Urban Rest Stop comes under fire

Geeky Swedes Ballard

The people behind a proposed low income housing development in Ballard quickly lost control of a community meeting Wednesday night as residents demanded answers about plans to bring an Urban Rest Stop to the neighborhood. Instead of starting with a formal presentation on the design of the building, organizers were forced to scrap their agenda to answer a barrage of questions from about three dozen concerned neighbors.

“Is this a done deal or can we fight it,” said one resident.


Urban Rest Stop program manager Ronni Gilboa speaks to the crowd

The Urban Rest Stop, which would be on street level of the building at 2014 NW 57th Street, is part of the project proposed by the Low Income Housing Institute. The building’s upper floors would be home to up to 60 units of low income housing, with 20 percent set aside for the homeless.  Wednesday night, we learned the specifics of what the Urban Rest Stop portion of the facility would include:

  • Operating hours of 6am to 2pm (Mon-Fri only)
  • 75 to 100 people expected each day
  • 5 shower rooms
  • Laundry area
  • Health room

Ronni Gilboa, the program manager for the downtown Urban Rest Stop, explained that the proposed facility in Ballard would basically be a place for people to come in and clean up to start the day with showers and laundry.  Gilboa said 60 percent of people who use the downtown facility are employed, but only at minimum wage.

“It’s really boring.  People come in to take care of themselves,” Gilboa told the crowd.  The organizers also said that Ballard was currently underserved by low income housing with many people being pushed out of the neighborhood by skyrocketing home prices and rent.

But many in the audience, including a group of people who live in the area near the proposed building, say they have concerns about what happens when the rest stop isn’t open.  They worry about lines forming outside the building in the overnight hours as the homeless wait for the rest stop to open. 

“You have no way to protect us when you’re not open,” said one member of the audience.

Others questioned if Ballard really needed a facility like this, especially in a residential area.

“It seems like you’re bombarding Ballard,” one man told the crowd.

“There are about five cars of people that camp on that street.  I would like to know how having an urban rest stop on a residential block, not Market, helps rather than exacerbates homeless camping on this residential block,” said one neighbor.


Proposed site at 2014 NW 57th St.

But some did speak in favor of the development, including a former employee of the Ballard library and a downtown resident who says she’s invested in some Ballard condos.

“I’d say Ballard has the most pervasive homeless population of any community in Seattle except for the central library.  I know people are concerned. I’m not a resident of Ballard, but in terms of a need it’s pretty apparent to people who work in the library that there are homeless people here all the time and there’s definitely a need for a rest stop,” said the library employee.

“I had more problems with the party people,” said the downtown resident who used to live in Belltown.  “Over where I’m at right now with Urban Rest Stop right next door, there’s an orderliness,” the downtown resident said.

Sharon Lee, executive director of the Low Income Housing Institute, said the property has not been purchased yet.  LIHI will be depending on a mix of private funding and government programs.  She says they currently have no plans to proceed with the development unless the Urban Rest Stop is included.  Lee told the audience that more community meetings will be planned as the project moves forward.

Geeky Swedes

The founders of My Ballard

400 thoughts to “Urban Rest Stop comes under fire”

  1. The meeting was very telling. The facts-&-figures that LIHI presented were at odds with those brought by the Ballard residents. (A perfect example of Mark Twain’s “Lies, damned lies & statistics.”)

    For me, the chilling omen was how completely unhinged Ms. Gilboa became when a resident near the proposed Urban Reststop site asked if she herself lived near one (she never did answer). I thought it was a fair question, as the residents are being told to shut-up and like it, but it became a category five ad-hominem hurricane. It really clarified what the residents are up against.

    I probably don’t have a dog in this fight. I live far enough away from the site, and I’ll likely end up being transferred for work well before the thing is built. However, I do feel for the people who will take a hit if this thing becomes reality. And I sure would hate to come back for a visit in ten years to find that Ballard has become Seattle’s skid row.

    Good luck!

  2. “is this a done deal or can we fight it?” weellllll myballard, a thrilling quote, but the answer to that question would be wonderful…

  5. It’s not just the homeless, it’s the homeless plus all the hanger’s on. Go hang out at Pike Place and Steinbrueck Park after dark, check out the dope dealing, dozens of homeless and street thugs mixing it up.

    Dangerous? Well, shootings and stabbings happen all the time. It’s not just the homeless, its the thugs who take sell them drugs and hustle with them.

  6. can you cite any “facts & figures that L1H1 presented…at odds with ballard residents?”

    I think whether Ms. Gilboa lives near an urban rest stop herself is besides the point. Sounds like this bombardbment of questions rattled her.

    off topic, but can we use another metaphor than “having a dog in this fight”
    I mean, who are you, Michael Vick?

  8. Please go to the current Urban Rest Stop and see what goes on there. It’s an awesome place and most of the people who use it are employed people who are also homeless. They are providing a needed service and the people who use it are productive people in our city.

    Social services shouldn’t be concentrated in one area but spread throughout the city and this is a good first step. Ronni is a terribly dedicated person devoted to the needs of the under-served. Ballard is teeming with people living in their cars, if they had regular access to personal hygiene perhaps more would have access to employment and break the cycle of homelessness.

    Get off your computer, go down to the Urban Rest Stop downtown, and realize this organization did what the city couldn’t pull off on their own. Take some soap or shampoo and you’ll become a regular donor to this awesome organization.

    I’ve been proud donor for ten years. Hope when you go there the volunteer who cuts hair it’s something to see how many people’s needs are served with dignity daily. Your stereotypes of who this service serves will be blown and your heart may well open up as never before.

  9. Do you live in Ballard near the proposed site?

    And yes, I’ve seen the downtown location. Nice, quiet desolated and isolated part of Seattle, not near single family homes and areas teeming with drunk vagrants.

  10. While this sounds like a great organization providing much-needed services, the nearby property owners’ concerns are legitimate and shouldn’t be written off as selfish nimby-ism. I’d imagine it’s not fear of the homeless, but fear of their property values further declining. All of us home-owners have had a rough year (fyi, I live in Ballard but not near this site). Who here would honestly purchase a house next-door or across the street from an Urban Rest Stop? As others have pointed out, I think LIHI would have little to no push-back from Ballard residents if their proposed project was located in a commercial zone.

  12. Well said, Priscilla. I don’t think people realize that many homeless people living in Ballard go completely unseen. It’s the 10 or 20 folks hanging out on Market Street that most people think of as “the homeless” because they fit the stereotype of what homeless is. There are untold numbers of people who are trying to get their lives together but don’t have the resources for a place to live. Instead, they stay in their cars and have to get creative when searching for a place to clean up. What happens to any of us if we lose our job, our spouse leaves us, we get injured, etc.? Homelessness is not just the few people hanging out at the library or the park. You don’t see most of them, because they are not proud of the fact that they’re living in their car on a sidestreet and washing up at the convenience store bathroom.

  13. reading the entire article would help you:

    “said the property has not been purchased yet. LIHI will be depending on a mix of private funding and government programs. She says they currently have no plans to proceed with the development unless the Urban Rest Stop is included. Lee told the audience that more community meetings will be planned as the project moves forward.”

  14. so only single family homes can be classified as residences? Yesterday I listed the number of residential highrises, daycares and schools in the area that I could remember and that was by no means an exhaustive list.

    I have no idea how you can call that area desolated (sic) and isolated. You’re simply not paying attention.

  16. Yes, you are right and I whole-heartedly agree with you. I just know you are going to get push-back about the commercial comment because truly, the lot is zoned Neighborhood Commercial 3 (I think – NC of some kind). Maybe we need to start by getting this rezoned to just multifamily or something. How does that happen?

  18. Interesting that NIMBY has become a bad word. NIBMY attitudes have protected a great number of stupid things from being forced down the throats of citizens and homowners in neighborhoods across the US. Embrace your NIBMY attitudes, Ballardites. It might just save our neighborhood from becoming Seattle’s dumping ground for a much larger issue at hand overall. Seattle has a homeless problem. Using Ballard as the hub for homeless social services is not a solution – it’s a band aid that could ruin our neighborhood. Have some good sense and fight this stupidity. You have that right.

  19. I agree, LIHI needs to have a conversation with nearby homeowners to address their concerns. I was at the meeting and it sounded like Sharon Lee was very willing to do that.

  20. Where she lives is very much to the point. Many of these so-call homeless advocates live in areas that would never allow skid rows to be developed like they are in Ballard. The only ‘Ronni Gilboa’ I can find in Seattle lives in Maple Leaf. I guess it makes it easier to be a bleeding heart when it’s not your neighborhood they want to trash.

  21. No one said they aren’t different types of homeless, but this kind of facility will attract the good and the bad and it’s the bad who will make the biggest impact.

    Again, go hang out in Steinbrueck Park after dark if you want to see what ‘tolerance’ gets you. Hope you don’t get stabbed.

  22. Exactly, I’m NIMBY and proud. Don’t like NIMBYs? Go live in a crime ridden, garbage strewn, sh*tty neighborhood and enjoy your neighbors who don’t give a damn.

  24. Does Seattle have any agencies providing services to the homeless under the assumption that people generally become homeless for reasons far more complicated than “a random spell of bad luck”? Surely someone out there in the non-profit world has given more than two seconds of thought to the root causes of the problem.

  25. Serious question. What is the success rate of these facilities? Are there statistics that show a certain percentage of users eventually supporting themselves? Is this a temporary step for people to pull their lives together and move forward? Or does it become more of an enabler, allowing people to depend on it indefinitly?

  26. I just looked at the zoning and you’re right. It is Midrise-Residential/Commercial. I’m not sure how to change a zoning designation, but it’s probably not easy.

  27. All the programs do is successfully lift the guilt of bleeding hearts like Ronni Gilboa so she can go back to HER HOME IN MAPLE LEAF and sleep easy.

    The rest of us? We get to deal with the actual problems caused by her projects.

    Go check out Steinbrueck Park to see what Ballard’s future is in the hands of these people.

  28. I would like to dispel the myth that somehow the homeowners adjacent to this parcel of land are bad people because they’re questioning the validity of this location for the project. No one is saying the need isn’t there – but no one wants a line of homeless outside their front door, waiting to use the facility, either. Ronni reacted to our concerns as if they were personal affronts and adopted a condescending and offensive tone that was not constructive to the meeting. We, the current residents of Ballard, who have poured our savings into buying here, should not be told, “shut up and like it”. We deserve to have our very valid concerns about safety, and yes, about property values and the appearance of our street, addressed by LIHI in a professional and satisfactory manner. There is nothing wrong with wanting to protect our investments.

    With regard to safety: what percentage of the users of the downtown URS have criminal backgrounds? There is no doubt that a certain number of those people will head to Ballard (a short 20-minute bus ride away) when the downtown URS is full – and Ronni did say slots get filled and that people can be turned away. NO, no all of the users of URS are criminals- but some of them are. If 60% of users work minimum wage jobs – what about the other 40%? What happens when those folks are done using the facility and disperse into Ballard? This will have a tremendous effect on the neighborhood – to say there will be no problem behavior at all as a result is exhibiting a special kind of tunnel vision.

    Until there is a comprehensive plan by LIHI to manage the queuing up in front of people’s homes, and a safety and security plan that satisfies the current residents in the area, this project should not go forward.

  29. As a resident of the this street and seeing the normal activity day in and day out, I absolutely don’t think this is the answer we’re looking for. When the downtown Urban Rest Stop hits capacity at 9am, where do you think they’ll send people? To the new Ballard Urban Rest Stop, of course. Communities need to have balance, this is not balance. I’ve had a camper parked in front of my house for 5 days. The police do little. I only see this becoming more of a problem and to an excellent point from last night’s meeting, this doesn’t help people get off the street. And one other question, how does LIHI sell the property on 56th Street to the Compass Center and then buy this space for another 60 units and this isn’t considered “high concentration”? Social services are a good cause, I’m struggling to see how this doesn’t turn our block into the next Pioneer Square.

  30. What the story doesn’t mention is that by the end of the meeting it was clear that many attendees (including potential neighbors) weren’t opposed to the concept of the Urban Rest Stop, they just didn’t want it on their street or in their residential neighborhood.

    Moreover, the story didn’t mention – and I really wish it had – that many participants, including those with highly divergent viewpoints and perspectives on the issue, expressed a willinghess to keep their minds open, to continue gaining information and facts, and to try to work together to identify solutions for addressing the specific concerns of those who would live closest to the facility.

    Many of us left the room pondering how to address a very serious need in Ballard while balancing the very real concerns of those who will be living nearest to this facility. This process is still in its early phases, so there will be many more opportunities for people to come together and to discuss innovative ways to address these issues.

  31. The funny thing to me is that “Urban rest stop” implies that scruffy Mr Bojangles is going to shave and shower then get on to the nest box car south. In reality this is a “Urban destination stop” enabling the homeless to stay in Ballard as long as they please. Enough with the NIMBY bashing. People with no stake in the neighborhood love to drag this out and wave it around. Secretly hoping that this project stays in Ballard not Maple Leaf or Queen Anne etc.

  35. And those people enter through their 20th floor windows? At least you’re admitting it’s not “desolated” down there. I can respect legitimate issues with the Urban Rest Stop in Ballard, but don’t lie to get your point across.

  39. Thanks for the report – I hope the open minds include Sharon Lee and LIHI, as the end of the article above suggests they may have an “all or nothing” approach to including the Rest Stop on 57th.

  40. Thanks for the report – I hope the open minds include Sharon Lee and LIHI, as the end of the article above suggests they may have an “all or nothing” approach to including the Rest Stop on 57th.

  41. “You have no way to protect us when you’re not open,”

    omfg please protect us from poor people! Why won’t anyone think of the children!

  42. NO NO NO NO

    I periodically get the homeless guy living in the van parked in front of my house. I then have to look at that for 72 hours. I have kids, so then need to be mindful of that as they leave for school. I get some trash left behind. Let’s not do things to INCREASE this kind of activity in the neighborhood.

