Neighborhood in Uproar After County Officials Move to Purchase 'Homeless Hotel' Near Schools, Day Care Centers: Report
Residents are furious that officials in Democrat-run King County, Washington, have been buying up “homeless hotels” without even notifying the people who live in those neighborhoods.
What’s more, the shelters don’t even conduct background checks on the vagrants they house, which means they can bring drugs and alcohol into the taxpayer-funded facilities, The Post Millennial reported Tuesday.
Now the county is working to purchase a La Quinta Inn in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland that’s directly across the street from several day care centers and schools, including the Yarrow Bay KinderCare, Eastside Preparatory School, Chestnut Montessori School and Cedar Crest Academy.
The latest homeless hotel is also located in a major business hub, which has local small-business owners worried about a potential spike in crime.
“The sites have typically been accompanied by an uptick in crime, open air drug use, homeless activity and vagrancy,” the Post Millennial reported.
EXCLUSIVE: County officials to buy latest “homeless hotel” without informing neighborshttps://t.co/FLgRPLvhCt
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 2, 2022
“King County officials refused to discuss vetting and background checks for residents of this new facility that will be located directly across the street from schools and daycares.”
This absurd plan to buy hotels and operate them as homeless shelters in residential neighborhoods was set into motion last year.
In 2021, Kings County purchased six hotels to permanently house hundreds of homeless people, according to The Associated Press. The county plans to use tax dollars to buy a dozen more this year.
Eugene Borimsky, who lives in a condo across the street from a homeless hotel, said the fallout has been catastrophic.
“A few people already tried to sell their properties,” he told KOMO-TV in Seattle. “Property values are dropping, and I don’t actually see this problem being solved.”
Borimsky said a prospective buyer for one of the properties walked away after learning that a permanent homeless hotel was located in the neighborhood.
Protester Kan Qiu said the mayor has ignored his questions and concerns about this polarizing project.
“Why were people not notified? At least notify before the transaction,” he told KOMO.
As is the case in many Democrat-run cities, homelessness, open-air drug use and violent crime have become epidemic in Seattle.
The U.S. Cities With The Most Homeless People https://t.co/qE6EWnWTjY #tech #digital #data #Business pic.twitter.com/m2ZJtxdhXB
— Kohei Kurihara -Privacy Is Opportunity- (@kuriharan) April 17, 2021
In August, worried parents slammed Seattle politicians and the city’s left-wing school board after discovering that scores of vagrants were urinating, defecating, doing drugs and having sex just steps from where kindergartners went to school.
“You’ve got people who are shooting up out in the open,” radio host Jason Rantz told Fox News. “You’ve got brawls that are breaking up fairly frequently.”
A homeless encampment at a Seattle school continues to grow but the district does little. Fights, drugs, prostitutes… what will happen when the school reopens to students on September 1? I discussed on @AmericaNewsroom with @DanaPerino. This was my 200th FOX News appearance! pic.twitter.com/Xncw212mzZ
— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) August 5, 2021
Local parent Ryle Goodrich said the homeless encampment near the school has devolved into a seedy hotbed of criminal activity.
“It’s important to understand that the encampment has become a crime epicenter for the neighborhood,” he told the Post Millennial. “People broke into the school this summer.
“Prostitutes, rapes, assaults, visible shooting drugs, drug dealing, lewd behavior, sexual harassment and other fights in the encampment. Neighbors have received death threats, been robbed, had trespassers, even been robbed at gunpoint.”
Is this unhinged chaos what Democrats want in their neighborhoods or across the street from their children’s schools? Wake up, America.
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