Kent's "solution" to its homeless problem? Send out police patrols to chase them away

Just in case anyone is under any false illusions, King County in the state of Washington is not considered "liberal" because it is congenitally-wired that way; it is because the city of Seattle just chews-up too much of the scenery. The county seal features the face of Martin Luther King Jr.--now. Before, the county was named "King" to honor a Southern slaveholder. Thus it shouldn't be too surprising to learn that many parts of the county are actually Republican strongholds, like Bellevue--and Kent. Although the latter’s city council is made up of "nonpartisan" candidates, it is no use trying to fool people when every election cycle Republican campaign posters appear everywhere like so many noxious weeds. 

Kent calls itself a “city,” but Hooterville has a busier downtown. If you are a pedestrian, you spend more time running for your life than walking in its maze of intersecting highways, euphemistically called “arterial roads.” And it isn’t a particularly “friendly” place—particularly if you are a minority person on the wrong side of Central Ave, or whatever it’s called on the next block. It is also the kind of place that doesn’t have any “problems” that the law enforcement can’t “solve.” One may recall the little scandal concerning six-year-old felons being slapped with plastic handcuffs for being inattentive in class or talking back to teacher.

Kent also has a police-based solution to its homeless problem. According to the Kent Reporter, there were 104 persons in Kent counted last year during the annual “One Night Count” by volunteers searching for homeless people; it was admitted that this was likely a considerable undercount, since not all areas were searched. Kent has no homeless shelter, but a few months after this count the Kent City Council rejected a plan put forth by the Union Gospel Mission to place a homeless shelter in the “downtown” area at its own expense, not asking the city to foot a single dime for its establishment and maintenance. But some in the downtown “business district”—which is practically devoid of human traffic even during the “busy” hours—went out of their minds in opposition to the plan. 

The hypocrisy couldn’t have been harder to take; Mike Hannis wrote in the Reporter that “Few in our city object to services for the homeless. I certainly do not…Nearly all of us have a warm spot in our heart for the Union Gospel Mission…An issue like this quickly gets entangled in political correctness and warm fuzziness. In this economy, those are niceties we cannot afford…We do not concede the high ground – that somehow the Union Gospel Mission and the other proponents of the shelter have an exclusive on the side of the angels. We are all warriors in the battle against homelessness.”

And:

“I believe that the risks we businesses take and the investments and sacrifices we make for our businesses are every bit as honorable, virtuous and praiseworthy as what our allies like the Union Gospel Mission are doing on the other end of the front line in this battle. I challenge any implication that we are somehow being less compassionate as we take a position to protect the businesses in our city… Even under the best of circumstances, it would not take much to tip the balance back the other way, and we could find ourselves once again facing increased vacancies, derelict buildings, blight and the homelessness that goes along with that.”

In his novel 1984, George Orwell called this kind of talk doublethink:

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it.

Another business owner, Eric Greiling, supported the Mission proposal, writing in the Reporter that no location was “perfect” and that there would always be some people who would complain no matter where the shelter was located. Furthermore, “The recent reactions from a couple of Kent business owners, whose implication of representing the opinions of the majority of business owners was not substantiated, should not have been allowed to reduce the issues at hand to merely questions of money, industry and their view of progress.” He also criticized those like Hannis who—despite their objections to the homeless shelter—still mendaciously expressed “concern” about the plight of the homeless.   

Earlier this year, the Kent City Council passed a “civility” law to make its homeless problem “disappear.” Writing earlier this year, food bank volunteer Sandra Gill was blunt about Kent’s attitude about its homeless problem:

Before the city enacts "civility laws" to control homeless behavior, the mayor and council might consider installing portable toilets in discrete locations near the library and in other park areas. Putting people in jail for relieving themselves in public is a complicated legal proposition – further clogging up courts and jails… Downtown businesses vehemently oppose a 24-hour community center/shelter because they don't want homeless people anywhere near their businesses. Setting up a bureaucratic maze and tasking police with staking out areas to arrest people when they have to relieve themselves seems like a foolish approach to the problem…Instead of taking a snide attitude about homeless people, it would be better if we were a little more compassionate…Instead of looking down our noses at the plight of the less fortunate, let's try to be a little more understanding and lend a helping hand instead of judging with a cold heart.

But there is something even more insidious in the “civility” laws than “controlling” the answering of nature’s call. The new measure also tasks police to conduct night patrols throughout the city in search of sleeping homeless people; upon encountering them—even in remote areas far from business or residential areas—the police announce that there is “no camping out in Kent”—even if the “camp” consists of nothing more than a piece of cardboard. And not even that: Sleeping under the stars is now strictly prohibited in Kent—even if you are not “homeless.” Of course, in this way the city can say it isn’t discriminating against the homeless and making their lives even more difficult. 

Naturally, the police don’t offer alternative solutions; the “snide” Kent City Council and its “compassionate” business owners have made certain of that.