Today’s updated vote count has just been released, one week after vote-counting began on Election Day. In the not-yet-settled Seattle mayoral race:
SEATTLE MAYOR
Katie Wilson – 137,217 – 50.08%
Bruce Harrell* – 135,871 – 49.59%
So far, 277,860 ballots (counting write-ins) have been counted in the mayor’s race, while King County Elections says it’s received 282,382 ballots from Seattle voters. That – 4,522 ballots uncounted.
bruce harrell has had 16 years (12 city council (4 as city council president) and 4 mayor) and has not done anything. why do you think that is going to change if the city gives him another 4 years.
Honestly the last four years felt (As an outsider) that Seattle was starting to trend in a more moderate direction…
The east side is calling you Mike. We’ll come visit when you get settled in. :)
Great news! A seasoned policy
advocate, well known in city hall for effective coalition building. She’ll do a
great job! Good riddance to the corrupt bully whose main goal is favors for his
rich buddies.
Woohoo! Thank you for being the most informed source on the internet with quick updates on this race! Keeping fingers crossed for Katie, and our city <3
Woohoo! Thank you for being the most informed, real-time source of data on the internet on this race! Fingers crossed for Katie, and our city <3
I await with baited breath the collective freakout of the boomer land-owning class in the comments. Wilson is a bit green but she’s a true believer in urban planning for the entire community and not beholden to the billionaires. Let’s give her a chance people. Mayors in this town rarely last more than a single term anyways. The voters have spoken!
What “billionaires” are controlling washington politicians? Most lists cite 8-12 billionaires in living in Washington, and none appear to have major connections to either mayoral candidates.
This is great news, very excited for a change. Sorry to all the Mike’s…
I’m a Mike and I voted Wilson! Thrilled to see the progressive swing!
If you voted for Wilson, do you honestly think that when businesses and the wealthy will pay here proposed taxes out of the goodness of their hearts? No – they’ll up and leave.Honestly feel politically homeless. I hate what is happening with MAGA nationally and what is happening with Democratic Socialism locally.The common thread, we’ve become laser focused on “affordability” i.e. people at the bottom of the economic ladder.As a white, male, homeowner, tech worker, I feel like I’ve become the real victim in today’s society.
Feelings aren’t facts. You are not a victim in this society.
Lol. Please, tell us more of your struggles. Really, we focus WAY too much on those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
As a white male homeowner at 35, Wilson voter, I feel so proud to live in a forward thinking city. Tax me more baby! Make this city great! Fund those link projects! Fund affordable housing so people less privileged can have summa this pie
We already pay some of the highest taxes in the city, and this is going to price more people out of their homes. Affordability would be lovely if property taxes were lowered and everyone would win. A lot of people are on the brink, and it does not help that our home payments have almost tripled due to property taxes. And we are going into a recession, not sure if you are paying attention to all the things….it is going to get rough as the current administration is running the economy into the ground. Plus coming from a privileged environment and still getting privilege via Mom & Dad paying for childcare, while her husband is unemployed…make it make sense….
I’d encourage anybody about to post something like this to pause and read it before hitting submit.
You can’t possibly be for real with this are you? Just take a step back and listen to yourself.
Speaking as a fellow white male homeowner tech worker, that sounds like a you problem. Businesses and the rich have been paying a lower and lower share of taxes for decades and it hasn’t helped me a bit.
I would encourage anyone reading this comment to be skeptical and use a bit of critical thinking to realize that there is a high probability this is satirical. Let’s explore the elements:
– Paraphrases Bari Weiss – “politically homeless”
– Refers to MAGA and the DSA (Katie Wilson is not a member of the DSA)
– Focusing on the affordability and the working poor is bad, actually
– Way too self-aware framing of the supposed writer as the most privileged member of society.
What are we even doing here, folks? Sure, a person like this could and probably does exist, but all this is just too obvious. Smells like some classic, slightly stale rage bait to me.
yes, won’t someone think of the white male tech working homeowners? oh, the humanity.
