As Seattle continues to struggle through a homeless epidemic, the problem in Washington has grown to dire levels as the state ranks No. 2 in the country for its total population of people experiencing homelessness.
Eric Zimmerman, the head of Washington Policy Center’s research and analysis team and Mayor of Normandy Park, joined “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio to provide the basic facts and statistics that outline why there is a homeless problem, rather than pointing to rent, income, and affordability.
“I’ve heard those things almost as much as I’ve heard someone say hello to me in Washington,” Zimmerman said. “It’s the prevailing narrative. It’s important to care about facts and evidence, and one thing I’ve seen in Washington is that the storytelling around homelessness has, over time, gotten further and further away from what we can objectively observe in gold-standard federal data…