  43. Ooooo, a few months. How noble of them. And what about Ms. Gilboa’s Maple Leaf neighborhood, how many shelters and urban rest stops has she planned for there?

  44. How about this then, why don’t you and the kids go hang out in Steinbrueck Park for a month then report back to us the pleasures of living around the ‘poor’.

    This isn’t about the poor. It’s about the large element of the street population that uses drugs, drinks, commits crime, engages in lewd behavior, and, as we constantly see downtown, robs, maims and kills each other and those around them. I was at 2nd and Pine this week when the shooting happened. I don;t want that population in Ballard.

    If you want to invite that part of the street population to Ballard, be sure to let them know where you live and that your door is always open, because you soooooo tolerant.

  46. Let’s not forget that the people who live in the neighborhood (home owners and renters) and business owners have a RIGHT to say what happens in their neighborhood. They live there, pay taxes there, send their kids to school there–come on. This is not about “being afraid of poor people” –this is about making choices for the community. When the people who have the highest stakes in a community no longer have a voice in what happens there, then they move elsewhere. Respect the people who live there.

  47. An URS is a good thing for the homeless: they get to get clean, which benefits both themselves and anyone they interact with. Ideally, there would be one of these everywhere where there are homeless: if there was one in every neighborhood, then the concentration of service-users in any single neighborhood would be much less. We should be advocating for many more of these.

    Yes, addressing the root cause and eliminating homelessness would be best, but no one has figured out how to do that. When no surgery is possible, an excellent band-aid is way better than nothing.

  49. Have you ever been in a real city with a real crime problem? What a baby. Fifty years ago you would’ve been bitching because a black family moved in down the block.

  50. DC:

    I have been a homeowner in Ballard for 20 years and I am a realtor. You are so right that this will affect the value of the homes in the area. I don’t think the low income housing would be nearly as detrimental on it’s own, but adding the Urban Reststop would affect the saleability of every home nearby.

  51. Great reason not to provide facilities. Better they don’t even have the opportunity to move forward, eh? If this thing was going into another neighborhood you wouldn’t even care. All you care about is its effect on you, the hell with what it might do to help someone else.

  53. Nobody complains when a new bar or restaurant opens up on Market or Ballard Ave. But the crowds of iPhone-obsessed revelers have had much more of a negative impact on life in Ballard than a couple of dozen street people. Why don’t you just admit to being snobs?

  54. Ahhh yes, the ruse of the desperate, linking street thugs with black people. Some of us know the difference, maybe you just lump them all together.

    What a baby? Did you see the guy’s brains splatter across Second and Pine this week, all within sight of Seattle’s most popular tourist destination, a haven for bums and thugs.

  55. Move to a residential-only zone if you can’t bear the mixed uses. Simple, isn’t it? Or do you like the lower rents of the mixed-use zone? How nice if you could have the perks of residential-only zoning without paying the price of admission. How could anybody move into that area and expect it to be Blue Ridge? Yeesh.

  57. Bum storage. What could possibly go wrong? When you set out a bowl of food, cockroaches will eventually show up. Trust me, build it and they will come. Just what Ballard needs, more bums and a comfy place for them to hang out.

  58. Oh no, not low-income people! Let’s see, my house is low-income housing right now (I lost my job) and I live next door to people with kids. Am I a threat? If I lost my house to foreclosure and needed an “urban rest stop” to do my laundry and shower before I go out looking for work, am I a threat then? Exactly how does my lack of a solid income make me into a nasty person who might stab you? Might good services help prevent such a downward slide?

    For all the behaviors you are afraid of, there are laws against them and you really ought to call the police if you see anyone dealing drugs, assaulting others, etc. And vote for Prop 1 while you’re at it, we need the $$ for enforcement.

    If you see people littering, forget your normal Seattle passive aggressive habits and ask them to pick up their trash. (I bet more beer bottles and potato chip bags are left at Golden Gardens by people WITH homes than are left in all the rest of Ballard by people without homes.)

    As someone else commented, most of the time if you see a homeless person you don’t even know it — they look an awful lot like everyone else! The people you’re afraid of are the shabby folks who sit on the street. A rest stop would give them, as well as the other homeless folks you don’t see, a better place to sit, as well as the means to clean up a bit and maybe improve their chances of landing a job… where’s the harm in that?

    And yes, I live in Ballard and I own my home.

  59. Low income housing? Sure. Magnet for the deranged and addicted? NIMBY. Let’s take care of this outside a residential area, with a serious project designed to protect those who can’t protect themselves, and a place to help alcoholics and drug addicts, who seem to have moved in droves into the unlit and sleepable areas around central Ballard. I’d pay taxes to institute and enforce those programs, and to help continue the development of a family friendly school system and safe neighborhood. I think associating low income housing with a service center ruins the opportunities provided by both.How about a free service center near the Ballard Blocks?

  61. Or we could try to be a neighborhood that embodies some of the higher aspects of humanity, such as compassion. We could try to be an example of how the world could be better, not just another gated community for (relatively) affluent people that are afraid of the way the world really is, deny their culpability in making it that way, and use their wealth to build walls to keep the world out. Ignoring injustice may make your life more comfortable in the short term, but in the long run you have built yourself a very fragile existence.

  63. There’s a huge body of literature on this very subject, but I’m afraid most of the people objecting to the URS would not like what it says. Poverty has much less to do with character or luck than it does with the built-in inequities of the American economic system. “The Way We Never Were” by Stephanie Coontz is a good place to start.

  65. No one complains about the lines outside Senor Moose on weekends. It’s not the lines you’re objecting to – it’s the “undesirable” people in those lines. Tell me, can you, on casual inspection, distinguish a drunk of poor character from a drunk of good character from a drunk with mental illness? Probably not. Yet you assume that none of those three drunks deserve your compassion, while one may be your cousin, another your neighbor and another that guy who sits on the bus talking to himself.

    What is wrong with giving this thing a chance? There are laws in place already to deal with disturbances and nuisances; invoke them later if necessary. This insistence on guarantees that there will be no impact whatsoever on the neighborhood is just plain immature. Life is messy, folks, but it’s better than the alternative.

  68. Yes, I here all the people coming to Ballard to spend money have really ruined the place. All those businesses trying to keep payroll, how they’ve suffered from the iPhone toting professionals coming in and buying ‘stuff’.

    What planet do you live on or are you forever stuck with the naiveté of an 18 year old?

  69. Don’t confuse compassion with stupidity and naïveté. Common mistake for 18 year olds or those who haven’t learned much about the world.

  70. Um, that was a personal dispute between two people who knew each other, as are most acts of violence. Turn off the TV news and inform yourself about the real nature of urban crime. You are much more likely to hurt your child than any street person.

  72. I live in the midst of the revelers and there is no negative impact day in and day out like the guys who are peeing in the front or on the corners in dowtown Ballard. That is really lovely. Also, as a homeowner in Ballard and a worker in Belltown, it is a relief to get out of downtown to Ballard where you can still walk the streets feeling semi-safe. Instead of Belltown and downtown around these social services facilities where there is a constant threat that one of the looneys are going to knife you like I have personally witnessed.

  76. “black family moved in down the block.”

    So black people = bums? Bums are a race now?

    Have you shared your theory with any actual black people?

  77. The two participants knew each other. It could happen anywhere, and does. Citing this incident doesn’t make a case against an URS in Ballard.

  78. OK, let’s put it this way: fifty years ago he’d have been bitching because a homosexual moved in down the street. Think of the kids!!!

  80. Nice interpretation of my comment. I was referring to a form of discrimination that was common fifty years ago, as anti-homelessness is now. You have some serious reading comprehension issues. Have you tried, you know, school?

  81. Of course it is, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the URS in Ballard. Do you know for sure that both “street thugs” were homeless? Did they use the downtown URS? Would they come to Ballard if the downtown URS was full?

  82. “Tell me, can you, on casual inspection, distinguish a drunk of poor character from a drunk of good character from a drunk with mental illness?”

    Easily. The former spend their money in the bar and don’t drink to excess. The latter swill their booze in the open, litter the place with cans, and scream at the passersby. Of course there is some crossover with fratboys and douchebags occasionally yelling at night and some quiet vagrants, but the drinker of good character usually doesn’t do it to excess and returns to being a productive member of society the next morning.

  83. Or to your house. Is there one Guest, or many? What kind of place are you running there? Do you check with us, your neighbors, before you invite someone we don’t know into your house, which is in our neighborhood, and therefore affects us? Are we supposed to depend on YOUR judgment alone? Not acceptable, in the New Ballard.

  84. Doesn’t matter, they are part of the whole street scene that comes with the homeless crowd downtown. You get homeless, you get the thugs who cater to their needs (such as drugs). You don’t get one without the other.

  86. Lumping whole categories of complex people together over vast historical time frames doesn’t require reading comprehension to understand, it requires a lack of critical thinking.

  87. It was nice to see so many Ballard residents at the meeting last night. It was good of LIHI to schedule the meeting and that they plan to schedule more meetings. Whether or not we can do anything about the Urban Rest Stop has yet to be seen but we must try. This is the wrong location for the Urban Rest Stop. Seattle Inside/Out will be airing a program on these issues that Ballard is facing in about 3 weeks–at least that’s what I was told by the camera people last night. I’m sure they will be back in the neighborhood in the next couple of weeks to get input from the neighborhood. If you see them, go out and talk to them, let them know what you think. I do know there was coverage of the meeting last night on KOMO 4 at 11:00 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. today. I was told by friends and co-workers they saw me or heard me on 97.3 fm. So there is interest out there regarding this issue.

  88. I’m 58, and one of the things I’ve learned is that nothing is as simple as it seems. To broadly pronounce the homeless dangerous and unworthy of assistance is far more naïve than recognizing that they are human beings, some good, s0me bad, but ghettoizing their support services in crappy neighborhoods undermines the mission of the assistance. I think communities should come together to help those who need it, not just try to foist them off on someone else somewhere else. We are all culpable in the problem of homelessness, in a myriad of ways due to our participation in an unjust economic system, and it really wouldn’t kill us to try to offset some of the damage we unwittingly do.

    Read Stepanie Coontz’s “The Way We Never Were” if you want to actually understand something about poverty, rather than succumbing to your primal fear of anyone who doesn’t look like you.

  89. “Do you check with us,”

    Nope the bank did: criminal records, employment history, credit reports. I’d be more than willing to let the rest stop use my bank’s checks and standards.

  92. I am curious as to why the city of Seattle bears complete responsibility for the homeless population (with the exception of one tent city that moves around the east side)? Why do not other cities in the area (Bellevue, Issaquah, Kent, Lynnwood, Edmonds etc) share in taking care of them? Yes, I know advocates for the homeless will cite that services are in Seattle and you want to keep the population close to those services, but how about we start spreading the care for the homeless around a bit? I am all for taking care of those in need but I think Seattle citizens (Ballard in particular) are beginning to feel stressed out by this situation, which explains their strong reaction to proposals such as this.

  93. I didn’t say “drinker”, I said “drunk”. Apparently you’ve never known an actual alcoholic, and how much damage they can do without ever yelling at a stranger on the street. What you are really saying is that you don’t care what the hell people do, so long as you don’t have to look at it.

  94. I spent a lot more for my home than the person livng in the condo down the street. I pay more in property taxes than the renter in the apartment building. Does that give me more of a say? Shall we just add up our respective investments in the community and whoever has the most gets to call the shots? Suzie Burke would love that…

  95. Reading comprehension, my friend. Look it up.

    By the way, you said the homeless are drug users. Really? All of them?

    I don’t know which Guest you are, but you sure are a jerk.

  96. I have been physically assaulted in broad daylight by a homeless man wanting money at the safeway (market and 15th) and of course the police arrived too late to find him. I live and own a business very close to this location (3 blocks) and have had homeless people live in my bushes and defecate near by doorways!!! It is very disgusting. The police do not help me with this problem either. Last time I had to get the fire department to help evict the drunk homeless tresspassers on my property who where scaring my employees. I am extremely worried that this will bring more homeless to Ballard. The homeless are not simply minding their own business, some of them are criminals and/or mentally ill and the police are not policing their actions. In fact the police turn a blind eye to the criminal activity of this group of people. The situation will only get more dangerous for us residents. I truly hope that the development of this rest stop is stopped.

  98. What percentage of the prison population was homeless prior to their arrest? If they’re so dangerous, why aren’t they all in prison by now? Is home ownership the strongest predictor of chronic criminal behavior?

    Oh, and a bank has never issued a loan to a person with a criminal record, or falsified documents, or a poor credit history. Remember the little financial meltdown we had a short time ago?

  100. “world a better place is more economic activity”

    You mean providing jobs doesn’t make the world a better place? Well, you must love bums then.

  101. No one ever gets hurt at home. Actually, you’re more likely to be killed at home than anywhere else. You wanna be safe? Go hang out in the park.

  103. I’ve never had a drunk hipster yell ‘fuck off’ or curse at me in front of my kids when I refused to give them money….had it happen several times with bums in Ballard.

    The day you see a drunk hipster do that, I’ll listen to your adolescent nonsense.

  104. We know exactly how to end homelessness. But it would take a rethinking of our economic system, with the result that there would be a lot fewer super-rich people, and we’d have to pay more for our gas, food, and entertainment. There are solutions, but we basically like things as they are and the hell with everyone else.

  106. Housing prices are unsustainably high anyway. Some deflation might be a good thing. Stop flipping houses as an investment; make a commitment to your neighborhood and live in your house long enough so that you don’t expect a 10% annual return on what should be regarded as a savings account, not a speculative venture. The last thing realtors want is for people to actually stay in one place for a long time.

  107. I am all for this. The location sounds like a good one to me. How can I help get this going? What kind of support does this project need?