As a white male tech worker property owner who voted for Wilson please stop posting or just leave Seattle. As a tech worker you have the resources to get the mental healthcare necessary to address your delusional victim complex.
Katie’s Wilson’s endgame – FYI“I have a not-so-secret scheme to enlist the help of Amazon and its ilk in actually winning a progressive income tax one of these years. We just have to keep ratcheting up the big business taxes. Eventually they’ll realize that until they put their political muscle behind an income tax, they’re going to be the piggy banks.”https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/01/06/op-ed-washington-states-path-to-tax-the-rich-in-2025/So she’s out to ruin the city AND the state! Tax the rich does not work because the rich and corporations have options and we do not. You “working people” are going to learn this lesson the hard way.
So I guess we just have to roll over and let the wealthy control everything? There’s no other option?
As the other poster mentioned the rich have options, too extreme and they exercise them.
If you don’t think the extreme wealth disparity that has developed in this country over the last 70 years is a major problem and the root of almost all our economic issues, you are living in a fairytale. Those multi millionaires and billionaires are not going to contribute to the general welfare of this city willingly and so yes, they must be taxed in order to do so. If they want to leave instead, ok, they can go live in Alabama (etc.) but I’m pretty sure that the reason they live in WA today is because they don’t want to live in the kind of environment/state that the tax policies they’d prefer create.
I agree there is a wealth inequality problem, fix it at the federal level, not the city or state level. The companies aren’t moving to Alabama, they’re moving to Bellevue which is a much easier move. Same for the homeless and drug issue, fix it at the federal level, the more services you provide the more people come from out of state to use those services and Seattle tax payers are stuck holding the bag for a nation wide problem.
Right Foobar. Homeless people spend their last two dimes to travel here and live outdoors in Seattle in the winter because of the cornucopia of services the city provides.
Nobody’s moving to Bellevue, people have been saying that for years and it hasn’t happened. The one company that DID move (Boeing) did not go to Bellevue, they went to South Carolina. The federal government is too dysfunctional to even fix typos these days, they are definitely not going to fix income inequality and the consequences of it (in fact they seem to rather prefer it). The “people come out of state to be homeless” trope is tired and has been debunked multiple times. New York’s constitution declares housing a human right, so when shelters fill up the city puts the homeless up in hotels. How does anyone of sound mind think someone would move to a place where it rains 9 months out of the year to be homeless when there are places that will guarantee you indoor shelter, or at the very least, places that have better climates? Most of the housed people who live here were originally from somewhere else, why is it a conspiracy of the lazy when there are also unhoused people who are originally from somewhere else?
Amazon has been actively moving offices to Bellevue, I know first hand West Seattle residents which had their job moved to Bellevue. Not long ago Amazon was looking for an alternative headquarters. My main point is solving the problem locally does not make sense, the US needs to hold corporations accountable across the board for there to be real change.
So excited to have someone with a proven track record of rolling her sleeves up and actually working for the people of Seattle! So much dead weight leaving city hall in January, thank goodness!
Cannot believe I voted for a winner finally as mayor here since McGinn. Wanted Oliver in 2017, and Gonzalez in 2021. Woooohoo!!
I, for one, hope this election gives District 1 Rob Saka an opportunity to reflect on whether the stars he has hitched his wagon to (Bruce Harrell, Sara Nelson, Ann Davison, etc.) are going to be the key to electoral success he once thought they were. Will Rob Saka adjust his politics to match the electorate? Or will he continue the haughty huffing-and-puffing politics of self-promotion and personal indignation? If any Saka staffers are reading this comment, might I recommend you update your resumes and look for an exit plan!!! It turns out, in 2025, saying “ooga booga homeless people are scary” and “point the unlimited money hose at Seattle Police” isn’t cutting it with the electorate, anymore. But, based on Rob’s character traits towards defensiveness and arrogance, I highly doubt he’s even capable of internalizing any disconfirming information. Good luck out there, Rob! FYI Katie’s gonna KEEP Curby and you, my friend, will deal with it, “Trump wall” and everything.
