Wasn’t it alleged to get higher?
It’s been almost a 12 months since Seattle City Hall agonizingly passed an ordinance making open drug consumption a misdemeanor, and the blocks round Third Avenue and Pike Avenue are simply as horrible as they’ve at all times been, maybe worse.
“I’ve seen many cycles within the lifetime of this avenue, however I’ve by no means seen or felt this a lot despair,” mentioned a girl who has lived within the space for 41 years. She spoke through 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 turn into the area’s largest open-air drug market and residential for sellers, fencers, carriers and a whole bunch 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 exhibits.”
Amid this apparent, ongoing, slow-moving disaster, a Seattle City Auditor’s report earlier this month made an astonishing commentary: “The Metropolis doesn’t at present have a system for coordinating all of the Metropolis departments, Metropolis-funded packages, and different authorities businesses targeted on overdose prevention and crime prevention at areas the place these occasions are concentrated.”
The auditor really helpful that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s workplace identify 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 information present that there have been 352 overdoses and incidents of crime on simply three blocks alongside Pike Avenue from July 2022 to July 2023. On the encompassing downtown streets, there have been greater than 1,000 such incidents in the identical interval.
In terms of implementing public drug consumption legal guidelines, Seattle police are instructed to information violators to drug remedy. Those that refuse to take part are then referred to the Metropolis Lawyer’s Workplace for misdemeanor prosecution.
Up to now, simply 252 instances have been despatched to the Metropolis Lawyer’s Workplace for the reason that regulation went into impact final October. The workplace declined 114 of them. A spokesperson mentioned there was no major purpose why almost half of those instances by no means moved ahead.
If Seattleites had been anticipating extra constant and vigorous regulation enforcement after making public drug use unlawful, they should be sorely upset.
A part of town’s technique has been to contract with outreach organizations reminiscent of We Ship Care to have a presence within the space and join individuals to housing. However a big a part of the job of its avenue ambassadors, based on We Ship Care officers who spoke at a latest council briefing, is to de-escalate battle.
We Ship Care engaged with 4,083 individuals from January 2023 to Could 2024 — over 90% had been dwelling unsheltered. In that point, it documented 261 “de-escalations” and 151 overdose reversals. It made 116 housing referrals, and 51 individuals 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 important for addressing homelessness, new analysis means that housing alone doesn’t sufficiently tackle overdose threat.”
How We Ship Care operates with different outreach teams is an open query, as is the group’s total effectiveness. With a scarcity of different choices, it could be the most effective town can do to maintain issues from devolving into complete anarchy. However We Ship Care is clearly failing on considered one of its key objectives: “We purpose to create a visual affect between Stewart and College on Third Ave.”
If something, the road life grows extra disturbing by the day.
“We will have a thriving and vibrant downtown or we will have an open fentanyl market — however we can’t have each,” mentioned 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 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 fees that it isn’t sufficiently engaged and targeted.
If confidence is to be restored, that impression should be rapidly banished, and tangible progress forthcoming.