  108. Irrelevant.

    Are you voting in the upcoming election? Why? Most of that stuff will never affect you as much as it affects someone else? What gives you the right to have an opinion?

    Oh yeah. We’re in the USA. Something about a Constitution. Last time I looked, it didn’t say you couldn’t participate in democracy unless you lived on the right street. Perhaps an amendment campaign is in order.

  109. Our Mayor, City Council, King County Council and state representatives are fully committed to ending homelessness — without any regard to their tax paying public. But we did this to ourselves by voting for the Homeless Levy a year or two ago. It’s our money that is funding this project and projects like it from city taxes, county taxes or state taxes. What bothers me the most is the city doesn’t classify the homeless into those that want help to get their lives back on track and those that don’t — they are going to put a roof over their head no matter what. And, on top of that, they aren’t required to do a darn thing in order to get that housing — they don’t have to clean up, they don’t have to try to get a job, nothing. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. At this point, it’s getting to be a joke — the homeless rate doesn’t go down, it’s going up and not necessarily because of the economy — because the homeless are hearing what a sweet deal they can get in Seattle and Seattle is rolling out the welcome mat for them. I think the term I saw was Freeattle.

  110. Where, Rondi, should it go, in your opinion? And what if the neighbors there are opposed to it? Does it bounce around the city until it lands among people who are too busy to read blogs, or too poor to have internet connections, or don’t give a rat’s ass what happens in their neighborhood?

    Or, god forbid, who actually care what happens in the world outside their own block and want to participate in making things better for everyone?

    Where do you want it to go, Rondi, other than “not here”?

  114. Depends what the jobs are. Has more employment in China been good for you? Has the explosion in soldiering jobs with defense contractors been good for the people of Iraq? Not all jobs are a good thing for everyone.

    I don’t love bums, any more than I love you or anyone else I don’t personally know very well. But I do recognize that their state of being “bums” can be considerably more complex than them just being of inferior character, and more important, unworthy of my compassion or decent regard.

    You probably think you’re pretty clever in the way you twist my words, but you actually really suck at it. Do yourself a favor and stop trying.

  116. End homelessness? In 10,000 years of recorded human history, that’ll be a first and to think, it’ll happen right here in Ballard.

    After that, ya gonna defeat the laws of gravity?

  120. Here’s an idea, go buy a house next door. Hell, if the bum-let can’t take ’em all in, you can let them shower at your place.

    Put your money where your mouth is, that would be a great way to show support.

  123. I live on 70th, not far from Salmon Bay Park. Also not far from the old Ballard Food Bank location, which nobody seemed to have a problem with, even though there are tons of apartment buildings and single family homes right there.

    The value of my property soared about 5 years ago like everyone else’s, and now it has gone back down. I doubt it’s because of the homeless population.

  125. Oh stop being such a drama queen.

    Its not asking too much to understand the underlying reasons why someone is homeless, unable to bathe, or hold a job. Its it unreasonable to try to examine the root cause of people needing facilities like this? Are there some decisions and/or actions that can be taken to prevent someone from being unable to care for themselves?

    I am very interested in how to help prevent people from becoming homeless. A shelter, food bank, or public bath house should be temporary solutions for people, not a way of life.

  126. Poverty and homelessness are not the same thing. The “poor” do not need an Urban Rest Stop.

    Nor do all the homeless either. Some couch surf, some use shelters, some maintain gym memberships for access to showers, some rent cheap motels every so often to clean up.

    The question to ask is – which sub-population(s) of the homeless use these URS, are they more likely than other sub-populations to have chronic problems that spill into the public arena, and will they bring problems into the neighborhood if one is built in a residential area? All are fair questions to ask.

  130. I like the idea of putting it in in a neighborhood where people “don’t give a rat’s ass what happens in their neighborhood”. But it sounds to me like the people in Ballard do care what happens when more drunk vagrants are attracted to the neighborhood.

  131. However, you do have to be a citizen. How about the democracy of Ballard. Looking at these posts I’d say the majority of people who live in Ballard would vote against this. Also, I don’t know you so you very well could be a threat regardless if you own your own home. And what relevance is it that your neighbors have kids?? A lot of people have kids….

  133. Should Ballard residents against this have their own meeting? I hate to wait for them to make a decision, there should be enough of us to come up with some plan of action.

  134. Being poor is not the same as being homeless.

    You have also mentioned that book twice, and though it is an interesting, though unrevealing read, it has very little to do with the root causes of homelessness, and focuses instead on how the 50’s era was not as airbrushed as TV made it out to be.

  135. So, you’re saying there’s a problem because no one cares? The police won’t help? There’s no funding for mental institutions? Who has the time to distinguish between “homeless” and “criminal”?

    Join the club. The only appropriate response is to not care, also. Push this thing away, just so long as it’s not near me.

    And the circle of indifference remains unbroken. And every day the ranks of those who fall through the cracks of society swell. Let’s hope a crack never opens under us. What goes around, comes around.

  138. I completely agree that most of these issues are as simple as they seem (and merit discussion). Yet, this is a bit ironic coming from the poster who has in this thread alone suggested that not wanting this facility was historically similar to hating blacks and/or gays.

  139. The answer is to increase spending on existing emergency shelters and transitional housing, not building more Urban Rest Stops. Part of the reason for the perceived need is this city underfunds its emergency shelter system, and has no coherent plan for managing its existing shelters.

  140. Homelessness has been a problem endemic in every single society, ever since we started forming them. I am pretty sure that we do NOT know “exactly how to end homelessness”.

  142. I wasn’t talking nomads moron, I was talking laziness, poor life choices, drinking, doping and criminality: the main cause of bums (vs. homeless), good times or bad and all incurable.

  144. i think it would be a great idea to organize an opposing force. lived through something similar in ny a few years ago where neighbors organized a group opposing public housing in a particular area – website, flyers, protests, etc..once they saw that we weren’t going to be pushovers, the proposal quietly went away

  145. Once again, I was comparing prevailing prejudices. And, pray tell, exactly HOW is not wanting this facility DIFFERENT from not wanting (fill in current underclass here) in the neighborhood?

    Do you get it now? The point is discrimination itself, NOT THE SUBJECTS OF DISCRIMINATION. You guys are trying to sound intellectual without actually going to the effort of doing some actual thinking.

  146. All you read was the Amazon description, right? Because the 50’s TV reference was on the book jacket, but nearly absent in the book itself. Much of the book deals with the impact of poverty and discrimination on groups of people. It’s incredibly relevant to this discussion.

    But you’d know that if you actually read the book, which you clearly haven’t.

    Try again.

  147. I plan on making a donation to the project to help get it built. that is putting my money where my mouth is. I’m not just being provocative. I have always maintained a position of doing anything to help the homeless population.

  148. Au contraire Barfly, the bathroom in Salmon Bay Park is open and used by plenty of street people. And I haven’t noticed a problem.

    Tons of kids play in the park all summer. And this is a park that is surrounded by single-family homes, all of which had their values skyrocket and decline along with mine.

    I don’t see why a decent facility located in a business district would be a problem. I would think that it would keep people from needing to use the shrubbery instead of a proper toilet.

  149. How about donating the same amount that the neighbors to this project will loose in their homes’ values? that would actually be putting your money where you mouth is, otherwise you’re hypocrite.

  150. The answer is to fund proper emergency shelters with showers, food service, overnight staff, and social services. And then properly fund transitional housing where the more stable can start getting themselves back on their feet. Possibly look into funding a car camp site with facilities as well, for that group. And fund outreach services for those so fargone that they cannot even handle a one night stay in a shelter.

    But bringing this latter group into the heart of a residential neighborhood is most definitely not the answer.

  151. oh for crying out loud – is your head in the sand? Prices have dropped significantly already. Nobody is flipping anymore. Have you read any news in the past coupla years??
    Nothing wrong with folks trying to maintain what value remains in their homes.

  152. Ooooooooooh, you’re throwing a few bucks in. What a sacrifice. Really, knock yourself out.

    Maybe you’ll get a plaque over one of the toilets?

  153. Doesn’t hold water, Barfly. I can support a fire department without taking up a hose myself. I can support a police department without packing a gun and nightstick. I can support public education without teaching classes. And I can support services for homeless people, as well as sick people, depressed people, drunk people, or any kind of people that need help, WITHOUT necessarily bringing them into my own house.

    Aren’t human beings supposed to be capable of awareness and comprehension of things that aren’t right in front of them? Just because I don’t house the homeless DOESN’T mean I don’t care about them.

    If I were a hypocrite, I would be claiming to care when I actually don’t:

    Hypocrisy: insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have
    wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

    Nothing in my behavior indicates that I don’t support services for the homeless. The absence of homeless people in my house proves nothing, nor would their presence.

    Don’t use words you don’t understand. It makes you seem stupid, or at the very least pretentious.

  154. I’m willing to do whatever it takes, and help however I can. If you’ve got additional ideas beyond the donations shoot them over.

  156. Hmm. I never mentioned kids. Are you responding to a different post?

    And I doubt that the dozen people posting on this forum comprise some sort of majority of Ballard voters.

  157. I am more worried about the less fortunate than the fortunate at this time. I am sorry if this impacts anyone in a perceived negative manner.

  158. Sure, cut a check for $10k right now. I imagine that will be the immediate loss in value to the town houses on the corner. Probably more.

  160. I am more worried about the less fortunate than the fortunate at this time. I am sorry if this impacts anyone in a perceived negative manner.

  161. Like you, my property valuation has varied over the last twelve years irrespective of the Ballard Food Bank operations or the presence of any kind of people on the street. The effect of such things is always exaggerated by the property value alarmists.

    So Barfly, we’re not neighbors even though we all live in Ballard? Just how close does something have to get to my house before it’s OK to care about it? One block? Five? Ten? I live on an arterial; does that give me the right to bitch and moan about the undesirables who walk, drive and ride by my house every day? Or not, because they don’t live within the prescribed (x) feet from my front door?

  162. I just hope that those opposed to this never have to be homeless and try to find a place to take a shower or get cleaned up. Unless you’re willing to open your home to those in need I suggest taking a bigger look at the issue.

    Why worry about something that hasn’t happened yet? Why immediately assume that this will turn into something bad? Instead of the doom and gloom, become part of the change – volunteer to help and participate in getting ALL of the community involved in making this a better place no matter what your living situation.

  163. “Freattle” is a nickname well known in the nomadic, chronic homeless population. I have spent years trying to help family members out of this rut, so I am far more familiar with the kind of homelessness than most. “Career homelessness” is not completely accurate, as many move in and out of a variety of housing and jobs (some legal, some not), but it would fit the “free spirit” lifestyle that they pursue. This does not cover all homeless, but there is a subset of them that it does fit.

  164. So I guess that means you’re not putting your money where your mouth is? You’re going to make others do it for you.

    How convenient.

    How typically hypocritical.

    Let us now praise famous hypocrites.

  165. Wow- talk about misreading a post. I was merely stating that the ALL the people who LIVE and WORK in a community should have a say as to what goes on in that community. How much you spent on your home makes no difference. It’s about listening to the community, not one group more than another. We all have stakes in what happens here.

  166. Why don’t we just create such a neighborhood, and bus all the bums there? Read some history of WWII, and report back with your findings.

  167. I wouldn’t call it a career path but for some its a way of life they have chosen for themselves and there is nothing society can do to change that.

  168. I first came to Seattle 8 years ago from the Rust Belt, working as a temp, sleeping in shelters, etc. The Urban Rest Stop was a place where I could be assured of washing my clothes, and taking care of my personal hygiene on a regular basis, rain or shine. I now work as an HR generalist, and have a quite stable life. In return, I volunteer in support of the homeless/societal economically marginalized. I wonder if those who seek to belay the efforts of Ms. Gilboa /The Urban Rest Stop have ever gone without food, shelter, clean clothes, or a place to take a hot shower. Kudos to all the volunteers /corporate/ city entities who give succor to not only Ms. Gilboa’s efforts, but also to the entire homeless agenda.

  169. “I am very interested in how to help prevent people from becoming homeless.”

    Sure you are, as long as you don’t have to look at it. Or sacrifice the tiniest smidgen of your current lifestyle.

  170. there’s a shortage of apple pickers in western washington, why not send all the bums out there if they want housing, food and a shower?

  171. “Communities need to have balance…”

    Yes, indeed. Unfortunately our entire society has been out of balance for a very long time. It’s going to take a lot more than a place to clean up and a few low income housing units to correct the imbalances that exist. Until then we do the best we can in dealing with the results of decades of neglect.

  172. No misreading. You are saying that what goes on in the community should be related to ownership, to stakes in the community. Those who don’t have these “stakes” should have no say, regardless of the fact that a homeless person has the same legal rights as the landed. I was employing a bit of hyperbole, suggesting that since you think degree of investment in a community should affect influence in that community, then perhaps they should be proportional, not binary. Too complicated?

  173. Myth #1 Homelessness can happen to anyone.

    Truth: You have to burn a ton of bridges before you become chronically homeless, it takes years of poor decisions and choices.

    “Why worry about something that hasn’t happened yet? ”

    What we should try to stop it after it opens?

  174. How about all those homeless people in the Great Depression? Did they bring it upon themselves?

    As I recall, the mission of the URS is to aid anyone who needs a place to clean up, not just BUMS.

    How nice for you that you can cling to the illusion that all it takes to succeed in America is hard work and gumption.

  175. I believe you are the one with comprehension issues. Correlating homosexuals and African Americans with homeless people in ANY framework or wording is not only wrong, but horribly offensive. You also have been making blanket questions and statemnts. For instance the percentage of homeless people that are criminals, drug abusers, mental health issues. If YOU would do some research you would find that a significant number of homeless have a criminal background- including more incidences of arrest, past imprisonment, drug abuse issues, and mental health disorders.
    Perhaps if the Urban stop was simply low income housing people would be more welcoming. But attracting a high percentage of criminals into a very family orientated neighborhood is simply not a well thought out idea.
    I would love to help the homeless with rehabilitation, social services for job hunting, and proper medical treatment. However, have a place that is only open during the day, and doesn’t get them off the streets at night, I do not see as any help at all. It’s simply enabling instead of helping them become reintegrated within the society.

