Councilman Plans To Fix Seattle Homeless Problem with Bus Tickets to Other Towns
A Seattle-area councilman’s plan to fix the city’s homelessness crisis would not only cost a pretty penny, but it would only shift the problem to other states.
King County Councilman Reagan Dunn, a Republican, detailed the plan, which would cost the county $1 million, to KOMO News earlier this week.
“It’s a family reunification option, free of charge for folks who are chronically homeless on our streets who think they can get better care or more help by going anywhere else across the country,” Dunn, who serves as vice-chairman of the council, said.
Dunn isn’t the first to float a plan like this.
There is already an established program in San Francisco, an area also grappling with a worrying homelessness crisis, that his plan mirrors. Homeward Bound only requires a contact at the destination location and no active arrest warrants before providing homeless recipients with one-way bus tickets and meal vouchers, assuming they are in good health.
According to KOMO, the program considers every homeless person shipped out of the city a success story, and classifies the recipients as having found housing.
Dunn’s plan would place similar requirements on the homeless as San Francisco’s program.
“The city of Seattle and community organizers already offer free bus tickets as part of their broader approach to homelessness but Dunn’s proposal, unveiled Tuesday, focuses on 1,000 homeless people who said they wanted to reconnect with family during a homeless count in King County back in January,” Fox News reported.
While Dunn’s proposal could be a godsend to homeless people stuck in Seattle, it ignores the bigger problem — namely, the reasons why people are homeless in the first place.
Homeless people disowned by their family, or those who never had family to begin with, will likely find no hope in Dunn’s plan.
The plan also fails to address crippling drug addiction and mental health problems that seem to plague many living on the streets, instead opting to simply ship people across state lines.
The same situations that caused these people to become homeless in the first place go unaddressed, but at least they’re not in Seattle any longer. Or at least this appears to be the way Dunn sees it.
Considering the massive homeless populations in Seattle, San Francisco and New York City, it seems unlikely that the number of people living on the street will be affected much, despite programs that would ship the homeless away.
Homeless “tent cities” are becoming a common sight in many areas.
This is right off I-5 in Northgate. An actual village of homeless. This is Seattle. pic.twitter.com/ajnxODMHol
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) July 2, 2019
The fact that homelessness seems to be a major problem particularly in cities run by liberal politicians hasn’t escaped the notice of some influential figures, either.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has theorized that the left plans to use the homeless population as proof that capitalism doesn’t work in order to make the transition to socialism more seamless.
While growing homeless populations and the seeming inability of local liberal governments to remedy the problem do give Limbaugh’s theory some weight, it’s still shocking to think the left would sink that low.
For those living in leftist mega-cities, homelessness is an everyday issue.
Programs like Dunn’s will only serve to export the problem nationwide while providing no relief for those suffering.
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