I honestly assumed he wasn’t running for reelection.
We should have recalled Rob Saka during this cycle, what an embarrassing person to have representing us
Will be interesting to see what she actually accomplishes and how much negative financial impact for us there is. Will be telling who she surrounds herself with.
If Katie wins, I will be doing all of my shopping in Burien. Seattle will not be generating B&O and/or sales tax revenue from me. This is insanity. Progressives are the ones that helped get someone like Trump get elected and reelected. Now they think it’s cute to double down?
By focusing on issues that most folks weren’t. They cared about grocery prices, not about trans bathroom issues.
I think you may have been frozen in a dark lagoon during the last 9 years, because its Republicans who obsessively run on Trans-related issues. Fox news screams into all 45/47 circles of hell with fear mongering hogwash that anyone who had a functioning neuron could tell was just overblown trash propaganda.Ok Boomer and Goodluck to Katie!
You have one correct assessment there, littleearth! Republicans want to protect Title 9.
Don’t think that needed to be stated. Bruce was the candidate closest to the center.
Washington went to Kamala so how do progressives here get Trump elected in rust belt states? Oh the mental gymnastics…. we had nothing to do with Pennsylvania swinging. Nice try
I’m sure the voters in suburban Atlanta and Philadelphia will double check who’s mayor of Seattle before the next presidential election. “Uh oh, Seattle elected someone to the left of center! Better vote fascist!”
To the person who said if Katie wins they’ll be doing all their business in Burien, well I hate to tell you after this election Burien is no better. Just take a look at the council that was just voted in, Burien is going to return to what it was a year ago. As for Katie’s TRU, that union is a farce it takes membership dues and what does it give back to its members? Do they get health insurance, pension, any of the usual things a strong union gives their members? TRU just uses the word “union” so it can take money and not be called corrupt.We had no say in Seattle’s mayor but the domino effect will run over into its neighboring cities and usually just the bad.
No, not another Sawant. Please get your info about her from somewhere other than Bruce’s campaign flyers. I’m begging you.
Where should I go to get more information about her? Katie Hutchinson’s own campaign flyers mostly mentioned solving homelessness and lowering prices, neither of which she has the power to do. There is no perfect solution for homelessness as we have seen year after year with multiple mayors, and no person or group can bring prices down. I wish her all the best and will be rooting for her like one other comment or mentioned, but her campaign seemed like a lot of pie in the sky. I didn’t do a lot of my own digging about her, so I’m happy to be wrong.
Katie Wilson has written pieces for local news outlets discussing her policy positions. You can also look up the TRU’s policies and track records. She’s a founding member and had fingerprints on all of that. She is absolutely progressive, but she is not “ignore the constituents and fight everyone everywhere” the way Sawant was. She’s a completely different person, with priorities focused on making lives of individuals more affordable and enjoyable, whereas Sawant’s policies (and endless soapboxing) were all about the broader class war and the collective.
Sawant believed – sincerely — that her fight was with the Left. Wilson believes it’s with the people with actual power: wealthy corporations and the obscenely rich. Sawant punched left, Wilson punches up. There will be a difference.
Well you don’t even know her name so yeah I’d say you’re pretty far from being an informed voter
David which god, celestial being or even prophet or saint are you talking about? Forevermore, the genome and environmental variables currently do not allow for another duplicate being. We are card not SIM cards.
David which god, celestial being or even prophet or saint are you talking about? Forevermore, the genome and environmental variables currently do not allow for another duplicate being. Ah, We are not SIM cards. Check
I voted for Harrell but will be rooting for Katie’s success if she wins!
Thank you, Andrew for the most mature and gracious response I’ve read on The WSB in a long, long time.
There have been a lot of takes the last two days I’ve wanted to respond to knowing it would get moderated into oblivion, so I just wanted to say thank you for your take on this update. It was refreshing to read. I assume many of us love Seattle and hoping good comes from this election is healthy and a good approach to have.
