homelessness | Page 8 | Discovery Institute

^{Christopher Rufo
June 13, 2019
Economics}

An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis

_{Christopher Rufo
June 13, 2019
Economics}

By latest count, some 109,089 men and women are sleeping on the streets of major cities in California, Oregon, and Washington. The homelessness crisis in these cities has generated headlines and speculation about “root causes.” Progressive political activists allege that tech companies have inflated housing costs and forced middle-class people onto the streets. Declaring that “no two people living on Skid Row . . . ended up there for the same reasons,” Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, for his part, blames a housing shortage, stagnant wages, cuts to mental health services, domestic and sexual abuse, shortcomings in criminal justice, and a lack of resources for veterans. These factors may all have played a role, but the most pervasive cause of West Coast homelessness is clear: heroin, fentanyl, and synthetic opioids. Read More ›

^{Christopher Rufo
April 16, 2019
Economics}

Seattle’s Revolt of the Elites

_{Christopher Rufo
April 16, 2019
Economics}

In Seattle, people are losing patience with city leadership over the homelessness crisis, but the frustration is running in both directions: the city’s political, cultural, and academic elites are conducting their own revolt — against the people.

Since the release of Eric Johnson’s documentary Seattle Is Dying, which depicts an epidemic of street homelessness, addiction, crime, and disorder, city elites have launched a coordinated information campaign targeted at voters frustrated with the city’s response to homelessness. Earlier this month, leaked documents revealed that a group of prominent nonprofits — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Campion Advocacy Fund, the Raikes Foundation, and the Ballmer Group — hired a PR firm, Pyramid Communications, to conduct polling, create messaging, and disseminate the resulting content through a network of silent partners in academia, the press, government, and the nonprofit sector. The campaign, #SeattleForAll, is a case study in what writer James Lindsay calls “idea laundering” — creating misinformation and legitimizing it as objective truth through repetition in sympathetic media.

A Brewing Rebellion in the Emerald City

_{Christopher Rufo
April 2, 2019
Economics}

For the past five years, like many of its West Coast counterparts, Seattle has endured a steady expansion of homelessness, addiction, mental illness, crime, and street disorder. But the activist class—a political and cultural elite comprising leaders in government, nonprofits, philanthropy, and media—has enforced a strict taboo on declaring the obvious: something is terribly wrong in the Emerald City. Last month, veteran Seattle reporter Eric Johnson of KOMO violated that taboo with a shocking, hour-long documentary called Seattle is Dying, which revealed how the city has allowed a small subset of the homeless population—drug-addicted and mentally-ill criminals—to wreak havoc. Johnson’s portrait is backed up by evidence from King County homelessness data, by city attorney candidate Scott Lindsay’s “prolific offender” report on 100 homeless individuals responsible for more than 3,500 criminal cases, and by my own reporting on the homelessness crisis. Read More ›

^{Christopher Rufo
March 11, 2019
Economics}

When “Compassion” is Contempt

_{Christopher Rufo
March 11, 2019
Economics}

The Washington legislature is one step closer to legalizing homeless encampments statewide. Last week, Democratic lawmakers passed through committee legislation, introduced by Representative Mia Gregerson, that would usurp the authority of city governments and legalize camping in all “plazas, courtyards, parking lots, sidewalks, public transportation facilities, public buildings, shopping centers, parks, [and] natural and wildlife areas” throughout the state. Read More ›

^{Christopher Rufo
October 16, 2018
Economics}

The Politics of Ruinous Compassion

_{Christopher Rufo
October 16, 2018
Economics}

Abstract: The City of Seattle has failed to address its current homelessness crisis. In fact, because of ideological capture and poor public policy, the city has created a system of perverse incentives that has only made the problem worse. In order to truly confront the problem of homelessness, the city’s leadership must embrace a policy of realism: dismantle the system of perverse incentives, quickly build emergency shelter, and enforce the law against public camping and drug use. Ultimately, the city currently has enough resources to solve the crisis—it needs to summon the political courage to make the right choices. Read More ›

^{Kathryn Jean Lopez
August 22, 2007
Religion and Civic Life}

Seattle Needs Grace

_{Kathryn Jean Lopez
August 22, 2007
Religion and Civic Life}

This article, published by National Review, contains an interview with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer: David Klinghoffer is worried about the atmosphere of secularism that rains down like nuclear fallout, spreading contamination and offers the Ten Commandments as a desperately needed diagnostic tool to combat it. The rest of the article can be found here.