Housing and Homeless Issues
Estimates of Seattle's homeless population put the number somewhere around 6,000 to 8,000 people; up to 1,000 are children and young adults. Seattle's relatively mild winters may lure homeless people from cities with colder winters.
In March 2004, Seattle was recognized in a report released by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development as one of the seven cities in the United States that are leading the way toward reducing chronic homelessness. (The other cities are Birmingham, Alabama; Boston; Columbus, Ohio; Los Angeles; Philadelphia; and San Diego.) Many of the services cited are funding fairly traditional programs, such as homeless shelters, emergency shelters, low-income housing, and hygiene programs. Also, the Community Psychiatric Clinic in Seattle provides housing for about 5,000 homeless mentally ill clients per year. There are also private shelters, soup kitchens, and food banks. The Seattle Housing Authority also provides 5,300 low-income public housing units for over 24,000 residents. Its first development, Yesler Terrace (1942), was the first public housing development in Washington and the first integrated such development in the country.
Seattle also has some more innovative programs run by nonprofit groups. Real Change is a street newspaper sold by homeless individuals to provide them an income without panhandling. FareStart provides job training and placement in the food preparation industry and provides food service in the Seattle Central Library. The Homelessness Project, Seattle Youth Garden Works and YMCA's Working Zone help the homeless get training, jobs and housing.
Seattle has also provided some of the locations for the series of homeless encampments known as Tent City. Tent Cities are largely self-policing, with strict regulations, such as no alcohol, no drugs, and segregated areas for families, men, and women.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Seattle
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