This is probably a controversial question. But what would a Mayor Wilson win mean for the emphasis on cleaning up downtown streets. City parks, increasing the police force and increased enforcement of things like theft rings at the Westwood Target?
The emphasis would disappear. Katie couldn’t answer when asked if camping in public parks should be allowed
Actual, she refused to answer it as a yes or no question, and stated that it’s a complicated matter, because it is, unless you don’t see the homeless as human beings.
Should camping be allowed in public parks, or public school campuses, or public sidewalks, or public alleys? The answers for those are all the same answers as should camping be allowed in private parking lots, people’s front yards, at the beach, or in the middle of the freeway. Not really a blurry answer.
I am not sure she knows what is ahead of her, and as a homeowner working my butt off to keep my home means I really do not need to have anymore taxes of any kind accessed.
Not controversial at all! We should all feel safe to ask questions without judgement. Asking how the potential mayor plans to address public safety is absolutely a valid question. One that I have as well
You know what would help Target with theft rings? Stop understaffing!
Here’s some interesting reporting on a recent SPD emphasis on “theft rings” in Westwood Village, if you’d like to see how that particular area of focus is going: https://publicola.com/2025/10/14/seattle-spent-thousands-on-organized-retail-theft-operation-at-marshalls-arresting-five-and-recovering-400-in-merchandise/
Walk down 12th and Jackson sometime. Harrell “cleaned up” downtown by pushing all the druggies into the International District. I feel so bad for the residents and businesses there.
Why do you care about petty retail theft from a multibillion dollar company, this has nothing to do with safety. Go read about these supposed “theft rings”, it’s people stealing less than $500 worth of stuff. Every retail store on earth has shoplifting, you need to get over your weird obsession with it.
@GG, And may I ask where do you purchase things you need like toothpaste, laundry soap, bedding, etc… aren’t all businesses that supply these sort of things including your groceries a multibillion dollar store? As for “it’s people stealing less than $500 worth of stuff” $500 is $500 it is not right to steal any amount of dollars worth, I don’t care if they’re rich, poor or whatever it is not right, they are not having a weird obsession with it!
Maybe not every single update needs to be an occasion to declare the apocalypse or the second coming.
Such a disappointment! With Bruce Harrell we finally saw the continuous homeless RV squatters moved on from right in front of our home. So nice to see the piles of garbage gone for awhile, and human waste, and open air drug use, the them fighting with each other in the middle of the night , etc. It’s been very disruptive and unpleasant to have hordes of them attempting to turn the the area into a free RV park aggressively. The worst offenders required repeated sweeps before they gave up . They were still attempting to camp here despite no parking signs , and there is a neighborhood park and elementary school within hundreds of feet from this situation. It was never like this ever before. But this year they started moving in aggressively and staying until forced to move each time. Forget about parking laws , or the 72 hour parking law , most of these RVs don’t even run , or are being towed around the neighborhood. Stays of 3 to 4 weeks at a time are the norm , despite the orange to tickets. I saw before the election that Katie Wilson would not answer the simple question as to whether this should be tolerated in our parks and neighborhoods. At least Bruce Harrell did not hesitate to answer “no”. Katie laughed about it. I guess she probably doesn’t have them constantly trying to permanently squat in front of her residence . None of these lifestyle RV dwellers ever accept the assistance offered from what I see. It’s ridiculous that we have such a problem and the city cannot simply make this illegal and enforce it. Katie Wilson appears to believe that she can solve the homeless and housing problem BEFORE we restore our parks and neighborhoods from this disaster. Makes no sense , we are tired of waiting for things to change. Under Bruce Harrell we recently had parking at our park switched to 4 hours along a problem area . And they even have maintained temporary no parking signs in many other areas around our area , and perpetuated them as an apparent means to try to control the problem. And from our perspective this has been very effective . We want more parking regulations and signs to prevent encampments from returning. From what we have heard so far from Katie Wilson this will probably not be her policy , and we expect to soon be going back to having a row of dilapidated RVs set up right in front of our home. It’s nerve wracking to even think about things going backwards. As long as the RVs are permitted to use our neighborhoods as free campgrounds there will always be more to fill in any possible spots , even if some take the help offered. What a dysfunctional city Seattle has become.
