Soon the previously quiet, sweet, and leafy Seattle-area suburb where I live will have crazy, fentanyl-addled zombies — aka, the “homeless” — living among us, in a facility of 178 residential units, near schools or outside your front door, courtesy of the virtue-signaling lawmakers in our state capitol of Olympia.
What will follow is predictable: Mentally ill people defecating in the streets, hunching over in public to intensify the high of the drug, staggering around filthy and half-naked.
How do insane things like this actually happen?
I received a few insights by doing the other day what I should have done long ago, but didn’t: attending a mind-numbingly dull Public Hearing for our City Council’s Planning Commission. If you live in a blue state or a blue metropolitan area, something like this is probably going on in your own community.
It was a day that Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson was busy doing the state’s really urgent business: “We just raised the Pride flag in Olympia,” he posted on X, with a video of himself exulting. “I want Washingtonians to know that there is zero chance we would ever bend the knee to the hate and attacks we see from Washington DC.”
“Hate and attacks”? Residents of the state were left to wonder what that could be in reference to. I still don’t know.
But back to the homeless.
The planned residence, as if most homeless really wanted to reside anywhere (they don’t), is called “Permanent Supportive Housing,” or PSH. In our town, it will likely be located on the north end where I live, and would almost certainly include homeless people who are mentally ill, using substances like fentanyl, or both. That is the purpose behind PSH.
Anyone who would like to preview the results can visit the sidewalks around Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle, as just one example. Watch where you step. Now it’s our turn.
The impact of PSH will not be felt to nearly the same degree on our town’s much more affluent south end. That’s to be expected.
The state legislation that will do this to us — notably the Growth Management Act and HB 1220 — received the votes of all three of our 41st Legislative District lawmakers, Representatives Janice Zahn and My-Linh Thai, and Senator Lisa Wellman.
Permanent Supportive Housing will very negatively change the nature of life for many of my neighbors who struggle to afford living here. How do such things happen?
First, there are the disconnected and virtue-signaling office holders (“We just raised the Pride flag”!), with an assist from euphemistically named legislation. The “Growth Management Act” or “Permanent Supportive Housing” would be much more candidly titled the “Sh***ing on Your Sidewalk Initiative,” because that is what they will mean.
Second, government professionals are skilled in obfuscating or not trained or encouraged to speak clearly. When I arrived at the Planning Commission meeting, the city’s Principal Planner was droning on incomprehensibly via Zoom at great length about the updated and re-updated Comprehensive Plan for our suburb. It was mind-numbing. I could understand almost nothing he said. The single issue of genuine importance — zombies relieving themselves on your front lawn — went totally unmentioned.
Members of the commission bickered amiably about Robert’s Rules of Orders. This went on for more than two hours. I finally left.
Third, everyone, at least here in Seattle, wants to seem nice. That is the culture. One of the Planning Commissioners actually has that as his last name. The man’s name is, literally, Nice.
As the late podcaster and “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams used to say — referring to the theory, a peculiarly tweaked version of intelligent design, that our reality is only a computer simulation with a wicked sense of humor — it was as if the Simulation was “winking at us.” A Nice person doesn’t bring up subjects that are Not Nice.
Fourth, almost no one who will be deeply affected by things like this pays attention. I count myself among the negligent. I had seen a post by someone on the Nextdoor website about it, but otherwise this coming catastrophe has been little discussed. Only seven residents showed up to air our views at the hearing.
“They forced this on us,” said the chairman at one point, in the single moment of genuine clarity from anyone on the Planning Commission. He was referring, it seemed, to the Olympia government.
But even this couldn’t be stated forthrightly when it matters most. It wouldn’t be nice. It would be too much even for the Simulation.
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the author most recently of “Plato's Revenge: The New Science of the Immaterial Genome.”
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