I'm Homeless. And I Vote.

The author. Allen Benson

I am homeless. I also scored above the 99th percentile on the SAT, attended Washington State University's Honors Program, raised five children, and built a successful remodeling business that was crushed when the financial industry's loan scandal blew up our economy in 2008. I currently live in a clean and sober shelter operated by Congregations for the Homeless (CFH) on the Eastside. I also vote.

After last week’s mayoral debate between Jenny Durkan and Cary Moon, I was not impressed. The candidates sparred over funding to fight homelessness, argued over unsanctioned tent encampments, and tossed zoning policy about as if that will solve the problem. But I heard nothing that remotely came close to addressing the root causes of homelessness.

Homelessness is simple. No money equals no home. How one becomes homeless, and how we get stuck there, is a far more complex issue. Each path into homelessness is unique, and contrary to popular belief, laziness has nothing to do with it. I have met quite a few former Microsoft employees, dozens of once successful business owners and entrepreneurs, and a plethora of longtime union members on the streets. These people aren’t lazy. There are many roads that lead to sleeping in alleys, under bushes, or in tents: insurmountable medical bills, PTSD, bankruptcies, divorces, substance abuse, alcoholism, and a myriad of mental health issues are all among the major root causes of homelessness. So is economic collapse, which is brought on by greedy people pushing the moral, ethical, and legal boundaries for their own short-term gain, as we saw in the 2008 financial collapse.

At last week's debate, both Durkan and Moon avoided making any concrete proposals to actually DO anything about homelessness. They danced around the issue, fencing over bureaucratic minutiae and trying to avoid political landmines. The saddest part about the whole pathetic dog-and-pony show is that there are solid, proven ways of helping people to get out of the homeless merry-go-round. People in underfunded organizations like CFH and the YWCA are making it happen daily. If you need a job, they help you surmount the barriers to getting and keeping one. They open doors and provide access to education, safe and sane housing, medical care, and job training. There are as many paths out of homelessness as there are into it. So what's the problem? Why ain't it gone?

The answers to these questions are two-fold: public perception and funding. Most people—often those with the loudest voices—believe that we are homeless through our own doing. They think we are a bunch of lazy drunks and drug addicts. Another myth is that we are all thieves, burglars, drug dealers, child molesters, and rapists. This is patently false. Still, people don’t want us in their neighbors and backyards, arguing that our presence leads to a decline in property values. (Really? So your property values are more important than helping people to become productive members of society again?)

People also argue that homelessness increases crime. But not long ago, at a public informational meeting to discuss a permanent shelter, the Bellevue Chief of Police said unequivocally that their own crime statistics made it quite clear that crime rates actually declined in the areas around CFH shelters. And as the shelters move each month, this is clearly not an anomaly.

Along with changing the public perception of homelessness, our politicians should discuss funding a comprehensive strategy to eliminate it. Yes, housing affordability, living wages, and a flexible rainbow of effective programs must be addressed as well, but without a tactical plan that attacks the root of homelessness on every critical front, bantering back and forth about these issues is just baiting electoral hooks to reel in votes.

There was one moment during last Tuesday’s debate that made me perk up: when Cary Moon was asked if people have a “right to shelter.” After a brief pause, Moon said yes. Currently, King County has 3,691 shelter beds, most of which are always occupied, at an annual cost of $20.6 million a year. As of King County's 2017's one-night census of the homeless, about 11,600 homeless people were counted, nearly half of them unsheltered. A “right to shelter” ordinance would require these people to be sheltered, but it would also, at the very least, double the cost to the taxpayers. And that’s just for providing shelter, not including programs that help homeless people find permanent housing and employment. In New York City, where there has been a “right to shelter” ordinance since 1979, shelters often have slum-like conditions, with widespread disrepair and rampant crime. When people can’t be housed in shelters, they are housed in hotels.

From my perspective both in and outside this system, Cary Moon is right: We do need a “right to shelter." But we also need additional shelter construction, more funding, and—most importantly— a more informed public, who knows that that moving people out of homelessness is ultimately beneficial to both our city, our neighborhoods, and our people. It’s good for all of us.

Solutions exist. There is plenty of money out there to put together a funding package. What is needed the political will to recognize that the biggest obstacle to solving the “problem” of homelessness is an uninformed public perception. I am not the voice of homelessness, but I am in the choir.