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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

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In Our View: A Matter Of Civility

While homelessness can never be wiped out, there is a moral obligation to fight it

The Columbian
Published:

All too often, the issue of homelessness becomes mired in a circular argument. Regardless of how much time and money is spent addressing the problem, there always is a need for more time and money.

Homelessness, for a variety of reasons, will never be eradicated. But because of the social, economic and quality-of-life costs the issue creates for a city, efforts must be made to minimize its prevalence. And because of a moral imperative to provide as much human dignity as possible to others, ignoring the homeless is not a viable option.

Those notions must remain the foundational thinking as Clark County reconfigures how it addresses homelessness. An overhauled plan providing a road map for the county and its partner organizations has been unveiled and soon will be presented to the county council for approval. The plan examines goals for a three-year time frame, rather than the previous 10-year period, and it focuses on families with children, the chronically homeless and unaccompanied youth. “We’ve addressed these groups before, but we’re calling them out specifically to try to reduce homelessness,” said Peter Munroe, manager of Clark County’s Community Development Block Grant program.

In so doing, local officials would be wise to heed the lessons provided by Seattle. As the nation’s fastest-growing metropolis, Seattle has provided an abject lesson in how to deal with homelessness. Since instituting a 10-year plan formulated in 2004 by a private-public partnership called Committee to End Homelessness, about $1 billion has been spent in the city addressing the issue. The impact, it could be argued, has been disappointing. As NPR reported earlier this month, Seattle has “seen its ranks of homeless surge over the past decade. More people are now homeless in Seattle than anywhere except New York City, Los Angeles or Las Vegas.”

For Seattle, a city of great wealth and a booming economy, one of the primary issues is a lack of affordable housing. As homeless veteran Gary Eyerly explained to NPR, “They need to quit trying to charge $1,300 for a 400-square-foot studio. It’s the Seattle gold rush. Go buy an old apartment building, put some new paint on it, triple the rent: ‘Wow, I’m a millionaire.’ ” And, as Vince Matulionis, director of ending homelessness for United Way of King County, said: “Rich, poor and otherwise, we attract a lot of people here. A lot of people get here and find that they struggle with the cost of living and the cost of housing.”

The issues in Clark County are dissimilar to that of a large city, but some of the underlying causes of homelessness are universal. Affordable housing is an issue in any urban setting, and mental health care typically is crucial in combating the issue. Perhaps most important is the ability of government and private service providers to react to changes in the population. Andy Silver, executive director of the Council for the Homeless, said of Clark County’s new proposal: “What we wanted to do with this plan is identify what steps right now people could engage in to try to respond to that crisis. Let’s be action-oriented. Let’s have short time frames.”

According to last year’s one-day homeless count, 217 people were living outside in Clark County, and another 227 were living in emergency shelters. While it would be unrealistic to suggest those numbers could ever dwindle to zero, it is necessary to take a holistic and intelligent approach to reducing them. That, simply, is what civilized societies do.

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