Dying In The Homeless Industrial Complex

Guest Post by Paul Glumaz

Billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on building and administrating “low barrier housing first” to “solve” the homeless crisis in our cities across the nation.  On helping the homeless, no greater lie was ever told.  Nor has greater damage ever been inflicted on vibrant cities and neighborhoods than by the grifting, nonprofit, criminals running the housing first death camps that masquerade under the façade of compassion, which is how the Democratic Party controls our cities.  

Low Barrier Housing Becomes Housing First:

Public housing as a solution to the problem of the homeless begins to emerge during the administration of George W. Bush.  As the push for public housing expanded, placing the mentally ill and the drug addicted into such housing became an increasing problem. Initially, in most public housing situations, drug use was not allowed. However, this began to change with the acceptance and rise of recreational drug use.  Eight years after Washington State decriminalized marijuana in 2012, the Seattle District Attorney and the King County Prosecutor were both declaring that the war on drugs was lost.  By the time of these declarations, most shelters and public housing in King County, Washington, were housing drug addicts and the mentally ill alongside everyone else.    

It is in this situation that two narratives had begun to emerge to justify housing drug addicts at public expense without treatment.  One of these narratives was that it was necessary to get the addicts into a “safe” place so their drug problem could be addressed.   The other narrative that played into this was that drug addiction was caused by childhood trauma, justifying drug addiction as a behavioral health issue that required allowing drug addicts a safe place to do drugs. This is how low barrier housing became known as housing first, and which was championed as the solution to the homeless problem. The actual cruel reality to this is that for a vast number of addicts entering a housing first program, it is a drug death solution, not a homeless solution.

 Fast forward from the Bush administration, housing first is now a multi-billion-dollar industry where the homeless are warehoused in a living hell that incubates crime, drug cartel activity, mental illness, and most of all the expansion of drug addicts scouring neighborhoods committing crimes to feed their addictions.  These activities, the money, the nonprofits involved, and the violent threats of groups like Antifa to those opposing housing first, is the political and financial backbone of Democratic party power in Washington State.

Inside a Downtown Emergency Service Center Housing Facility:

A typical low barrier public housing first facility built by one of the nonprofit entities like the Downtown Emergency Servies Center (DESC) in Seattle, may have over a hundred or more modules of 250 square feet each. It is estimated that in King County DESC has 18 such buildings.  These buildings were built with a combination of funds including capital grants and loans from the City of Seattle’s Office of Housing, funding from King County Housing Finance Program, and allocations from the State of Washington and federal programs, and recently through a housing levy.

In an interview with several of the residents of a DESC facility, the following picture emerges of what it is like living in such a facility.  In this facility there are over 100 modules.    Drug addiction and drug addicts predominate as residents.  The residents interviewed said that they estimate 30% of the residents are convicted sex offenders.  Other residents have disabilities and are vulnerable. Rapes are common, and even staff members have been raped. These rapes are generally not reported to the police.   

The first floor is administrative, with a common area where all drugs use is allowed.  All residents whether they are addicts, or not, have the privilege of being given once a day, a glass pipe and a bowl to smoke methamphetamines, cocaine and Fentanyl, along with lighters.  Needles are given as well.  In the common area food is served in the evening and often runs out leaving many without food.

The elevators break down frequently trapping the disabled in their rooms for days, sometimes up to a week.  At night there is no security at the back door, and all night long people come in and out of the building, knocking on doors trying to sell or buy drugs.  A significant number of occupants live elsewhere and allow, or rent, their modules to be used by individuals not known to the staff.  This includes prostitutes who will use the modules to serve their clients, or to rest at the end of the night.  Violence is common and seldom reported to the police.

The hallways have a burnt urine smell, the smell that comes from smoking Fentanyl.  There are often the sights and smells of those in late stages of dying from addiction who are covered with sores, including those caused by Methicillin-resistant-Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA.)  Residents are allowed to have dogs whose poop is everywhere.  