It’s a challenging situation. Harrell has definitely made significant strides in addressing the homeless situation in Seattle. I voted for Wilson, and I hope she will continue to allocate resources for parking enforcement and removal. It’s a complex issue.The root cause of the problem is the rising housing costs. Even individuals earning over $100,000 annually struggle to afford a home these days. The current system is flawed, and the only solution is to implement rent control and provide affordable housing options. However, this will be difficult to achieve when landowners are making substantial profits. Taxing the wealthy is the only viable approach to addressing these pressing issues.
Jimmy: “ ridiculous that we have such a problem and the city cannot simply make this illegal” That’s been tried and courts ruled years ago that governments can’t deprive people of shelter, nor criminalize living in a tent or similar.
Looks like it will trigger a mandatory recount! let’s hope they validate every single ballots post mark, valid signatures. A move to the other side of the water is sooner than expected
God help us
It’s actually pretty close to NOT getting a mandatory recount. The threshold is .5%, and they’re currently at .49% apart. If Wilson takes as big of a chunk of the remaining votes as she did the last couple batches, she’s likely to surpass the mandatory recount threshold, if just barely.
Thankful to a have a new leader that won’t talk down to us with incoherent corporate babble speak. Can’t wait to vote out Rob Saka next!
I’m just here to watch all the reactionary centrists have mental breakdowns. Oh no, our progressive city elected a progressive mayor! The sky is falling!
Reactionary centrists? Now I’ve read every kind of oxymoronic statement. Gosh darn pragmatism fouling up everything…what with its appeals to reactionary things like compromise and radical, incremental progress…
What should we expect from Katie Wilson as Mayor and Erica Evans are City Attorney? Progressive utopia? Maybe. What’s more likely is a flight of large businesses to locations with lower taxes and fewer regulations, reducing the amount of money available to address homelessness and other social problems. Businesses are also likely to close or leave if shoplifters are no longer prosecuted and staff cannot be assured of their safety. Overall, the quality of life for most of us isn’t likely to improve. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a city with high-performing, publicly funded schools, drive on roads that are mostly free of potholes and cracks, walk in a downtown area free of incredibly high concentrations of homeless people, or not have to worry about road users driving recklessly with no fear of being issued a ticket? I was a lifelong Democrat until I moved to Seattle. Day by day, one incompetence after another, has convinced me of what is objectively true – cities like Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, in which Republicans and conservatives have little chance of being elected to public office, are poorly run at best or abysmally run at worst.
Oh my, that’s not even based in any kind of objective reality. I know people living in all the places you mentioned and ZERO percent of them think they are living in a poorly managed city. They encourage people regularly to move there based on their happiness with the government and policies and general vibe of the city as a whole. I’d encourage you to get out more and talk to a wider variety of people.
So Seattle has high-performing public schools, few problems with homeless people, roads that are policed for speeding and reckless driving, and ones with few potholes and cracks? I could add local parks (Morgan Junction) and community centers (West Seattle High School) that were opened or reopened on time? It isn’t true that large businesses have chosen to open offices in Bellevue where they will pay lower taxes, and other businesses have closed because of the combined issues of shoplifting and staff safety?
You’re describing government everywhere. But sure, let’s be like China and build a bridge that collapses within months. They did it on time right?
Boeing left in ‘01 and look how well that went for them. There’s always going to be a city that will offer any large business more favorable taxation than where they currently are. The only solution would be not to tax them at all, and then you’re just letting them siphon off city services that we all pay for and send 90+% of the profits to their executive board like a corporate vampire. If these businesses don’t want access to the talent pool that Seattle has more than they want some short sighted tax break, then good riddance.
Just some baseless white flight fear mongering. Oh no, more apartment and better transit funding, that diversity will be the downfall of society. Theres no thinking behind statements like this, just raw hatred and emotion.
