Unwalkable

I was in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood the other day, and came across a small homeless encampment that's now been there several years. I know that at some point, it wasn't there, but I now can't recall the last time I saw the area devoid of tents.

Normally, the tents are lined up in the parkway between the sidewalk and the street, so that  the sidewalk itself is mostly clear. From time to time, there would be a bicycle or some crates or something taking up some of the sidewalk, but it was generally possible to walk past the tents without needing to walk in the street.

Not this time. The sidewalk is now completely blocked off.

Pedestrians, go elsewhere.

This is the sort of thing that drives resentment of the homeless population of the area, but doesn't actually spark any efforts towards fixing the problem. I will be unsurprised to find that the next time I'm in the area, the sidewalk, if not the entire encampment, has been cleared; this isn't the sort of thing that I expect the local, even in a stereotypically liberal place like Seattle, will suffer gladly. (I'm actually somewhat impressed that the situation was allowed to get to this point, really.)

As housing prices in the greater Puget Sound area continue to rise due to constrained supply (regardless of what some politicians might say), more and more people are going to find themselves living in tents. Last week's brief cold snap and freezing rain notwithstanding, the climate here is generally mild enough that such a lifestyle, if it can be called that, is more workable than in some other places I can think of. (I certainly wouldn't want to be homeless in upstate New York about now.) Which is good, because it's going to be some time before the problem is solved. Allowing for substantial new construction now would likely require at least a decade, if not two, to allow home prices to subside enough that lower-income people could reliably afford them. Failing that, it will take the loss of some of the area's major employers, triggering another "Will the last person leaving SEATTLE - Turn out the lights," moment. Although, unless something happens that makes the area substantially less desirable to live in long-term, this could simply be the opening that housing rental companies and developers need to swoop in.

In any event, homelessness is becoming more and more visible in the city proper. (Not that the suburbs are immune from this; it's common to find tents in out-of-the-way, and therefore not very visible, places.) And that visibility is going to create pressure to do something to move the people elsewhere. It won't be a solution, but as long at it sort of looks like one, that may be enough.