  176. Could you cite some sources on that? “Homelessness” as a concept exists only in societies where an absence of community housing is the norm. This does not describe most of the societies that have existed on earth.

  177. Of course I know that, but the mindset still continues. Homes are regarded as appreciating investments that are expected to pay a competitive return, NOT as a way to turn money into security. People of a certain age (as I am) remember when home prices were stable and affordable. It’s the profit mindset that has made homes unaffordable. The real cost of a home has increased much faster than real income since the early ’70s’. Do you think this is a good thing, just because a bunch of bankers became rich in the process?

  178. What percentage of the homeless population would you say, at any given time, could be categorized as “chronic”? Do these people tend to be troublemakers, or do they fit fairly functionally into the “free spirit” lifestyle?

    I’m not innocent enough to believe that there are no troublesome homeless people. Of course there are. But are there enough of them to justify the fear people seem to have of locating this URS in the neighborhood?

    Bad people can get into the neighborhood in many ways. On several occasions I have seen my house being observed by people who may have been interested in robbing it. Or not. But in every case they left in a car and looked far too prosperous and clean to be chronically homeless.

  180. That is a great idea. The library has a meeting room — I was there a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday (they open at 10:00 a.m.). We should be able to use that space. Can anyone that lives close to the library stop in and find out when we could reserve the room? I know this weekend will be hectic with kids and Halloween — maybe next Saturday?

  182. Amen to that.

    Too many people on here claim to be concerned about homelessness, but they aren’t even willing to expend the effort to give this project a chance. Talk about hypocrisy (pointing at Barfly).

  183. That’s kind of a lame argument. Why can’t they just put the place a few miles east where it’s already crappy and less people will care? Why Ballard? It’s kinda out of the way and there’s nothing here for the homeless, except to mooch off people with money. (I am generalizing, I realize there’s some down on their luck people too). But if the place is off 99, its much more of an artery to downtown, and out of town…plus, it’s already seedy and crappy.

    I personally can’t even stand the homeless asstards that have been here longer than me….they’re like a pack of perpetually drunk teenagers, and they have NO VALUE whatsoever.

    I don’t want to wait til this place is up and running to realize it will attract more homeless from out of town, and crapping up Ballard. Just put the URS a few miles east, or more specifically NOT IN BALLARD.

  184. Yup, lucky.

    Maybe you turned in a resume and it got picked out of the hundreds of other equally qualified resumes. Or you had a friend or family member recommend you for the first interview. Then, your company stayed in business while others failed. You picked a career that wasn’t outsourced. It’s not only hard work.

    I certainly was lucky. (thanks to lot of hard work too) … got a job writing code during the 70’s when it wasn’t that easy for a woman to get that job, even with a degree in Computer Science. Then spent 30+years in IT. It was just luck that IT salaries took off while my teaching and accounting friends were left behind.

    Don’t think it’s all about you and your mad skills… I bet that Last Answer or anyone else that’s lived and learned can tell you that, too.

    And along with LastAnswer, I bet I spent more on my house than you did too. I’m staying — maybe you’ll “move up” and outta here soon.

  185. Let me remind all of you bleeding hearts. Actual charity means reaching into your own pocket, not some else’s pocket. Also, talking about charity doesn’t make you charitable.

  186. There is nothing offensive about correlating the mistreatment of blacks and homosexuals and homeless people by the larger society. What they have in common is that they have all been the subjects of discrimination and injustice. Is that too difficult a concept for you to grasp? Or are you too wrapped up in your faux-sincere political correctness to be able to engage in a discussion of concepts?

    Please provide some figures that a significant percentage of homeless people are criminals, and that a significant percentage of habitual criminals are homeless.

    And shouldn’t mental health disorders be considered a medical problem? Should that be lumped in with voluntary criminality? Pretty cold.

    And, pray tell, how is providing a facility where a person can go to make themselves presentable NOT helping them to integrate into society? Why are we regarding this as “enabling” rather than “a helping hand”?

    You people are harsh. I hope I never need any compassion from any of you, because I certainly won’t get it.

  188. It’s not an issue of caring it’s an issue of what’s possible. You can’t end chronic homelessness, you can only manage it and while managing it, do not destroy residential neighborhoods. Put this in in industrial area.

  189. so someone who has financial means and yet made a terrible decision regarding what to do with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS needs relief, but others who have fallen on hard times deserve a kick in the ass?

  190. I’m a different Guest than the one you’re addressing above, but allow me to speak for him/her in inferring that “adolescent nonsense” wasn’t a reference to your chronological age, which is of zero consequence. It was to the petulance of your argument.

  191. Granting that that statement is probably true, and assuming that the career homeless are in some way detrimental to the safety and aesthetics of the neighborhood, do you honestly believe that they constitute a large enough proportion of the likely users of this facility to justify barring it from the neighborhood?

  192. So, what you meant to write is:

    Myth #1: CHRONIC homelessness can happen to anyone.

    I don’t think anybody is saying that. But short-term homelessness CAN happen to most anyone. And wouldn’t they benefit from the URS? Why wouldn’t you want to help them? All it would take is just not interfering with this facility being built.

    Too much to ask of you?

  194. Wow, Andrew.

    For your sake I hope no one ever decides that you’re not human and have no value. Never happen, you think? Why? Because you work hard and pay your taxes? Read some history, dude. What goes around, comes around.

  196. No need for snarky. I was just trying to help make a clarification BEFORE you all jumped on Kells’ comment.
    My understanding of mixed use zoning is that it requires some kind of business use on the ground floor. This makes me wonder how those townhomes on the corner of 20th & 57th ended up there without some sort of rezone since they aren’t even considered live-work, which IS an option for mixed use zones.
    For the record, I am not advocating a single-family use for this site, that obviously does not make sense for the area, I’m just saying that more options should be explored. Perhaps one of those options is to look at the zoning of this area. Maybe that is a dumb idea – I’m just throwing it out there.
    I’m glad I haven’t bought in this area yet (see? perhaps I am not the idiot you think I am to have mindlessly bought without doing investigation – I’m a design professional who has worked extensively with zoning codes, etc. and I know better than that). As near and dear as this downtown Ballard area is to me, I am definitely convinced I’d like to see how all this plays out first. By that I don’t mean whether or not this facility happens, but if it turns out to be as disastrous as it has the potential to be. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Maybe my little family will be long gone by then.

  197. Please enlighten me as to what value these people have. And I don’t think I have value cuz I work hard and pay my taxes. I have value cuz I do my best to be courteous and not inconvenience people by making constant bad decisions.

    When was the last time I sh¡t in yer bushes? Gotta be a few weeks at least…

    And the karma angle doesn’t work with this….if I went out there and broke all their kneecaps with a baseball bat, I could maybe see some coming my way, but calling them useless? Seriously, again…please enlighten me to what value these people have. And negative value doesn’t count as value in this case…

  198. You know, if the homeless were as perfectly adjusted and hardworking and “deserving” as “us”, guest…. they’d have our jobs and we’d be the homeless ones ;-)

  200. Really? I had a bum scream and threaten to kill my kids (and other people’s kids) there this summer. Three of us called the cops…they never came.

  203. How can you tell? Having been a upper middle class kid who went punk, I can spot the real from the fake. It’s called common sense and experienece…..these are the same punks you see in the Haight in SF harassing everyone and shoplifting. Street life as a lifestyle.

  204. Kells — those townhouses you’re talking about are right across the street from the funeral home. I think they’re already taken their property values hit. The buyers should have already benefited from some reduction in purchase price. So should expect some reduction in sales price.

    Plus, commercial should stay commercial in my opinion. We need the nearby jobs.

  207. I’m willing to help: how about we organize a huge car pool, 4 ‘homeless’ per car, and offer to drive them to Eastern Washington where I can guarantee they can find a job picking apples that also provides housing. Thousands of hard working, honest Latinos manage to do this even without papers and survive in the USA, why can’t some home grown hobos try?

    We’ll set up around the Commons and see how many takers we get.

    Hell, I’ll throw in $20 a person for volunteers….you know why? Because there’ll be none.

  208. Unfortunately, according to the yahoos on this blog, you didn’t achieve personhood until you got that job. Before that, you were a blot on the landscape. I’m glad the URS was there for you when you needed it.

    A helping hand. That’s all this is. Why are some in Ballard so angry about it?

  209. Yikes. The snark factor is high. Appparently you are enjoying yourself quite a bit – you seem quite pleased with yourself and are jumping at any chance to put others down. I never said that those who don’t have stakes should have no say, I said that those who do have stakes should at least have voice. Too complicated?

  211. Yeah, I got that. But since I think my position (do the right thing: give the URS a chance) is valid, and that characterizing it as “adolescent nonsense” implied that Guest thinks I am an overly earnest but inexperienced kid with no life experience to inform my opinion, I thought it might be helpful to provide that bit of perspective.

    And you find my argument “petulant”? As in “Childishly sulky or bad-tempered”? How so? Kind of an odd way to characterize it, really.

  212. Ballard does have plenty of low income housing. A bond passed in the 80s, and the city scooped up a bunch of property in Ballard to build low-income housing for seniors. I know of at least 3 buildings in Ballard proper, and a federal one near 80th and 24th. Why aren’t they counting those properties as low income? Plus, we’re famous for homeless and drunks. Why encourage more?

  214. So, the people who live in those areas (and good, working, taxpaying people do) are somehow less fragile than you are? Why is it that they should suffer the impact of this horrible URS and not you? Because you have more money? Or are you just a more worthwhile person?

    And the folks in Greenwood near the old Leilani Lanes might be a bit upset to hear that you consider yourself so much better than them.

    But, deep in your heart, you believe that, don’t you? You really are better.

  216. The analogy is bad from start to finish. Not only is it offensive on its face, which, I believe was the intent, but it fails to capture the nature of this specific issue. First off, an individual family buying a house (in your analogy) is different from an organization building a facility. In that vein, the most apt analogy would be, “one who would oppose a homeless family from moving in next to them would be as discriminatory as a one opposing a gay family.” But of course this isn’t the issue here. More to the point, you misrepresent some of the reasons why someone would oppose this: not person, but impact. Again, a more apt analogy in this case could be “one who would oppose this facility would be like opposing a new restaurant going in next to them.” Again, not quite the zing of the original. In your analogies the reasoning for opposing the facility is always the same: simple-minded discrimination.

    So, yes, I completely understand that you are making the analogies to say that those who oppose this due so for discriminatory reasons. That is exactly why the analogy is so poor and adds little to the conversation. You throw up a broad attack and then claim the point is a point about discrimination. People are opposing this for a host of reasons, some may in fact be discriminatory, but to paint everyone with the same brush is overly simplistic. To go to such efforts to defend such a simple-minded point is, in your own words, trying to “sound intellectual without actually going to the effort of doing some actual thinking.”

  217. Yeah, someone in another thread said 20 on Market Street between 15th and 24th. And there are about 20,000 residents in Ballard.

    We’re being overrun! Man the ramparts!

  218. Barfly is drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Very sad, really…but deep down he’s a decent fellow. Just hard to see sometimes.

  220. They have value because they’re human, and so are we. Dehumanizing people we find offensive is a very slippery slope.

    I’ve cleaned human shit off my driveway. Doesn’t mean I want to kill the person who did it. Or that that person has no value under any circumstance. All it means is that someone shit on my driveway.

    You have no idea how sheltered your life in modern-day America has been. How fortunate you are. And how your good fortune actually has very little to do with your character or your hard work. It’s really mostly luck. Change just a couple of things in your personal history, and it could have been you shitting on my driveway. Or dying in a gas chamber. Don’t ever lose sight of that fact.

  222. The URS doesn’t aspire to end chronic homelessness. It just provides a place for people to clean up and feel human again. Why is that such a bad thing, in your view?

    How will this destroy the area? Did the Ballard Food Bank destroy the area around 24th and 70th?

  224. Ah yes, Godwin’s law, you had to call people who oppose this Nazis. If you take issue with people shitting in public you obviously want to throw them in gas chambers.

    You lose.

  225. LastAnswer says “homelessness is a symptom of poverty and lack of social support institutions.” Not always. Sometimes it’s simply a choice. There are enough shelter beds in the city, but there are also plenty of homeless people (the type panhandling under the Ballard Bridge) who refuse to go to shelters because they don’t want to abide by rules, and don’t want to stay anywhere they’re not free to drink and/or do drugs. I’m all for lending a helping hand to people who are down on their luck, but if you’ve ever walked by the park adjacent to the library you’ll see the same people hanging out there every day – the guy with the big afro and his ne’er do well buddies. I seriously doubt those people are looking for work and trying to get their lives back on track. They’re just hanging out, playing hackeysack and doing nothing productive that I can see. I can understand people’s concerns that an URS here is just going to attract more of the same.
    I have two words for anyone who assumes that all homeless people are just kind, upright citizens down on their luck: Shannon Harps.

  226. No- the mindset does not continue – at least not for any person with open eyes. My home is where I live – a place that gives me a sense of security. I want to keep it if I can. Part of that is keeping up the value to the extent I can. I pick up litter out front, I plants trees, etc., etc. I care about how my neighborhood looks and feels. What ever is wrong with that?
    Why ever would I accept something that further diminishes my home’s already diminished value?

  227. Sounds good, but please tell me: what argument against this facility has ANYONE expressed other than apprehension that it will bring large numbers of “undesirable” people into the neighborhood, causing civic disturbances, an increase in crime, and a drop in property values?

    It’s all about fearing and marginalizing the “other”, and you can try to whitewash it, but it’s about self-interest and fear, and nothing else.

