Little Pink Pup Tents, For You And Me...

Welcome to Nickelsville, population as many as 1000. That's Nickels, as in hizzonner Seatte Mayor Nickels. He's dealing with the homelessness problem by hassling the homeless so they will what? Leave? I can't say what the wisdom would be. For sure, by catering to the big money developer types and ignoring the perpetually full and woefully inadequate homeless shelters (or is it "shelter" as in singular?) he's earned the name for the squatter town.

I know nobody likes crazy dirty homeless people- particularly if they are nearby. But hey- you religious types need to remember "there but for the grace of God...". Me? I know that these people need help, and very probably the kind of help I'm unable to provide- mental help, drug addiction treatment, etc. I know nothing about these things, but I'm just not as "Grinchy" as the Mayor. I would not make their lot in life worse, and I would try to think up some solutions.

Tell you what I do know, though. We have lots of homeless people sleeping under overpasses and bridges. Guess what else we have a lot of? Shipping containers. Call me crazy, but I think we can work something out here. There are architects and builders doing amazing things with these containers, and I'd bet that you could refit some old 20' boxes into basic shelters cheaply. Matson has a shitload of the smaller containers that they never seem to use, stacked all the hell over their space in Harbor Island. See if they'd like a tax break or charitable credit for donating some of these and move them to a safe place. Maybe even have the homeless donate the labor? You could move them if you had to and not lose anything. Build a handful of them with toilets or showers, and the homeless could get back to being human beings again.

You know- in case that's the goal.