maybe and you’ll definitely be out by tomorrow.
I’m not advocating jailing all drug use so private prisons get rich, but Seattle’s extreme leftist take on pretending like the problem hasn’t been a disaster for the city is just absurd.