    And no, I wasn’t trying to be offensive. But discrimination is ugly, and so is this argument. Too many injustices have been perpetrated by otherwise well-meaning people who say, “but this situation is different”.

    Try dissociating your attitude from your self-interest, and see what conclusion you come to. Real altruism doesn’t come easily, and that’s the problem.

  228. You’re right. You never precisely stated what I thought you strongly implied. My interpretation may or may not be valid. If it isn’t, I apologize.

  233. I didn’t find your original position petulant, but you were ill-served by your follow-up comment to SPG. (It’s a problem with these threads, the ease with which one trails from the larger fabric.) I saw that SPG posed a good-faith response to your query, but your follow-up to him/her, that “What you are really saying is that you don’t care what the hell people do, so long as you don’t have to look at it,” was a fairly embittered, straw-man response.

    As a resident of the block, DC wasn’t asking for, as you put it, “this insistence on guarantees that there will be no impact whatsoever on the neighborhood,” but for LIHI to show neighbors how foot traffic, safety and security will be managed before the plan goes forward. This sounds more than reasonable and responsible in any neighborhood — in this case, a high-density, residential one.

  234. this is the one time I’ll disagree with you LastAnswer.

    Old Ballard complains when a new bar or restaurant opens. There’s always something to complain about around here!

  237. Resorting to Godwin’s Law again? And why would giving these poor unfortunate souls jobs and housing be the same as shooting them?

    You really are a bum-vocate if you think a job and a bed is the same as shooting them.

  240. No, not even short-term homelessness can happen to “most anyone.” We’re not all one missed paycheck away from being homeless. Becoming homeless — even for a short period of time — means lacking the foresight to sock money away for a rainy day and burning bridges with friends and family.

    That said, I’m sure some of the short-term homeless folks would benefit from a hot meal, a hot shower, and a laundromat. And those services are provided at the multiple residential shelters downtown and throughout the county. The Ballard URS would duplicate those services where they aren’t needed, and only serve as one more gathering place for the hobos, the car campers, and their enablers. I’m tired of tripping over passed-out drunks and listening to hobos curse while little children play in the park. Enough is enough.

  241. I’m all for affordable housing in Ballard. But who the hell wants to live above this Urban Reststop? Maybe LIHI should think about building low income housing that is desirable for people who want to live in a residential development, not above public toilets.

    The problem here is trying to combine two things that really should be seperate. Housing goes in residential areas. This Urban Reststop shouldn’t be anywhere near 57th. Ballard Commons and the library will just get even more overrun. I really feel sorry for the people who live near there, and I hope they can stop it.

  243. The director thought it was a bad location, to quote from myballard:

    “Given our lack of capacity and poor placement in a residential neighborhood, the Ballard Food Bank is planning to move to an undisclosed location in industrial Ballard.”

  244. 1. SPG’s response, twisting my point to include all drinkers, was hardly in good faith. He deserved, as you correctly put it, my straw-man response.

    2. If that is what people are concerned about, why do they keep saying:

    -put it somewhere else, not here
    -the homeless are drunks/drug addicts/dangerous/valueless
    -this will ruin the neighborhood
    -we don’t want more bums in Ballard
    -this is enabling homelessness, not helping it

    That sounds more deeply rooted than concerns over traffic and public safety. It sounds like a fear of the type of people this facility will serve. And I maintain that that fear, while not entirely groundless (there are bad apples in every barrel), is exaggerated by hysteria and ignorance of the facts of poverty and homelessness, and that the benefits to the disadvantaged, to the larger society and to all of us as compassionate human beings far outweigh the potential detriments to the neighborhood.

    A very strong case can be made for the theory that such services are MUCH more effective in fulfilling their mission of helping people reintegrate into mainstream society when located in “nice” neighborhoods. Part of recovery from homelessness is being able to regain self-esteem, and shuffling these people off “somewhere else” does nothing to help that, it just marginalizes them further.

    The people who benefit from these services and rise out of poverty deserve to be looked at without disgust. Why not start respecting their humanity earlier in the process, when it can do some good?

  245. It’s great that you’ve read a book, but would you mind actually pointing to a study or two showing that homelessness is actually caused by poverty in general rather than mental illness, chronic substance abuse, or poor life choices? Bonus points if such a study doesn’t use an absurdly broad definition of homelessness to reach its conclusion (i.e. not just “anyone not currently owning or renting a home”)

  246. If you plan to pay off your mortgage in due time, and live in your house indefinitely, what do you care if the value fluctuates up and down? It only matters when you want to sell and get out, or take out a loan to tap into the equity, which is using your house as a bank account, not as a shelter.

    You home’s diminished value is only diminished from an artificially inflated price. If my 88-year-old home had continued the price patterns of its first 50 years of existence, I would have paid about 1/8 the amount I paid for it 12 years ago. If you’ve owned your home less than about 35 years, you paid too much, and if this country ever reinstitutes sustainable economic policies, we will all be seriously under water. Which is why I refinanced with a 15-year mortgage seven years ago. Thirty year mortgages just front-load the cost of ownership so much that prices have to go up unsustainably because the average house is sold once every five years.

  247. I don’t wonder. But I’m tired of your antagonism to anyone who isn’t exactly like you. You don’t even want to give them a chance.

    So, we’re in agreement, then? We each dislike the other’s attitude? Seems balanced enough.

  248. Fail. I did not call him a Nazi. I said, under different circumstances (being born in a different place and time, for example), Andrew might have lived a very different life, through no fault of his own. Learn to read, dammit.

  250. My point is that Guest doesn’t actually want to HELP the bums. He just wants them out of sight. If his idea is so good, tell me then, where WILL they go after the harvest? Where will they sleep when they’re not picking our apples? Will you be willing to pay more for apples so they can actually make a living picking them? Thought not.

    I understand that sarcasm is probably a bit too sophisticated for your drink-addled brain to comprehend. I must say, though, you type well for a lush.

  251. And the guy with the big afro is hurting you somehow? Or do you just dislike looking at him?

    Homelessness may not always be the result of our institutional failures, but neither is it alway a choice, as you imply. Perhaps we should only allow people who are involuntarily homeless to use the URS. Any suggestions as to how that may be arranged?

  253. What definition of “homeless” do you suggest?

    If you want to define it as “unpleasant-looking people you see on the street who are mentally ill, substance abusers or wisdom-challenged,” then I suppose you got me there.

    I’ve actually read two books. Three, if you count comics. :-)

  254. Hmmm. Since we are doing the new Nicklesville shanty town in the interbay industrial area, wouldnt it make more sense to have the Urban Rest Stop there rather than a good busride away? Those folks will need showers and services too.
    Seems like a natural combination of groups and organizations. and since it is not directly in a residential area, it could be less traumatic to the neighborhoods.

  255. And you read that as, “the Food Bank” destroyed the neighborhood”?

    They. Lost. Their. Lease.

    They. Needed. More. Room.

    There. Are. Only. Two. Bus. Lines. On. 24tn. And. They. Needed. To. Be. More. Accessible. To. Their. Clients.

    I’ll stop being a moron when you stop being a jerk.

  256. Dog … fight… ah! Sorry. Too many years overseas hanging out with expat Brits. Just means I’m staying out of it because I don’t want to get bitten.

    Regarding the Michael Vic comment: Thank you for making my point. I couldn’t have asked for a better example of ad-hominem bullying.

    That’s all for me.

    Ciao

  257. Rondi, in reading your posts one might be left with the impression that your gripe is limited to homeless individuals who are just looking for handouts and NOT “those that want help to get their lives back on track.”

    Based on your comments, one might also come to the conclusion that you would support housing that imposes requirements that its residents take positive steps to pull themselves up and out of the conditions in which they find themselves.

    Well I’m calling B.S. on you.

    You are a named appellant challenging the approval of the Compass Center – a facility intended to serve those who are trying to turn their lives around and which will require that tenants be clean and sober. It really undermines the thin veneer of reasonableness and civility you attempt to impart.

    You and your Ballard Preservation Association friends have no interest in engaging in dialogue. Your only goal is to ensure that NONE of these facilities ever open.

  258. They took the toilets out, remember? Haven for hookers and drugs. Another successful bleeding heart program that cost us $12 million.

  259. It sure is a choice for Mr. President, Ballard’s official Village Idiot.

    Mind you, he thinks he’s important strutting around Ballard; his conceit is his only entertaining value.

  260. It sure is a choice for Mr. President, Ballard’s official Village Idiot.

    Mind you, he thinks he’s important strutting around Ballard; his conceit is his only entertaining value.

  262. No fault of his own? the street hustlers and bums in Ballard are entirely at fault for a lifetime of bad decisions they have made.

  264. Here’s some work right now:

    “The apple harvest season continues in the Walla Walla area. Employers are paying the piece rate of $20 to $25 per bin for picking apples. The labor force is adequate for the work available. Farm-worker housing is available.”

    So how many of the usual suspects on the Commons would like a free ride over there? What’s your guess LA? OUt of the 30-40 regulars, how many want work and housing if offered?

  266. Nope, read the book, and I stand by what I wrote. And again, poverty is NOT the same as homelessness. You keep getting even those two basic constructs confused.

  267. The URS is a resource to help people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. You just don’t want it in your neighborhood.

    And if you lived in Eastern Washington, you wouldn’t want all those Seattle Bums dumped into your community, orchards or no.

    Don’t pretend that it’s about helping people, when it’s really about your comfort level.

  269. If you had even a cursory knowledge of the subject, then you would understand the difference between being houseless, being situationally homeless, and being chronically homeless.

    Also, none of those are the same as being poor.

  271. Ahhhhhh yes, the ones downstairs, I took my 3 year old into a few years ago and found junkies shooting up. A friend got robbed there one night a few years back. Notice how all the doors are only half doors now? Must be great fun for tourists to discover the wonders of Seattle tolerance when the street people start blowing each others brains out or stabbing each other over $5 crack rocks.

  272. The system won’t let me reply to your (LA) comment directly, so I’ll do so here. We have apparently reached the end of what the system deems an appropriate length.

    You frame all opposition to this proposal as discrimination; that simply isn’t fair or accurate. Opposing this as a high traffic facility isn’t discriminatory. Opposing this as it impacts property values is, at best, complicated. You have skipped past people’s concerns and rejected them out of hand based on your assessment of their motivations.

    On this, why being concerned about property values inherently a bad thing? My house is an investment; for many, the largest investment that they will ever make. Why is concern about protecting the value of this investment, a bad thing? I can understand people arguing that it needs to be brought into balance with other more humanistic values, but to deny the concern any validity seems unreasonable.

    If this proposal requires most to abandon their self-interest (as you ask), then it isn’t really a defensible proposal. In a community of diverse interests, a successful (and practical) proposal should be able to speak to both higher order values and practical concerns. I’m not purely altruistic, but I can be more altruistic if some practical concerns are addressed convincingly. What I find troubling is that the community is being asked to be purely altruistic and then damned if they even raise practical concerns; that is out of balance.

  274. Until you take a homeless person into your house, as I have, then you have no room to complain at everyone else, LA. It is easy to be compassionate with someone else’s money, and generous with someone else’s neighborhood, and dismissive of someone else’s worries. Until you actually walk the walk, you have no leg to stand on.

    Having spent years working with the homeless, and sometimes sheltering them, I can unequivocally say that they are real people, with needs, and deserve our compassion. However, most are very troubled, and have a lot of difficulty following rules and respecting property and boundaries. Not all, but the ones without major problems are rarely homeless for long.

    The problem with an open, take-anyone facility is that it will attract unscreened homeless, some with major problems, some without. These facilities belong well away from residential areas precisely for this reason.

    What this city SHOULD be investing in is proper emergency shelters, where screened (ie, nonviolent, non mentally ill, non drug using) clients can fit in well in a residential area. The unscreened clients need to have services located elsewhere, away from residential zones. Most major cities with effective services do this, BTW. It is hardly a new concept. But building a “we’ll take anyone” facility in the middle of a neighborhood is naive, is extremely likely to attract some very negative elements (as well as some good folks; it’ll be a mixed bag), and has a very high probability of pissing off the very people who are likely to support well run homeless facilities like most of Ballard. Seattle seems hell bent on alienating the very population that is not only supportive of homeless issues, but usually likely open their wallets. Donors want to see well planned facilities, positive community relationships, and open books. All of which are diminishing in this town.

    The fact that Seattle is such a liberal city allows such inane ideas to actually get to this point. Try this in Dallas. See how far you get. BTW – there are extensive services in that city for the homeless, but they require that the clients follow certain rules. Accountability is a crucial component for getting someone permanently off the streets. I see very little movement in Seattle towards that goal. Which is why I oppose such feel-good-but-doomed approaches like this one.

  275. Good for you Vinc! If you read through the comments here, I think you’ll find that most (even excluding LA’s 50% of the total posts :) ) support the Urban Rest Stop. They (and I) just think the proposed location is a bad one for the Rest Stop.
    I hope LIHI will be willing to share their reasoning on why they chose this location, rather than perhaps one by the food bank, and how they choose a particular neighborhood for a Rest Stop, given that they’ve never put one on a quiet residential street before.

  277. I call BS on you, Last Answer. Spend even a day in a college level class, and you’ll see that yes, nearly every society has had problems with homeless or otherewise non functioning members of societies. Until recently, most societies also just offed them, or kicked them out into the forest, or ice fields, or deserts, or whatever when they became problematic enough. Just because modern western societies are looking to provide for them does not mean we “invented” homelessness.

  278. So denying them a place to wash up and feel human is going to somehow stimulate their work ethic? I fail to see the connection.

    I’m not defending people who choose not to work. I’m just saying that providing realistic opportunities for self-help are good for our society. You may not have noticed, but the homeless are seldom all that able-bodied. You’re well-nourished…how long do you think you’d last picking apples in an orchard? Long enough to rebuild your life from scratch?

