Living in Seattle, people focus a lot on the homeless because it's an obvious problem. The guy screaming at the corner, or the people sleeping on the sidewalk.
But I personally think people miss that its a symptom of greater social rot. I've had more issues with antisocial car drivers than any homeless individual. People screaming profanities because I'm crossing the street with the walk signal active, people narrowly missing me as they speed to work. Just yesterday my entire block lost power because a drunk asshole tboned another car going 75mph, killing a family of four while nearly shearing a utility pole.
The reality is that even if the line is drawn with the homeless the undercurrent of social rot is still there and it's not getting better. And I don't see people calling for car drivers to be institutionalized, quite the opposite in most cases even when they commit homicide.
There is something not right with many Seattle-area residents. Some weird combination of anger issues, low self-esteem, and terrible driving skills. I moved to SoCal earlier this year and have seen much less rage and incompetence on the roads. I don’t get flipped off on a daily basis anymore for driving a particular polarizing electric car. No more pairs of Subarus going 5-10 under, blocking the whole road and inducing rage in the lineup of cars.
In a lot of large cities, local governments reacted to the 2020-2023 protests against police brutality by drastically reducing traffic enforcement. Aggressive drivers can get away with a lot more bad behavior now and have little fear of consequences. When voters elect leaders like Katie Wilson this is one of the inevitable consequences.
Katie Wilson managed to put together and impressive ghetto of 50 shacks for marginally less than 4 million dollars. Cut her some slack.