Did not expect anything less but definitely enjoyed some popcorn reading the histrionics.
White male systems engineer here (I work in AI). Do you know how many tech layoffs are coming? I have been automating myself out of a job for the last decade. The code can write itself. The noob new hire devs don’t know how anything works (they don’t need to anymore). I have seen some garbage almost make it to review with stupid chatGPT emoji’s still intact. Folks and agents alike can write horrible code all friggin day, because it is getting run on a container that will get automagically spun right back up when it halts, dies or segfaults itself to death…the user will never notice and exit 1 isn’t the show stopper it used to be. The light at the end of the tunnel of my tech career is a train. The writing has been on the wall for years and the wave is about to crash. Folks have no idea that they are about to witness the most dramatic industrial/social revolution that has occurred in known history. Also, I have, in this life, gone from making 6 figures to being homeless in the span of a few months, due to medical issues. That experience cured me of the selfish sef-centered ego driven BS that I am reading from Bruce supporters on here. The current rate of change in regards to the capabilities of current AI technology is so tremendous that I am increasingly confident that we will need to be looking at things like UBI much, much sooner than previously anticipated. Some flavor of socialism is likely to become necessary in the not too far future, because humans really aren’t going to be necessary anymore. I did not vote at all as neither candidate is appealing. I am very libertarian and think government should be as small and limited as possible. Ideally (but never gonna happen) humans would be smart enough to not require government at all. I am rooting for Katie to win now though after interacting with her opponents supporters.
I really hope we are at the top of the AI capability bellcurve since legislators at every level have neglected to even think about the impacts an AI revolution would have to us 99%. If we’re to believe Sam Altman and his ilk, AI will enable abundance for the human race, but I think he’s huffing copium and the AI revolution will be a return to the industrial revolution. If we remember our history class, the average person didn’t benefit from the industrial revolution for DECADES. If we are to protect the average person who would lose their job in this scenario, we will need progressive policies like UBI or taxing wealth instead of individuals. We need forward thinkers not clinging to a nostalgic past that is fading away before our eyes.
If you discriminately tax wealth, what’s the point/incentive of creating it (and the jobs, etc that come with it)? If theres UBI, what’s the point of highly skilled work?
But by all means, lets be “progressive” and move on from what i believe you’d understand is the best economic system in history, to one that falls apart in two basic questions.
Um, the point of highly skilled work would be greater income than UBI. Taxing wealth is not the same as confiscating all of it. Taxing the wealthy and well-off to support the less fortunate and skilled is enlightened self-interest. See: The French Revolution and Russian Revolution as end points of greed run amok.
As a software dev I’m glad people like you exist. Cleaning up AI slop in code bases from idiots letting a bunch of linear algebra with delusions of grandure run rampant in their critical systems is the best form of job security you could ask for. If you could clearly and unambiguously write a prompt that could describe desired behavior to a computer in a way it could reliabily follow, congrats you invented the most expensive, complex programming language ever. The entire concept of AI writing code is nonsense to anyone that knows any about either AI or programming. It’s only good for memes and convincing idiots their phone is their girlfriend or therapist.
This race was a toss up. The candidates are not nearly as far apart policywise as some of the crazy over reactions in both directions in these comments. Like every election, the amount of money spent on the campaign does not always guarantee a win.
Just what Seattle needs. Another progressive activist in City Hall.
Well hopefully she’ll actually explain how she’ll pay for things like housing, homelessness, city grocery stores (!) since she wasn’t very forthcoming in the lead up to the election. Also, she’ll probably win by less than 1%, hardly a mandate. Obviously I want her to succeed since I live here too…
Her true test will come in June. How will she handle the city when FIFA world cup comes to seattle.
Real test? No, sports are not something that are high priority, sorry. I wish they would cancel the Seattle games as it does nothing but burden the city. We have real issues to fix with layoffs and people needing to scrape by.