  279. LA, as is clear from your posting frequency, the specific subject doesn’t matter, but rather the opportunity to match every single post with a post of your own. While that’s certainly a low-impact hobby, it does often obscure the issues for the rest of us. Just sayin’.

  281. Bullshit you liar. You know nothing of compassion. Compassion is always stupid and naïve. It cries for the impossible belief that people can be more the mean spirited sonofabitch that you are.

  282. What’s the point? Compassion just isn’t fashionable in the New Ballard. I leave you to your prejudices, fears, and self-satisfaction. Good night.

  283. In fairness, LA, you’re making aspersions about folks without any evidence (“isn’t exactly like you”, and the implied racism and homophobia higher up in this thread). I’ve flagged these posts as inappropriate, and urge others to do likewise.

  284. I have to admit that I haven’t kept up with the details on the Compass Center, but I thought that tenants would be allowed to drink in their rooms; that doesn’t seem to square with “clean and sober.”

    Having non-minimal expectations of homeless seems to me to be a key element in programs that have actually worked in practice to help such individuals (e.g. Delancey Street).

  285. Rarely are things due to “fortune” or “luck”. We all make our own “luck”. Just something to consider in looking at what’s best for the homeless.

  286. Penny, the reason to worry about something that hasn’t happened yet is that we have foresight, and so can avoid likely future problems. If we build the Rest Stop on that quiet residential street and there are problems, it’ll be a big waste of public money to renovate it into low-income housing.

  287. Actually, a good life has everything to do with your character and hard work, and little to do with “luck”. For example, guessing on an exam is rarely as productive as studying hard and not cheating.

  291. I would like to take this opportunity to commend all of you who attended the meeting on Wednesday and all of you who will continue to attend further meetings which are non-prtisan.

    It is obvious there is a problem in Ballard. The answer remains elusive and perhaps there is none, but since we are imaginative, industrious humans, it is our nature to seek an answer, or as some have suggested defer the problem to others.

    This is a community issue. Take a stand. Take a name. Put a picture to it. Come to the meetings. By all means start your own private meetings.

    But enough with the anonymity. Atleast have the courage to stand by the comments you make here.

    LastAnswer, I commend you especially for hanging in there and answering every comment. Without you and the help of a few others this line of comments would have been nothing more than a hate fest.

  292. And you seem to think they’re unrelated.

    I don’t believe you read the book. If you had, you wouldn’t have made the comment you did: “it has very little to do with the root causes of homelessness, and focuses instead on how the 50’s era was not as airbrushed as TV made it out to be.”

  293. I understand and, in fact, share some of your frustration with the hyperbole and venom that anonymity brings, but that is the nature of forums. Demanding a forum suddenly move to total identity transparency is like yelling at a phone to have better screen resolution. Anonymity is, for better of worse, a key feature of the medium.

    I would also suggest that LastAnswer has contributed to some of the worst aspects of this debate. I won’t reiterate my concern with his hyperbole in this post (at over 300 posts, what would be the point?), but I had a response to him in this thread.

  295. Tommy — Well, I can see LA’s point. We’re talking WWII history.
    And while I truly hate hearing the term “nazis” for anything dopey (soup nazi, for example)…

    Bloggers here have seriously suggested that we ship people off because they are inconvenient and maybe dangerous. The Nazis shipped off the gypsy’s, gays, Jews, political opponents, outspoken catholic priests, mentally ill and pretty much anyone inconvenient. And by vilifying each group, the Germans pretty much went along with sipping these people off to “work camps”. (which later became killing camps)

    So, those of us with parents who lived thru WWII, I think we get pretty riled up when we see such talk starting up even at early stages.

  297. LA, no one is saying providing a place to clean up is a bad thing. Stop twisting what people say.

    The issue here is not the need, which is not in question. The issue here is the proposed location of the facility, as well as how the neighborhood will need to deal with the influx of homeless people. There are serious, valid concerns that need to be addressed; your comments are insulting and inflammatory, and your implication is that those opposed to having this facility next door are inherently in the wrong. They are not. A mutually agreeable solution can be found here; both sides need to we willing to see the other.

  298. All of this discussion brings back my fond memories of the multi million dollar automated toilets that were such a great success. Successful if you were a whore, drug dealer, or junkie anyway.

  299. Hear, hear. I agree completely that these two facilities should be separate. The housing belongs in the heart of Ballard, the URS does not.

  301. No, people here offered to find the ‘homeless’ jobs and housing. Maybe you think that makes us Nazis, some of us thought, though, that that was what everyone actually wanted. I guess we were wrong.

    Correct us if we are wrong.

  302. not really ad hominem bullying.

    he (Vick) is just the only person I can think of who participates in dog fights.

    were you the ex-pat hanging out oversees, or were the expat brits and you all hanging out somewhere else. doesn’t really make sense.

  303. I never used the term Nazi. My only reference was in a point I was making to Andrew, that under different circumstances he could find himself on the street or in a gas chamber, through no fault of his own. The whole thread is here to copy and paste, please show me where I used the term “Nazi” or implied that opponents of the URS have anything in common with Nazis.

    And you accuse me of hyperbole.

  304. Thank you. My point exactly. Huge atrocities have their roots in seemingly minor injustices. The concentration camps weren’t built at the start of the Third Reich, but the prejudices and fears that made them possible had been inflamed and exploited for years. And dehumanizing a group of people is one of the key factors in getting such things going.

    Germany in the Thirties was a very modern, cosmopolitan place. Most people couldn’t imagine that anything so drastic as the annihilation of a race could happen right under their noses, in modern times. As we can’t now.

    All I am saying is, examine your motives, examine your attitudes toward other people. Atrocities can happen when people distance themselves from human suffering. I, for one, feel reminded of how fortunate I am every time I see a street person. I do not think how much better I am than them, or how they should get out of my sight. But it informs how I vote, how I conduct my life: I really do try not to make things worse for other people. And if I can help make things a little better, what does it cost me? A little cash, a little convenience, a little pristine order in my cosseted life? Little enough, I say.

    I am not a religious person but “there, but for the grace of God, go I…” rings very true for me.

  305. Again, WWII rears its ugly head. My Dad remembers his elementary school teacher in tears when she had to explain that the Japanese-American students were being shipped off to Idaho. For their own good, I’m sure.

    Have you ever really LOOKED at some of these scary homeless? A whole lot of them look to be in their 60’s — Vietnam-Vet-era. Not really able-bodied. For example, the poor guy in the wheelchair wheeling himself backwards across 14th by the McDonalds?

    Or have you TALKED with them? I walk the dog thru Ballard Commons pretty often. Walking a dog invites the opportunity to talk. “…What kind is he? Wow, he’s big. How old is he? …” Homeless or home-with, I can’t see any difference. How can you tell if that bearded guy in a sweatshirt and hiking boots is a software engineer or a boat captain or a homeless vet?

  307. I never said anything about if they were related. I said I that you keep using the two terms interchangeably.

    And yes, the book focused excessively on the stereotypes of the past.

  308. You’re wrong.

    No one called URS opponents Nazis.

    No one offered the Ballard homeless jobs. They did offer to drive them to Eastern Washington where they may possibly be able to get jobs picking apples. (Not a sure thing at all; your own quote said that the available labor force is “adequate”, meaning that a big influx of new labor would probably not be able to find jobs.

    Further, you never addressed my direct question of how to deal with the likely negative reactions of the local residents to a group of Seattle homeless people suddenly descending on the farming communities of Eastern Washington.

    No, the suggestion was not intended to get jobs and housing for the homeless. The suggestion was intended to get them out of our community, and make it someone else’s problem

    You’re all for fixing things, so long as you don’t have to actually do anything. Like allow what is little more than a free laundromat with some bathrooms to be built in our neighborhood.

    75-100 people a day, 8 (daylight) hours a day, five days a week. What is it you are so offended by? I really don’t get why you are so unwilling to give this thing a chance.

  309. Yeah, this is exactly like that.

    How about framing it this way: using technology to replace actual staff failed in the public toiled experiment. The URS is not an unstaffed facility and is unlikely to be overrun by whores, drug dealers or junkies because they will not be able to operate uninterrupted as they could in the techno-toilets.

    Shame on you for your lack of empathy. I expect better from a dog owner.

  310. Actually, the word “bum” did exist back then. It’s been around for over a hundred years, and hobos and vagrants were most definitely referred to as bums in the thirties.

  311. I’ve said this before: if people are concerned about the amount of traffic this facility will generate, then say so. Don’t demand that it should be on Aurora, or in Greenwood, or anywhere but here. Don’t refer to the homeless as “bums”. Don’t say facilities like this enable homelessness and vagrancy when you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

    I get accused of hyperbole, but the discussion was hysterical long before I ever joined it, both in this thread and the previous one on the subject.

    And how about this as a serious, valid concern: the raging anger against the homeless that seems to be fueling much of the opposition to the URS.

    75-100 people a day in that neighborhood is a blip. There’s something more going on here than a zoning issue. If the URS opponents have serious, valid concerns, then they need to phrase them as serious, valid concerns, not as hate talk.

    And if you look over the whole thread, you’ll find that for the most part, the opponents are saying, “no way, not here” rather than “this needs more study”. All I’m saying is that it needs more study, and unless a really good case can be made for not locating it there, a case based on facts and not hysteria, then it should be allowed to open. Personally, I’m willing to give it a chance.

    And like all of you, I live entirely close enough to the location to be affected by it. That doesn’t necessarily mean next door. Does anyone commenting here actually live next door?

  312. Mondoman, read “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell for another take on that. If only life was as simple as getting the answers right on the test. For example, what if the teacher makes a mistake grading your test, and refuses to change your grade?

    Not everything in life is under your control, no matter how mondo you think you are. Learn a little humility, it’d look good on you.

  313. It’s still a hate fest.

    It’s just that some of it has been directed at me, a middle-class, middle-aged white guy homeowner who works and pays his taxes, who realizes that he’s been lucky in life, that it could have been otherwise despite his good character and hard work, and has the audacity to suggest that maybe it would be a good thing to recognize that the homeless are not subhuman or inherently worthless, that they are simply us under different circumstances.

    When we look at the homeless, we are looking at a cracked mirror. I think some people find that extremely frightening, and refuse to look, and to see.

    Let the flaming begin; let me once again remind my detractors that I am not 18 years old, do not think you are Nazis, and do not “love” the homeless. I just acknowledge that they are human beings, worthy of the opportunity to live a good life, and that it wouldn’t kill us to share our neighborhood.

  314. why do you keep bringing up your age? how about the color of your skin? your annual income, your marital status, education……it always seems to come back to your age like that gives you ANY credibility!

  318. “Huge atrocities have their roots in seemingly minor injustices.”

    Exactly, and pointing out that there’s work on the east side and housing, makes us Nazis.

    Godwin’s Law wins!

  319. You suggest finding work for bums is like throwing them in gas chambers but noooooooo, no Nazi connection in your comment.

    Which gas chambers were you referring too?

    Godwin’s Law wins.

  320. If course the URS won’t let the whores, junkies and drug dealers in (if they can spot them).

    What they’ll do is just turn them away to enjoy their day in Ballard.

  321. I read your response:

    “You frame all opposition to this proposal as discrimination; that simply isn’t fair or accurate. Opposing this as a high traffic facility isn’t discriminatory. Opposing this as it impacts property values is, at best, complicated. You have skipped past people’s concerns and rejected them out of hand based on your assessment of their motivations.”

    What I am objecting to is not the reasonable, tangible concerns about the URS. What I am objecting to is the hateful, demeaning language that the opponents on this blog use to justify their opposition. If you bother to actually read what I’ve been writing, my whole point is that this proposition needs a fair hearing, and that it should not be rejected out of hand because the opponents regard the homeless as being valueless and not worthy of any sort of assistance.

    I didn’t start the hyperbole. I’ve tried to point out that we’re all human beings, and that to survive as a species we need to take care of each other. It’s about ideas and attitudes and concepts; dig down deep and think about why it is you oppose this URS? Is it because you are truly worried about your property values? Is it because you think there will be people shooting up in your bushes? Or is it because you don’t want to have to look at dirty, smelly people walking by your house every day (even though they’ll be sparkling clean when they walk by the other way later)?

    If asking people to THINK is “contributing to some of the worst aspects of this debate”, then I guess I’m guilty as charged.

  322. so·cial·ism   
    [soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show IPA
    –noun
    1.
    a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

  323. “truly hate hearing the term “nazis” for anything dopey”

    “Bloggers here have seriously suggested that we ship people off because they are inconvenient and maybe dangerous. The Nazis shipped off…..”

    No contradiction here, every one move along….

  324. Oh I see, opponents to the toilet are not Nazis, they’re like the people who interned the Japanese in World War Two…you know, Roosevelt.

  325. Who said anything about forcing the poor, oppressed Ballard bums to the eastside like Japanese in WW2? I was merely offering free rides to any who wanted a job and free housing. An offer I can make because I know none of the regular bums in town would take.

  326. I show my empathy by supporting actual charities that do good work. Remember, talking about it isn’t charity. If it was you would be the greatest giver of all time. For example The Union Gospel Mission does great work . They get people off the street as opposed to making it more comfortable to be there. They have a fantastic track record and take no public money. Let me know when you send them a donation.

    PS> I’m a great dog owner. Two of my other favorite charities that deserve support are Pasado’s and Best Friends Sanctuary in Knabb Utah. Both do great work and don’t take public money.

  327. It may seem that SPD isn’t helping you, it’s just that they are just stretched thin. Your situation is not a “bad” one compare to others happening at that moment. They are, I assume, equally frustrated with the situation.

  328. I don’t want to target just you, LastAnswer, but you must admit your multiple posts make your arguments the easiest to track. Also, I apologize for reposting some of this, but it seems appropriate here.

