Deploy a range of strategies including Tiny House Villages, partnerships with faith communities, municipal rent vouchers, and rapid acquisition of buildings that will provide deep behavioral health support for people who are currently cycling through the criminal justice system.

Drug addiction, and especially the explosion of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, has severely worsened conditions on the streets. The City’s response must be commensurate. Solving this crisis will require both deeper investments and better coordination between City departments, agencies, service providers, and jurisdictions: Deepen investments in opioid treatment programs, innovations in methamphetamine treatment, mobile treatment services, substance use disorder counseling, recovery housing, and evidence-based low-barrier shelter with intensive case management. Invest in 24/7 on-site care teams for enhanced shelter and supportive housing. Too often, residents must travel off-site and across town for substance use disorder and behavioral health treatment, greatly increasing the likelihood of relapse, health and safety problems, and evictions. Having health professionals with prescribing ability on-site can greatly alleviate these problems. Streamline contracting and leasing authority for behavioral health and shelter programs that support opioid treatment objectives. This will empower the City to rapidly respond to the fentanyl crisis by standing up new shelter sites, behavioral health beds, and service contracts for substance use disorder specialists.

Incumbent mayor Bruce Harrell claims that his “Unified Care Team” connects homeless people with shelter and services, but in fact it chases them around the city — at great expense to all of us. We can do better. During the COVID emergency, after months of local government inaction, the JustCARE partnership came together to effectively resolve the large encampments that formed in Pioneer Square, the Chinatown-International District and the downtown core by providing shelter that actually worked for those living on the streets. This successful and widely supported model was forced to wind down when COVID relief funding ended, and Harrell’s administration has not prioritized re-establishing it. Indeed, Harrell stood by while the state’s version of JustCARE, which resolved encampments on state property all around Seattle, ran out of money this spring. I will restore and scale up that model.

Next year, federal funding will run out for 1,300 emergency housing vouchers that have kept formerly-homeless Seattle and King County residents housed since 2021. Many of these people have disabilities and other challenges that require ongoing support. If we let this successful program die, the vast majority will return to homelessness. To keep these Seattle residents in their homes, the City should develop a local deep housing subsidy that can pick up where the emergency housing vouchers cut off. We must also stabilize the affordable housing sector, which is facing unprecedented strains. Far too many people in low-income and supportive housing are being evicted due to rental debt or behavioral health issues, and they are landing back on the street. Housing nonprofits are in a financial free fall, and some have started selling off buildings to make up the loss, which constitutes a permanent loss to the City’s affordable housing stock. I will create a housing stabilization fund to ensure that the sector remains financially viable while we address the underlying causes of evictions. I will work with affordable housing providers and other stakeholders to create an Eviction Prevention Initiative to close this revolving door back into homelessness, without stranding housing providers without solutions.