It’s human suffering on full display.
The parks of North Beacon Hill, stretching down to 12th and Jackson. People struggling with addiction and mental illness, clearly in need of help, clearly in danger. Preyed upon by dealers whose whole job is to keep them sick. Some, not all, turning to crime and violence to feed the addiction. Homeowners feeling threatened on their own blocks. Neighbors afraid to walk into their own parks, the ones taken over by open-air drug use and dealing. Business owners paying for private security. People sleeping in the elements with no sanitation. And winter is coming.
Three months ago, Mayor Katie Wilson said enough is enough. She promised police, money, and a hard line. I went down Monday to see what that promise bought, and the answer is: not much. 12th and Jackson is as bad as I’ve ever seen it. And every day the city keeps tolerating it is one more day it breaks a promise it put in writing to the people who live there.
What Katie Wilson promised North Beacon Hill and Little Saigon
Neighbors have been writing me to say things are still bad down there, so after the show Monday, I swung by to see it with my own eyes…