{"id":278100,"date":"2010-02-04T17:04:18","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T22:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010985318_annualhomelesscount.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-02-04T17:04:18","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T22:04:18","slug":"annual-homeless-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/278100","title":{"rendered":"Annual homeless count"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amid count, city steps up sweeps of homeless<\/strong><\/p>\n

Officials for the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness claim that \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is working.\u201d That was exactly what they said last year when there was an increase of 196 unsheltered people counted in King County since 2008\u2019s count. Almost five years into the 10-Year Plan, we have not made up the housing units lost since the start of the plan. Next year the plan will also be \u201cworking,\u201d no matter what the count is and no matter how much housing is or is not available.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a little perspective regarding Seattle\u2019s count in particular. This year, Seattle learned to do green-area sweeps only days before the count and the city also learned to step up the ticketing of cars and trucks \u2014 the homes of many homeless \u2014 to get them off the streets. The resultant effect was noted by counters who live in the neighborhoods they counted, who spoke of the absence of cars and camps they\u2019d seen recently.<\/p>\n

Last year the number of people counted in cars or trucks in Seattle was 513; This year the figure was 590. The totals in Seattle\u2019s parks and bushes\/undergrowth was 102 in 2009 but 173 in 2010.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unknown how different the count would have been if the city hadn\u2019t very recently banned the cars and [hadn\u2019t] swept the camps. It\u2019s also unknown where those people went, but it\u2019s entirely possible they went deeper into the areas we don\u2019t count, thus causing the count to be even less accurate than the \u201csnapshot in time\u201d it is purported to be.<\/p>\n

The sweeps are working, unlike the plan.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Sally Kinney, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid count, city steps up sweeps of homeless Officials for the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness claim that \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is working.\u201d That was exactly what they said last year when there was an increase of 196 unsheltered people counted in King County since 2008\u2019s count. Almost five years into the 10-Year Plan, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}