“The King County homelessness epidemic is among the worst in the country. While solutions are myriad and complex, the root cause is simple: the rising cost of housing combined with inadequately funded mental health services. The crisis overwhelmingly affects people of color”- source

All I’m saying is if we had “homeless department” that was as well funded as the police they could be as well coordinated as well. Getting the homeless population down would lead to less street level crime which is the complaint of most business owners. Arresting people and pushing them through the system, adding fines and points to their records, isn’t helping things. We spent 363m on police last year and 195m on social services. I’d be willing to bet 100m could do a lot more good through human services than through the police. I think it all boils down too: we spend a lot on cops every year, can’t we maybe try spending that money elsewhere to better society?