The FIFA will bring millions of tax dollars into the city budget and far more money into local businesses. That’s food on kitchen tables, mortgages and car loans paid, medical bills covered, home repairs made, etc, etc.
People are already canceling their trips to Seattle for FIFA, because they risk deportation by the trump gestapo, aka ICE. So no, this isn’t going to inject anything into our economy.
Jake in case you missed it but thousands of out of state visitors will be coming to Seattle. Spending thousands of dollars. Thus helping or cities restaurants hotels taxis an everyone else in the service industry. It could bring millions of dollars to the city. Also our city will be on display for any future visits. Also any future business that may move here.
The comments reveal the rotten heart of this city. But the election results show that the progressive movement is only growing. Young people will have our voice, even if we have to pry our throats free of the cold, dead hands of our elders. Why does it have to be like this?
Awards for the best stereotypes:1. White male property owning techworker2. Land owning boomers
Seattle is one of the most neoliberal places I have ever lived, and I’ve lived in three red states. Meaning the politics here generally see corporations as a priority higher than individuals and communities. So everyone in the comments who are scared of big business leaving- Do you enjoy being held hostage? Do we take the lesson of the Supersonics as, “We should have bowed to the millionaires”? When wealth doesn’t flow down, it flows up. We are a city where wealth flows up. Give the new lady a chance to change things. See if we can spread it around.
I doubt many of you are really suffering financially and are not likely to when Katie Wilson takes office. Some of you are probably even beneficiaries of the one of the greatest meltups of wealth in history. Your dividends will keep rolling in, your home values will keep appreciating, and no one, not even a progressive major, is going to rock that boat. And like most of the comfortably affluent class, you’ll have plenty of time to huff and puff and throw darts at each other (wink, wink).
As someone who has worked in social services my entire career, identifies as progressive, and has worked for the city and closely with the LEAD program (Wilson’s answer to homelessness) I can promise every pro-Wilson person on this thread you will be eating your words a year from now. Arrest diversion programs do not work as a substitute for police and should never be used to solve homelessness. Us social workers NEED police to safely respond as an “alternative.” Encampments flooding the streets is not compassion. It is allowing mentally ill, disabled, and addicted people to suffer, and in many cases be victimized due to their vulnerability. I don’t care about being taxed more, I care that for the first time in recent history homelessness and public safety improved under Harrell . Affordability is a nationwide crisis MAGA has made significantly worse. Public safety and homelessness issues at the level we have here is unique to few cities across the country, and we are one. These are the issues we need to focus on and need a competent leader to fix. Wilson’s plan is literally Sawant’s from 2020- a failure of such massive proportions, it was cited as an example in the 2024 federal report on homelessness. There’s a reason Harrell was elected in the first place- it was an answer to how bad things got under the governance of a “visionary” city council that nearly destroyed our city and harmed some of the most vulnerable in the process. I witnessed it first hand, most folks doing diversion work in Seattle would attest to that as well. Extremism is never the answer, and us Seattleites should know this by now.
Yeah Scarlett, everyone who owns property in Seattle sure has it easy, with their dividends and increasing home values , right. Lots of us, like myself were barely able to scrape their way into buying a home in the first place , fearing the rapid increases in rent 25 or 30 years ago. Then spending 30 year’s paying for it and maintaining it , and the high property taxes , and health care costs on a fairly low income as a self employed person. What an embarrassment of riches it seems to be from your perspective. Instead of the very humbling struggle to survive it feels like to me. And in my neighborhood I’m sure that many others are also like me , just hoping to be able to keep things together and be able to afford to live here. There are a lot of us homeowners that did not get here due to privilege , inheritances , or help from our families. Instead it was making goals and then life choices , and working a lifetime to barely afford it . And still there was a sense of being grateful and lucky. You sound like you are accusing a lot of people(Harrell supporters ) of having easy wealth and free time in their hands. People who own homes and have saved for retirement also have financial struggles and shouldn’t be misrepresented as having easy , entitled lives. Financial struggle is a relative concept.
Sorry, comment time is over.
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