SEATTLE (AP) – Housing prices are soaring here thanks to the tech industry, but the boom comes with a consequence: A surge in homelessness marked by 400 unauthorized tent camps in parks, under bridges, on freeway medians and along busy sidewalks. The liberal city is trying to figure out what to do.
“I’ve got economically zero unemployment in my city, and I’ve got thousands of homeless people that actually are working and just can’t afford housing,” said Seattle City Councilman Mike O’Brien. “There’s nowhere for these folks to move to.”
That struggle is not Seattle’s alone. A homeless crisis is rocking the entire West Coast, pushing abject poverty into the open like never before.
In this Sept. 11, 2017 photo, a homeless person’s tent is pitched on a sidewalk in front of the wholesale store “Lucky Ave.,” in downtown Los Angeles. Up and down the West Coast, nonprofit and outreach workers with decades of experience are shocked by the surge in homeless people and in the banality of the ways they end up on the streets: a prolonged illness, a lost job, or a family crisis — unfortunate setbacks that for many become impossible to recover from. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Public health is at risk, several cities have declared states of emergency, and cities and counties are spending millions – in some cases billions – in a search for solutions.
San Diego now scrubs its sidewalks with bleach to counter a deadly hepatitis A outbreak. In Anaheim, 400 people sleep along a bike path in the shadow of Angel Stadium. Organizers in Portland lit incense at an outdoor food festival to cover up the stench of urine in a parking lot where vendors set up shop.
Homelessness is not new on the West Coast. But interviews with local officials and those who serve the homeless in California, Oregon and Washington – coupled with an Associated Press review of preliminary homeless data – confirm it’s getting worse.
People who were once able to get by, even if they suffered a setback, are now pushed to the streets because housing has become so expensive. All it takes is a prolonged illness, a lost job, a broken limb, a family crisis. What was once a blip in fortunes now seems a life sentence.
Among the findings:
-Official counts taken earlier this year in California, Oregon and Washington show 168,000 homeless people in the three states, according to an AP tally of every jurisdiction in those states that reports homeless numbers to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That is 19,000 more than were counted in 2015, although the numbers may not be directly comparable because of factors ranging from the weather to new counting methods.
-During the same period, the number of unsheltered people in the three states climbed 18 percent to 105,000.
-Rising rents are the main culprit. The median one-bedroom apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area is more expensive than it is in the New York City metro area, for instance.
-Since 2015, at least 10 cities or municipal regions in California, Oregon and Washington have declared emergencies due to the rise of homelessness, a designation usually reserved for natural disasters.
The West Coast’s newly homeless are people who were able to survive on the margins – until those margins moved.
For years, Stanley Timmings, 62, and his 61-year-old girlfriend, Linda Catlin, were able to rent a room in a friend’s house on their combined disability payments.
Last spring, that friend died of colon cancer and the couple was thrust on Seattle’s streets.
Timmings used their last savings to buy a used RV for $300 and spent another $300 to register it. Now, the couple parks the RV near a small regional airport.
They have no running water and no propane for the cook stove. They go to the bathroom in a bucket and dump it behind a nearby business.
After four months, the stench of human waste inside the RV is overwhelming. They are exhausted, scared and defeated, with no solution in sight.
“Between the two of us a month, we get $1,440 in disability,” he said. “We can’t find a place for that.”
Nationally, homelessness has been trending down, partly because governments and nonprofit groups have gotten better at moving people into housing. That’s true in many West Coast cities, too, but the flow the other direction is even faster.
“So everybody who was just hanging on because they had cheap rent, they’re losing that … and they wind up outside,” said Margaret King, director of housing programs for the nonprofit DESC in Seattle. “It’s just exploded.”
Above all, the West Coast lacks long-term, low-income housing for people like Ashley Dibble and her 3-year-old daughter.
Dibble, 29, says she has been homeless off and on for about a year, after her ex-boyfriend squandered money on his car and didn’t pay the rent for three months. She sent her toddler to live with the girl’s paternal grandparents in Florida. She and her new boyfriend were sleeping under tarps near Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, when an outreach team referred them to a new shelter.
With an eviction on her record and little income, no one will rent to her.
“I’ve had so many doors slammed in my face, it’s ridiculous,” Dibble said, wiping away tears.
All along the West Coast, local governments are scrambling for answers – and taxpayers are footing the bill.
Voters have approved more than $8 billion in spending since 2015 on affordable housing and other anti-homelessness programs, mostly as tax increases. Los Angeles voters, for example, approved $1.2 billion to build 10,000 units of affordable housing to address a homeless population that’s reached 34,000 people within city limits.
Jeremy Lemoine, an outreach case manager with REACH in Seattle, called it the situation a refugee crisis.