    One of my concerns is how I see you framing opposition to facility: as either discriminatory (in many of your early posts) or lack of understanding (most recent posts forwarding a fear of one’s own future, e.g. cracked mirror). That falls into straw man arguments. Opposing this as a high traffic facility isn’t discriminatory. Opposing this as it impacts property values is, at best, complicated. You have skipped past people’s concerns and rejected them out of hand based on your assessment of their motivations. When reaching an assessment of motivation then the step onto the slippery slope of consequentialist argument is a short and easy one (many of the monsters of WWII also didn’t care for their fellow man in the same way I judge others failing in their compassion for the local homeless; therefore, the consequences will probably be the same).

    This is/will be a real facility with real costs and benefits; those we can discuss and debate: will this impact property values? Is that enough to justify not wanting it? How successful will the program be and for whom? There are multiple positions on this proposal and many of them of valid (even if each one is not personally convincing). On this, why being concerned about property values inherently a bad thing? A house is an investment; for many, the largest investment that they will ever make. Why is concern about protecting the value of this investment, a bad thing? I can understand people arguing that it needs to be brought into balance with other more humanistic values, but to deny the concern any validity seems unreasonable. This is a much more focused question that doesn’t require me to map out the inner life of someone with whom I disagree.

    If this proposal requires most to abandon/step away from their self-interest (as you asked in an earlier post), then it isn’t really a defensible proposal. In a community of diverse interests, a successful (and practical) proposal should be able to speak to both higher order values and practical concerns. I’m not purely altruistic, but I can be more altruistic if some practical concerns are addressed convincingly. What I find troubling is that the community is being asked to be purely altruistic and then damned if they even raise practical concerns; that is out of balance.

  330. I live one block over, towards 17th.

    LA, you seem to have your own very specific opinion about what is a valid concern and what is not. People are angry? Yes. When residents of a relatively quiet block are told a facility is going to open that may bring more criminal activity to their front doors, people are going to be worried, and yes, angry, if their concerns are not aired and addressed.

    Several posters have cited that a facility of this type attracts different types of homeless populations – some circumstantially homeless, and some chronically homeless. Within these populations (as in many others) there are likely to be criminals, drub abusers, people who are mentally ill, and people who are violent. It comes with the territory. However, I. for one, am not willing to “give this a chance” unless there is a clear and comprehensive solution to dealing with the potential for increased crime in the neighborhood. Simply saying “let’s give it a chance and see what happens”, is misguided, myopic, and negligent. It is ludicrous to think that this will be a mere “blip” in the neighborhood. If we give anything “a chance”, let’s use Urness House as an experiment for five years, see how the character of the neighborhood changes, and THEN re-investigate the URS. But this sort of neighborhood saturation without a plan to address crime problems is not acceptable. Yes, we’re angry, and justifiably so.

  332. I can be accused of many things, but failing to carefully read your comments is not one of them. I have another post below that continues this thread, so I’ll try to be brief here. You may not have started the hyperbole, but you certainly added to it; and if your goal is to ensure a fair hearing, I would suggest that your current approach is not particularly effective. I have tried to remain somewhat muted on the actual facility as my concern is primarily the nature of the debate over the facility. Lets’ simply look at your above post.

    “What I am objecting to is not the reasonable, tangible concerns about the URS. What I am objecting to is the hateful, demeaning language that the opponents on this blog use to justify their opposition.” I would suggest that you conflate the two.

    “dig down deep and think about why it is you oppose this URS? Is it because you are truly worried about your property values? Is it because you think there will be people shooting up in your bushes? Or is it because you don’t want to have to look at dirty, smelly people walking by your house every day (even though they’ll be sparkling clean when they walk by the other way later)?” And here we are. You attack (and I choose this word deliberately) those opposed to the facility based on your assessment of motivation. In this passage, I am framed as being opposed to this facility as a result my own callowness and callousness. If you goal is to prompt reasonable debate, if your goal is to genuinely argue for this facility, stick to what you know. There is absolutely no room for persuasion in your argument: I am either unrepentantly evil or I repent. You haven’t made a case for the facility, you have simply attacked me. There are good reasons for this facility, but you leave them untouched, because your arguments isn’t about it; your argument is about those who oppose you.

  333. Again you can’t keep the comments straight. Use the “find” function of your browser to search this thread for “gas chamber” and you’ll see what I mean.

    I did make a snarky comment in response to the apple-picking suggestion: “Or, hell, let’s just bus ’em outta town and shoot ’em. That way they won’t come back after the harvest.” I guess you can take that as a Nazi reference if you’re so inclined, but it’s not as if that has never happened in America.

  334. Read the thread. This Nazi obsession you guys have is really tiresome. I’m truly sick of correcting your distortions of my comments.

  335. “There’s not enough work” and “will Eastern Washington accept them any more than Ballard does” are excuses?

    Whatever, dude. You’ve obviously run out of steam. Climb back on the barstool and have another gin and tonic. You’ll feel better.

  336. If your question is directed at me, I never suggested that there was something wrong with the anonymity of this forum. Truth be told, given the vitriol that’s been directed my way, I wouldn’t feel safe if my identity was known, for fear of physical reprisal for having an opinion that obviously isn’t popular. And that is really sad, because I’m not afraid to say what I think, and to admit I’m wrong when I am. But I am afraid of scared, angry people, and there are far too many of them posting in this forum.

  337. LA – you’re very good at constructing improbable chains of events in order to disagree. Chillax a bit and look for reasons to agree.
    You might also re-read my post: “little” is not the same as nothing; “for example” is not “as simple as”.

  338. Fair enough.

    Have you noticed that you are nearly the only “opponent” in this forum who is framing your argument in pragmatic and emotionally neutral terms, while everyone else is indulging in name-calling, distortion, and hate speech. My argument is not with you. It’s with them.

    You make a great argument, one that I totally respect and largely agree with, but you clearly have not understood the point that I am trying to make. Which is this: please stop hating these people; stop calling them all bums, drug addicts, whores, valueless. Please consider the URS, and don’t just reject it out of hand.

  339. Well, you’re nicer than you seem. I’m relieved.

    What’s your real objection, then? You mentioned “public money” twice. Is that what bothers you? The tax money?

  340. For all you folks invoking Godwin’s Law (quite inaccurately, I think), you might enjoy this quote from Wikipedia:

    However, Godwin’s law itself can be abused, as a distraction, diversion or even censorship, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent’s argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate. A 2005 Reason magazine article argued that Godwin’s law is often misused to ridicule even valid comparisons.

    This is a perfect description of what you have been doing. Yes, you, Barfly and Ted.

  341. Been busy using The Google again LA?

    So again, what’s the similarity between the gas chambers (I’m assuming you were talking about the Nazi ones right?) and offering to find work and housing on Washington farms for the poor, struggling oppressed men who find themselves out of work and housing and living on Ballard Commons all day?

    NPR reported this week that even some farms in Western Washington are having labor shortages. Surely giving a man an honest job to help lift himself up is better than enabling the destructive behavior we see in Ballard everyday?

  343. Let me spell this out clearly. Government doesn’t do charity, individuals do. I decide, not someone else. When the government spends my money, and call it charity, it’s nothing more then theft, designed to make a bureaucrat feel charitable. Tax money is for necessary public needs which there are only three. Public safety, infrastructure, and education.

  344. My contention is that I don’t think you are actually making the argument to stop calling people bums and/or consider the facility. I understand this argument, I just don’t think you are actually making it. I think you are attacking those who you believe harbor unsympathetic feelings. At best, you are arguing against calling people bums, by calling them offensive names (again, based on what you think they feel/believe). A sampling selected from the above marathon conversation:

    –“Why don’t you just admit to being snobs?”
    –“are you too wrapped up in your faux-sincere political correctness to be able to engage in a discussion of concepts?”
    –“You people are harsh. I hope I never need any compassion from any of you, because I certainly won’t get it.”
    –“All you care about is its effect on you, the hell with what it might do to help someone else.”
    –“If you don’t like the URS, you can move elsewhere.”
    –“If you want to live in Disneyland, why don’t you move to Celebration, Florida?”
    –“You probably think you’re pretty clever in the way you twist my words, but you actually really suck at it.”
    –“Are you being deliberately obtuse because it makes for a better argument, or are you actually a moron?”
    –“Have you tried, you know, school?”
    –“Sure you are, as long as you don’t have to look at it. Or sacrifice the tiniest smidgen of your current lifestyle.”
    –“just another gated community for (relatively) affluent people that are afraid of the way the world really is, deny their culpability in making it that way, and use their wealth to build walls to keep the world out.”

    If your goal is, as you say, to disabuse people of rude comments or prompt more close thinking on this particular facility, then ad hominem attacks are not a good route. I see little in your comments that could be understood as a positive argument for the facility (based on its merits, tangible benefits to the community, and potential low impact) and much that attempts to discredit opposition to the facility by framing it as completely baseless. The positive argument could make converts the current tact does little but generate animosity.

  345. Seriously, you need to read the entire post if that’s what you pulled out of it. I was arguing against such analogies.

  348. Now you’re just being stubborn.

    For the record: I think there is NO similarity between the Nazi gas chambers and your offer to find work for the homeless.

    For the record: this is the only place I referred to gas chambers:

    “You have no idea how sheltered your life in modern-day America has been. How fortunate you are. And how your good fortune actually has very little to do with your character or your hard work. It’s really mostly luck. Change just a couple of things in your personal history, and it could have been you shitting on my driveway. Or dying in a gas chamber. Don’t ever lose sight of that fact.”

    I’d appreciate it if you would stop twisting my words. But, of course, you won’t.

    “Surely giving a man an honest job to help lift himself up is better than enabling the destructive behavior we see in Ballard everyday?”

    Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. What you haven’t explained to me is how giving people a place to do laundry and take s shower is “enabling” the destructive behavior you apparently see in Ballard every day.

  349. Well, I can’t say you haven’t done your research. It must be really important for you to take me down. I respect the effort you’ve put into it.

    Yes, I have been sarcastic, absolutely. Part of that is simply how I express myself. My friends (I do have one or two) know that I am very self-deprecating; everything you quote above, I’ve said worse about myself.

    And again, I maintain that the tenor of the remarks I was responding to was just as derogatory, actually mostly more so. So yes, I am guilty of not elevating the tone of the discussion, especially. In the past I’ve tried doing that and been accused of being a pretentious intellectual snob. So I thought if I expressed myself in the same manner as those I was “debating” against, perhaps my meaning would be clearer.

    Obviously, I was wrong.

    And again, I am not arguing for the facility per se. I am simply asking people to set aside their anger and indignation for a moment, long enough to give it a chance.

    Can’t we just stop attacking each other? I promise to do my part by curbing the sarcasm. I apologize to anyone who was offended by my remarks (except Barfly; he deserves everything I said to him because he’s basically a troublemaking troll and he knows it).

    Reasonable Debate: it’s up to you. If you want me to stay out of this forum, I’ll leave without another comment. It’s the least can do for you.

  350. RD, this is what I have been up against. Annoying, isn’t it? So maybe you’ll forgive some of my admittedly sarcastic responses. I find it very difficult to continue to be polite to people who are deliberately trying to rile me up. Obviously I would not make a good diplomat.

  351. That’s certainly a way of looking at it. I respectfully disagree. Thank you for sharing.

    By the way, is your bank account insured by the FDIC? Do you get a tax deduction for your mortgage interest and property taxes? Do you eat food, use energy, spend money? Then you’re on the dole, too. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking your lifestyle isn’t subsidized. Go ahead and tell me I’m wrong, but I’m not. Read your history.

  354. Sorry I’ve caused you so much misery, Rondi. Reasonable Debate is the only one of your supporters who has been articulate and reasonable. Do you really want to align yourself with the likes of Barfly, Andrew, Guest (however many of him/her there are) and TTTCOTTH? You may have noticed that most of my posts were in response to their rabble-rousing.

    But look at it this way. This forum is pushing 400 posts. No doubt it’s being watched by quite a few people. Lots of free publicity for your issue.

    You’re welcome.

  357. I have no problem with my kids seeing the occasional bum, it’s an important lesson to them on what happens when you refuse to follow civilization’s and society’s most basic rules.

    What I don’t want them to have to deal with is an army of them.

  358. “It’s really mostly luck.”

    No, it’s not. It’s about bad choices made over many years. Luck has nothing to do with it. I’ve seen bad luck, earthquakes, floods etc. That’s bad luck. Being a petty criminal and drunk who refuses to follow the most basic rules of a Seattle shelter to get yourself off the streets? That’s a choice.

  359. no last, this thread is not about you even though you may think so. note the reply link next to the time of my entry???? if not, the reply was for cdpenne.

  360. Oh, and one question, RD.

    Why are you calling me out for (my admitted) rudeness, while letting the (in my opinion) far more vitriolic posters such as Barfly and Guest off scott-free, despite the fact that nearly every one of my sarcastic posts was in response to inflammatory and mostly unreasonable comments?

    Is it because you know that you actually have a chance of getting through to me, which you did? That I have a consciense you can appeal to?

    I’d like to think that it was because you were distressed by the damage my rapier wit was doing to the likes of Barfly, and you nobly wanted to level the playing field to give the poor schlubs a chance. :-)

  361. Personally, I believe it’s more complicated than that; I think that happenstance has a far greater impact on our lives that we like to admit. I doubt that we’ll be able to persuade each other differently. Our world views are just too far apart.

    But think of it this way: if your world was completely under your control, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, because I wouldn’t exist to annoy you.

  363. And I have two words for anyone who assumes that all employed, productive people are kind, upright citizens who are not down on their luck: Gary Ridgway.

    What did we prove by our examples, Rose? Exactly nothing.

  365. I don’t think anger is the appropriate response. Just my opinion. You, of course, have every right to be as pissed-off as you want to be. And I have a right to disagree with you.

    Too much anger in the world. Doesn’t help a thing. Try something else for a change.