Everything is being stolen all the time.  Break ins to modules are frequent, often when occupied by residents.  Those who are not drug addicts when they become residents are surrounded by addicts, dealers, who dominate the social life inside the facility, and outside in congregations on the streets.  The drug cartels provide the drugs and actively promote addicting those not yet drug addicts.  It is virtually assured that 90%, or more of the homeless who were not previously drug addicts, if they stay in the facility, will become such. Nothing is done about this.  DESC is, in the meantime, receiving around $100 million a year, mostly taxpayer dollars, to service and maintain these facilities and shelters. 

DESC and other non-profits like DESC have been rapidly expanding the building of these facilities as the homeless crisis gets worse. Many of these facilities have been built in the last few years and are now falling apart.  From a financial flow and political perspective, the following  model can be seen. Taxpayers fund the nonprofits like DESC to build and administer the housing.  The residents of these facilities, mostly drug addicts, supported by these funds, commit crimes throughout neighborhoods and the proceeds from those crimes go to the drug cartels.  The trashed neighborhoods see seeing insurance rates skyrocket, while neighbors live in fear, and grocery stores and other businesses are closing.  Whole areas of our cities are being turned into wastelands.

This relationship between the political establishment that promotes the housing first industry,  the taxpayer, and drug cartels is what is destroying our cities, and which ultimately leads to the death of a vast number of our citizens through drug addiction, and Fentanyl use. THE CURRENT DEMOCRATIC PARTY ESTABLSIHMENT THAT IS IN CONTROL OF OUR CITIES VIGOUROUSLY SUPPORTS ALL OF THIS!           

What Must Be Done:

1 - Making nonprofits accountable:   

In response to the national call coming from the George W. Bush administration for homeless reduction plans, The Washington State Legislature, in 2005, passed the Homelessness Housing and Assistance Act (HB 2163) and accompanied statewide county-level 10-year plans to reduce homelessness by 50%.

The original writer and sponsor of the bill, State Senator Mark Miloscia, included strong provisions for mandatory, independent, third-party accountability in the management and oversight of homeless funding and programs, ensuring that outside, independent parties would verify results and implementation quality.

The mandatory accountability measures in the bill were changed under the efforts of the Speaker of the House, Frank Chopp, so that accountability of all the programs were shifted to the non-mandatory discretion of politically partisan government agencies and departments.  This change in accountability was the root of the situation that has persisted to this day, where nonprofits, with political connections to the party in power, are not audited.  Taxpayer dollars flow from grants, now in the billions of dollars for housing first, and are recycled into supporting the party in power, which in turn supports the expansion of housing first and the plague of drug addiction and Fentanyl deaths.  

Independent, strict third-party audits, and performance accountability are one of the keys that will break the power of the housing first drug-cartel political machine destroying our cities.  This could include prosecutions for RICO violations.

2 - Defeat the drug cartels:

Prosecuting a robust war on the international drug cartels has never been done by the U.S.  Because of that, earlier wars on drugs have been ineffective, and have only served to demoralize communities and local law enforcement who could never get beyond the retail end of the narcotics supply line.  This war must now happen and is vital to saving our nation.  

It is generally estimated that 85% of the crime that is committed is due to addicts servicing their habits.  When one considers that since 1992, George Soros and other billionaires have spent billions on promoting drug decriminalization, financing local prosecutors, judges, and supporting the Democratic Party, it is no wonder that Democrats support the drug cartel expansion into our cities through the homeless industrial complex, and housing first.

3 - Replacing housing first with treatment first: 

The funding for housing first must be replaced by only granting funding for housing based on treatment first.  All low barrier shelters and housing must be upgraded to housing for those who are not drug addicts, or mentally ill, or be turned into treatment centers for drug addiction and mental illness. Drug addicts need a year of rehabilitation to achieve low recidivism rates.

4 - Enforcing the laws:

Laws dealing with drug dealing and possession, unlawful camping, property and other crimes must be enforced with treatment options.

5 - Civil commitment: 

The laws preventing civil commitment pertaining to the mentally ill and drug addicts need to be changed, and facilities must be built for that.

6 - Separating out convicted sexual predators:

Convicted sexual predators must be housed separately and not with vulnerable individuals in public housing situations.

Ending the homeless industrial complex, which is based on housing first, is a prerequisite to saving and reviving our cities, and most of all saving millions of precious lives.  Doing so will also revive in us a spirit of optimism that such a corrupt evil can be defeated.