“I don’t mean to sound hopeless,” he said. “I generate hope for a living for people – that there is a future for them – but we need to address it now.”
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Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco, Amy Taxin in Anaheim, Julie Watson in San Diego and Chris Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report. AP photographer Ted Warren and AP videographer Manuel Valdes in Seattle also contributed.
Follow AP’s complete coverage of the homeless crisis here: https://apnews.com/tag/HomelessCrisis
In this Sept. 28, 2017 photo, a person sleeps under a blanket on a beach near the Ocean Beach Pier in San Diego. A homeless crisis of unprecedented proportions is rocking the West Coast, leaving elected officials and outreach workers scrambling for solutions. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
In this Oct. 30, 2017 photo, Dave Chung, who says he has been homeless for five years on the streets of California and Washington state, eats a meal before bedding down in a bus shelter in view of the Space Needle in Seattle. Chung says he has been offered shelter many times, but chooses to remain outside due to the living conditions in homeless shelters and conflicts he has with other people. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Sept. 25, 2017 photo, a woman who was camping in downtown San Diego sorts through her belongings on a sidewalk that was being sprayed with a bleach solution to fight a deadly hepatitis A outbreak. The increased number of hepatitis cases in the homeless population and the geographic spread of the disease led California to declare a state of emergency in October. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
In this Sept. 26, 2017 photo, a worker uses a tractor to clear a large homeless encampment in the woods near Seattle’s Ravenna Park neighborhood. Residents were given notice and offered shelter beds and other services, but some people in the encampment did not remove their belongings before the cleanup began. Seattle is just one of the cities on the West Coast facing a homeless crisis of unprecedented proportions. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Oct. 12, 2017 photo, Paige Clem sits in the car she lives in along with her husband and three dogs outside a church where free food was being distributed in Everett, Wash. Clem, who said she has battled drug addiction in the past but was now clean, said having enough money just to run the heat in her car and move it when required, was a daily challenge. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Oct. 30, 2017 photo, Ashley Dibble walks along a sidewalk in Seattle as she carries a pair of work boots to deliver to her fiance at his job at a car wash. The couple lives in Seattle’s “Navigation Center,” a 24-hour, “low-barrier” homeless shelter that offers beds even if people are abusing drugs, have a pet or want to sleep together as a couple. Dibble, who says she has been homeless off and on for about a year, is trying to find a way back into housing so she can bring her three-year-old daughter back from where she is staying with the girl’s paternal grandparents in Florida. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Sept. 20, 2017 photo, a pedestrian walks past a man sleeping on a public sidewalk in downtown Portland, Ore. Rising numbers of homeless people up and down the West Coast region of the U.S. have pushed abject poverty and issues such as addiction and mental health into the open like never before. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Sept. 22, 2017 photo, deputies with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department make routine contact with people camped outside Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif. Hundreds of homeless people regularly sleep in the area, and deputies often stop by to offer services and check on the safety of people camped there. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
In this Sept. 18, 2017 photo, Taz Harrington, right, sleeps with his girlfriend, Melissa Ann Whitehead, on a street in downtown Portland, Ore. Harrington, who is in his 20s, said he met Whitehead, who was already homeless, online and came to Oregon to be with her even though he knew they would be sleeping outside. He said although he was hoping to find work, his girlfriend becomes anxious when he’s away, so he stays with her most of the time. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Oct. 30, 2017 photo, Stanley Timmings is seen through the door of the RV where he lives with his girlfriend on the streets of Seattle. Timmings was parked just north of Boeing Field, the King County International Airport, along with a group of fellow RV-dwellers who are periodically told by the city to move their vehicles – even if just across the street – or risk having them towed away. In Seattle, about one-third of unsheltered homeless people live in vehicles, according to recent homeless counts. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Sept. 19, 2017 photo, trash from homeless encampments lines an entrance ramp for Interstate Highway 5 in San Diego. Rising numbers of homeless people have pushed abject poverty into the open like never before up and down the West Coast, leaving elected officials and outreach workers struggling to find solutions. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
In this Sept. 19, 2017 photo, people line up for free food being given out in an area of downtown Los Angeles known as Skid Row. Official counts taken earlier in 2017 in California, Oregon and Washington show nearly 169,000 homeless people in the three states, according to an Associated Press tally of every jurisdiction in those states that report homeless numbers to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
In this Oct. 30, 2017 photo, Stanley Timmings poses for a photo as he displays a picture of the Christmas-decorated fireplace mantle he had in the house where he used to live in before becoming homeless. Timmings and his girlfriend were forced to move into an RV after the owner of the home they were renting a room in died of cancer. In Seattle, about one-third of unsheltered homeless people live in vehicles, according to recent homeless counts. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
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