  366. Mondoman, you may think the scenarios are improbable, but consider this:

    If a different sperm (out of millions in the vicinity) had gotten there first, you wouldn’t even exist. Someone would, but it wouldn’t be you. And you think circumstance doesn’t matter? In some ways, it’s the most important thing of all.

  367. That is because this messed up city cannot seem to find the fund for additional police officers, but we can seem to find them for bike lanes and washing machines for the homeless.

  368. A little righteous anger is justified every now and then.. it does a body good. The problem is the format. The above comment was to one of the “Guests” 8 comments above: “Don’t confuse compassion with stupidity and naïveté. Common mistake for 18 year olds or those who haven’t learned much about the world” I know plenty about the world and more than enough to call bullshit on that comment.

  371. Believe it or not, I agree as well. But we should “follow the money” and examine how these various services and projects are funded before making assumptions that the situation is either/or. But the point is well taken.

    Perhaps the Federal government could end our property tax deduction and funnel the extra tax revenue to the municipalities. That would help a lot. And yes, I own a home and benefit from the deduction.

  372. And the bike trail, the BCOC, fireworks, Piccolino’s, Sunset Bowl, Denny’s, and on and on and on. Lots of discussion doesn’t necessarily reflect lots of legitimate complaints, and CERTAINLY not ones from people who may have a legitimate right to complain due to proximity or involvement.

    Remember, these forums are all about subjectivity. They are not a reliable source of factual information.

  376. Only in the first chapter. It’s a tough slog, but the book only uses the stereotypes as a framing device for lengthy examinations of many factors affecting the family. Extreme financial hardship aka poverty (which, like it or not, is quite intertwined with homelessness) is discussed at length throughout the book. NOT, as you imply, just pointing out that not everyone in 50’s America lived like the Nelsons and the Cleavers.

    Reading a few Amazon reviews does not substitute for reading the whole book.

    And I disagree that I have been using the terms interchangeably, but your comment is noted, and I’ll be be careful about that.

  377. Fisking you is too easy. Banks, which are private companies, pay for the FDIC insurance. I don’t have a mortgage, I own free and clear. I pay for all of my utilities , food etc. No my friend, I am not on the dole, and never have been. I have never begrudged paying paxes for necessary services. Trust me. Assuaging your charitable needs with my money isn’t a necessary service.

  378. You clearly have no idea of how the United States economy actually works, or how it developed over the last 100 years. There’s really no point in discussing it with you. Thanks for trying, though.

  379. There’s a pretty impressive number of hits in Google for “TTTCOTTH”… you get around my friend. And it’s clear that you and I have little to agree about when it comes to politics. For the sake of civility and community, it’s best we agree to only discuss dogs, which we both love, from now on. I have three, by the way, and I love them dearly.

  380. I guess you read the Cliff Notes edition. Or maybe Rush Limbaugh didn’t like the book. Whatever. We all bring different things to the table. You have your version of objectivity, and I have mine. Thanks for the discussion.

  381. Last Answer

    I couldn’t reply to your last insightful (not) observation so I’ll do it here. Unlike you I didn’t get my economic knowledge from Chomsky or Alinsky, I got it from actually being in business. Economic growth only happens in the private sector where people invest, and add value to products and services. Talking with you about economics is the equivalent of speaking to a bucket of cement. All and all I wish you well in whatever task you pursue. I hope you discover personal freedom at some point so you aren’t doomed to the control of someone else your entire life.

    At any rate I have a party to prepare for. Happy Halloween!

  382. Double-Amen to that, old Hippy Girl. I’m a van-dweller (an employed van-dweller, mind you) who has been in Ballard for years, and I can guarantee that most of the people who are engaged in unpleasant public behavior, littering the streets and parks with beer cans, and so forth, are the ones who are then staggering back to their townhomes afterward — either that, or to their parents’ houses! Since I’m on the street, I see it all the time. I have high-school kids asking me to buy them beer at least once a week. I won’t do it, but when people are hungry and some spoiled brat is waving a twenty under their noses, well, sooner or later the kids are going to find somebody who will get it for them. People who are afraid that a facility that will help us stay clean is going to encourage the “bad elements” in the town need to take a hard look at who it really is that is getting into fights and passing out in the park on any given Saturday night. There’s like, maybe five or ten bums who are a regular problem (out of the hundreds of us who are here), and other than that it is *all* people from the towers and the well-groomed neighborhoods who are trashing out the place. Thanks for your support in helping to keep Ballard real.

  383. The reason is much more mundane: opportunity. By the time I started posting, you had more responses and many of them were longer than the average post. A simple blindsiding ad hominem, of which many on this board are guilty, cannot be critiqued beyond mere identification (“that’s an ad hominem”). Your posts had more text to examine. I certainly wouldn’t want you to leave.

  384. Cliff notes? Rush Limbaugh? Really? THAT is your response to someone who had a different take on a book, and called you out on applying it to a broader group than the original subject? Wow. Just wow.

    (for the record, I subscribe to Al Franken’s philosophy on Limbaugh, and am starting to think it applies to you as well.)

  385. OK, you’re right. My sarcasm was unjustified. I apologize.

    But I still don’t believe you actually read the whole book, because your statements about its contents are demonstrably incorrect.

    Again, I apologize for being impolite. I will not apologize for calling you out for making false statements about the book.

    At best, your retention and comprehension of the material is poor. At worst, you are deliberately misrepresenting it as a tactic to undermine my recommendation that people read it, and the credibility of my belief that the book is quite relevant to a discussion of poverty and discrimination against the poor (including the homeless poor).

    Wow, yourself.

  386. LastAnswer

    Here’s beautiful thing to wrap yourself up in. Your world view needs me. You need me to make money and pay taxes so you can spend it. My world view requires nothing of you. To me you’re like navel lint.
    Nothing more then white noise in the background. As I said earlier needing others to support you and your beliefs is like a chain holding you down. Although I doubt it, make you’ll break free at some point.

    At any rate, it’s nice to be needed.

  387. How very American I’ve been: quantity, not necessary quality. :-)

    I’ve come to the conclusion that these forums do nothing but prompt the participants to dig in and fortify their positions; nobody ever seems to consider the points being made and soften their position, whichever side of the issue they are on. It’s mostly a shout fest.

    And yes, when you isolate and decontextualize my sarcastic comments as you did, a case can certainly be made that I was shouting as loud as anybody. But those sentences usually came at the end of a longer post, one with valid statements, reasonable queries that usually went unanswered, and even reading recommendations. This particular 1% of my contribution to this forum may support your argument, but the other 99% does not. If you searched through Barfly’s posts, you could construct a list of inflammatory and/or insulting remarks as long as the one you have of mine, but it would comprise a much larger percentage of his output. Nearly all, in fact.

    I suspect you are mounting an assault on a small part of what I have written as a tactic to undermine my credibility and therefore invalidate all of what I have written. That is a classic ad hominem tactic, by the way, the very thing you are (inaccurately) accusing me of. You don’t address the actual logic of my argument, you point out flaws in its presentation in an attempt to invalidate the argument itself.

    Why do you care enough to put in the obvious effort that you have? Am I that dangerous? Or do you just have higher expectations of me than you do of Barfly?

    And in the future, please don’t use ad hominem arguments to argue against ad hominem arguments.

  388. You are a very arrogant person. And I don’t appreciate being called “navel lint”.

    You want to put it at that level, after I tried to demonstrate to you that I’m a full-fledged human being who has lived a good life, had experiences, and has learned something from his experiences? You’re going to insult me because you disagree with some of the opinions I have legitimately formed from living my own life, a life that I have as much right to as you do to yours?

    You call me navel lint? You don’t deserve a dog, you nasty, hate-filled person.

  389. Oh, and you want to compare our total tax bills for, say, the last 40 years? I’d say there’s a fair chance I’ve paid a lot more into the system than you have, my friend. You need me as much as I need you. The difference between us is that you just don’t see it.

  390. Oh, and one more time, because I guess I haven’t been clear about this in my innumerable posts.

    I am not arguing “for” the URS per se. I am arguing that people should give it a chance, really consider it, rather than reject it out of hand because “it will bring more bums to the neighborhood”, which has been the prevailing sentiment.

    The crux of my argument is that objectively considering the URS is the right thing to do as relatively affluent Americans in present-day society.

    I base this upon the following propositions:

    -that the URS provides a valuable and helpful service to its clientele.
    -that the potential URS clientele is not composed entirely of “undesirables” who will have a negative effect on the community.
    -that the risk of attracting those “undesirables” outweighs the good done by the URS.
    -that the potential URS clientele, regardless of their possible “undesirability”, are human and deserving of reasonable assistance.
    -that, should just a couple of circumstances beyond our control change in any of our lives, we could find ourselves in the position of needing the services of charitable organizations such as the one proposing the URS, and that should spark some empathy in us.

    Much of the opposition expressed in this forum has been based upon an aversion to the potential clientele of the URS. It is this aversion that I have been addressing. It’s an attitude that precludes further consideration of the URS as an addition to our neighborhood.

    It may well be that there are very good reasons for not building the URS here, and I am happy to consider them and support them if they make sense. But rejecting the whole concept because “it’ll bring bums into the neighborhood” is not, in my opinion, a valid argument. And it’s almost the only argument against the facility that has been made in this forum; practical concerns have been vaguely mentioned by a few posters, but the “anti-bum” sentiment prevails.

    And once again, I cop to being impolite at times. But that doesn’t, in itself, invalidate the argument I have been making. So, instead of attacking me as a fool as so many in this forum have, how about addressing my actual argument, which is: please set aside “bum-phobia” and give the concept of the URS in our neighborhood fair consideration.

    Thank you.

  391. Oh, and one more time, because I guess I haven’t been clear about this in my innumerable posts.

    I am not arguing “for” the URS per se. I am arguing that people should give it a chance, really consider it, rather than reject it out of hand because “it will bring more bums to the neighborhood”, which has been the prevailing sentiment.

    The crux of my argument is that objectively considering the URS is the right thing to do as relatively affluent Americans in present-day society.

    I base this upon the following propositions:

    -that the URS provides a valuable and helpful service to its clientele.
    -that the potential URS clientele is not composed entirely of “undesirables” who will have a negative effect on the community.
    -that the risk of attracting those “undesirables” outweighs the good done by the URS.
    -that the potential URS clientele, regardless of their possible “undesirability”, are human and deserving of reasonable assistance.
    -that, should just a couple of circumstances beyond our control change in any of our lives, we could find ourselves in the position of needing the services of charitable organizations such as the one proposing the URS, and that should spark some empathy in us.

    Much of the opposition expressed in this forum has been based upon an aversion to the potential clientele of the URS. It is this aversion that I have been addressing. It’s an attitude that precludes further consideration of the URS as an addition to our neighborhood.

    It may well be that there are very good reasons for not building the URS here, and I am happy to consider them and support them if they make sense. But rejecting the whole concept because “it’ll bring bums into the neighborhood” is not, in my opinion, a valid argument. And it’s almost the only argument against the facility that has been made in this forum; practical concerns have been vaguely mentioned by a few posters, but the “anti-bum” sentiment prevails.

    And once again, I cop to being impolite at times. But that doesn’t, in itself, invalidate the argument I have been making. So, instead of attacking me as a fool as so many in this forum have, how about addressing my actual argument, which is: please set aside “bum-phobia” and give the concept of the URS in our neighborhood fair consideration.

    Thank you.

  392. Moderator — I suggest you close this item to any more comments. Really, no new news or new ideas are being presented by any of us. Ballard is NOT looking good here.

  394. By that, I assume that you’re saying that I think I’m always right. Not so; when I’m wrong, I readily admit it. It’s just that this time, I’m not wrong. You’ve said absolutely nothing that indicates that you read or understood the book.

    I apologize to you for being impolite, and you tell me to “get over myself”? Take your own advice, OK?

  397. No, the guy with the big afro isn’t hurting me. I’m just suspicious of what he and his cronies are doing hanging out at the park day after day. I seriously doubt they’re trying to bootstrap themselves out of homelessness and into being working, contributing members of the community.
    I never once said or implied that homelessness is “always” a choice. What I did say is that it’s sometimes a choice. And I really don’t believe that people who are trying to lift themselves out of homeless are the people who will be dropping by URS to take a shower. It’s the other types, the Mr. President types, who are more likely to use those services.
    If you want to see a realistic face of homelessness, go to the Ballard Food Bank. There you’ll see moms, people who are laid off or underemployed, seniors, young people – in other words, a regular cross-section of the community. Those are not the people aimlessly hanging out at the park, and they’re not the people who are likely to be using URS.
    My issue with the drop-in services of URS is that I believe they just facilitate and encourage homelessness, rather than offering a solution to get people off the streets.

  398. I tried to reply with a link to the 2008 LIHI filing which showed your total compensation of $190k, but due to the link I was moderated. Technically you’re right, you don’t make exactly $200k. But if we extrapolate from 2008, the last year for which data is available, at the 8-9% annual raises you were getting in the 2 years prior, you’d be at well over $200k. Nice work if you can get it.

  399. I tried to reply with a link to the 2008 LIHI filing which showed your total compensation of $190k, but due to the link I was moderated. Technically you’re right, you don’t make exactly $200k. But if we extrapolate from 2008, the last year for which data is available, at the 8-9% annual raises you were getting in the 2 years prior, you’d be at well over $200k. Nice work if you can get it.

  400. I live very near this proposed Urban Rest Stop and I have to deal with the existing consequences of Ballard already having so many homeless in the area. I’m constantly having to clean up mess and garbage dumped on my property and with persons arguing outside my place late night and early morning. IMHO, a residential area like this is not appropriate to host this type of facility. And yes, if I’m honest, I am concerned about my personal safety and that of property values.
    For the people that say I’m crying NIMBY, I challenge you to come and live in the area. Then let’s see what you have to say.

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