What are we talking about when we talk about emergency shelter?

Danny Westneat recently discussed debates about homelessness in Port Angeles, Washington and Seattle. In the column, he says that he has asked people living under bridges where they are from. But as someone who was homeless as a teenager in Port Angeles, and later in Seattle where I hoped to find a way off the streets and enroll in college, it does not matter where anyone is from when the housing crisis can be found everywhere. Suggesting that unhoused neighbors should only access resources in their hometown is akin to saying that Californians shouldn’t be allowed to buy homes in Seattle.

On June 24, Belltown United is hosting a panel discussion for Compassion Seattle’s Charter Amendment Measure 29, moderated by Danny Westneat. In a city that houses the company of the world’s wealthiest man who plans to move to Mars, the charter does not offer any suggestions for how to fund its mandate. Section 4 demands that the City must provide “emergency or permanent housing with services including access to behavioral health services and necessary staffing to serve people with the highest barriers.”

In addition to no suggestions on how to fund this, it is very concerning that the charter does not dictate what percentage of “units’’ will be emergency shelter beds. In a nod to Raymond Carver’s famous words, we must ask…