Seattle cleaned up for the World Cup but only while the world was watching, commentator says
Seattle impacted the World Cup Visitors got cleaner streets and polished public spaces, but as the final whistle blew, the city’s outdoor drug crisis quickly re-emerged, leading one commentator in Seattle to claim that officials were simply sidelining the problem rather than solving it.
“The addiction didn’t get better in those few weeks,” Charlie Harger, host of Seattle’s “Morning News” on KIRO News Radio, said. he wrote in a column on Wednesday. “Mental illnesses haven’t gone away. Permanent supportive housing hasn’t suddenly fixed what it hasn’t been able to fix here for years.
“People were touched. People were moved away from corners where visitors could see them. I understand why the city did this. But if all we did was move them, we didn’t solve anything. We managed the scenery.”
Harger said the city has nothing to show for the “billions” it spent to solve the crisis. Seattle has hosted six World Cup games at Lumen Field, home of the city’s Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.
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Andrea Suarez dismantles a tent as garbage piles up at a homeless camp in Seattle on March 13, 2022.
“Many on the left have confused tolerance with compassion, as if someone use fentanyl Sidewalk is civility,” Harger said. “Many on the right have the right to demand order, but sometimes it is spoken of as if its removal were a solution in itself. I’m not buying either of them. It would be nice if both were obviously true.
“They’re not. We spent billions of dollars on one for a decade, and overdoses increased every year. Places that tried the version on the right moved the same people to a different sidewalk.”
The city of Seattle in 2024, according to Seattle.gov spent $153.8 million About homelessness services through the Department of Human Services.
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seattle skyline
in 2023 KOMO News reported While the city has spent nearly $1 billion on homelessness over a decade, “the number of unhoused people continues to rise.” A. Seattle Times opinion piece reported On a given night in June, nearly 16,000 people are experiencing homelessness in King County.
“I look at this like a father because that’s what I am,” Harger wrote. “When I pass someone curled up in a doorway, gray-skinned and staring at nothing, politics is the last thing I care about. The first thing that comes to my mind is that this person was once four years old. Someone made lunch. Someone checked under the bed for monsters. Someone looked after that child and saw a whole life coming.”
“That kid is now dying inch by inch in front of a Walgreens, and we’ve built up a whole vocabulary to convince ourselves that watching it happen is the kind thing to do.”
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As a parent, Harger said she wouldn’t approach this situation. crime and homelessness crisis its city anyway.
“I can’t get there,” he said. “If that was my son on the doorstep, I wouldn’t want the city to protect his right to die there. I would want someone to go and get him. It’s dry. Clean enough to remember who he was before the drugs ate him. Call it cruelty if you want. Any parent who pulled their child out of that hole would call it love.”
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In an aerial view, the homeless camp informally known as “Dope Slope” stands covered in trash near downtown Seattle on March 12, 2022.
According to Harger, fixing the crisis has less to do with compassion and more to do with accountability.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson for comment.
Original article source: Commentator says Seattle is preparing for the World Cup, but only while the world is watching
