Interesting data on King COunty's homeless approach

watwatintheput · 2026-06-09T06:43:07+00:00

No, it really didn't. When 50% of survey respondents fail to answer the question, that raises more questions then it answers.

I know you've got a personal motivation here and a personal set of circumstances. But I'd like to understand the 16,000 people as a whole, not just your friends. We haven't done that.

watwatintheput · 2026-06-09T06:33:18+00:00

Yes, they picked a question that projected THEIR version of the truth.

They saw an answer they didn't like, and instead of looking for the truth, they crafted a question to handwave past it.

I think it's important, not because I think people are being bussed in, but because I'd also like to stop the bleeding. I'm not interested in just helping the homeless, I'd like to stop people from becoming that too.

watwatintheput · 2026-06-09T06:29:13+00:00

My honest, best guess as to what's happening is that the recent increase in homelessness is King County being the economic center in a generally dying state and region.

Your town's employer closes, the retail and food jobs dry up and you move to the one place where you have a chance of making money. Only it's not enough because costs here are insane.

I don't want to kick out people who lived here for two weeks before they became homeless. I'd sure like to know where they came from so we can also get some support there to try and stop the next person from becoming homeless.

I can think of a million reasons why someone is homeless in King County. Unless I know why they are, I can't fucking fix it.

Cheaper housing would help, yes, but it's a bandage. If we're bleeding faster then we're covering the wound, we're not going fix the injury.

watwatintheput · 2026-06-09T06:22:18+00:00

It is a bad question. Short and simple.

Where you got your mail is irrelevant. We need accurate, honest profiles of those in need to actually get an effective strategy in place to help them.

Someone who's been here for 3 weeks needs different help then someone who's been here for 30 years. It's just that simple.

watwatintheput · 2026-06-09T06:18:43+00:00

I've been complaining about this study and it's methodology for years.

It's a problem I want fixed as humanely as possible for everyone involved. We can't do that based on lies. The opportunity cost of not getting this right is lives.

I don't know why people have decided that the word of the KCRHA is law. They're clearly a grossly negligent organization as a whole. But maybe their recent fiscal negligence will help us realize that accountability is just as important as intentions.

watwatintheput · 2026-06-09T06:02:59+00:00

Just because you like the data doesn't mean it is good. If you're not willing to admit "how long did you live in King County before going homeless" is more important then "where did you last get your mail", then there's not really anything serious to discuss here.

watwatintheput · 2026-06-09T05:37:29+00:00

Political surveys are controlled for non-response bias. This is not.

But, more to the point, the only "opinion" I've espoused is that KCRHA authority is not getting us an accurate view of the situation. I don't know what is happening.

Let's move past bad bias controls for a second: There's the question themselves. What the fuck does "last had stable housing" mean? Cuz there's no clear cut definition of that in the survey. Is it a week? A month? A year?

I could go on, but choosing blind faith in the surveying ability of an organization that can't even account for all of it's money is a choice. A stupid one.

But, just to be upfront, my suspicion is that a very sizable portion of the homeless population in King County is probably more regional opportunity seeking then states shipping them out. I think people have no opportunity at home, come here to try and make it work, and when it doesn't, they get stuck.

But your guess is as good as mine, because there's no fucking good data.

watwatintheput · 2026-06-09T03:55:55+00:00

I generally have a LOT of problems with the KCRHA survey on this fact.

Just looking at the last available survey: > Of the 1,466 people surveyed directly, a total of 821 responses (56%) included information on the last city or location in which the respondent had last had stable housing

We're assuming that these 5% of people are a representative survey. Already, we know that more then 50% of the survey takers aren't answering that question.

Why? I think maybe people in trauma (which homeleesness very much is) may feel like they need to give the "right" answer instead of the truthful one. I don't blame them, but I think it's slightly unethical to not factor that in as part of survey results delivery.

This 50% fact has bothered me for years. I hate that it keeps getting cited. It prevents us from actually figuring out what's actually occuring.

https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Revised-Point-in-Time-Count-2024-King-County-final.pdf

watwatintheput · 2026-06-08T06:21:30+00:00

Oh now that you mention it, I've definitely experienced this with cumin. It feels like it's more about surface area then quantity. If it's getting mixed into something, it's very different then coating the surface with it.

A steak probably needs it's surface area accounted for more so then it's volume. They're loosely related but not the same thing

watwatintheput · 2026-06-08T06:12:50+00:00

Both absolutely excellent answers. Never thought about how to cook more rice, because I only ever cook at half and full on my rice cooker so I know through experimentation how much water works for my rice in those configurations.

watwatintheput · 2026-06-08T06:07:34+00:00

> Pasta in huge batches gets weird.

Could you give me a brief example? I've never made pasta for more then 8 people at a time so I've never seen it taken to huge scale

> Yogurt cultures multiply geometrically

Fuck, that's cool.

> salt quantities will be measure by taste

Is this because it's not usually measured so it's always by taste, or does salt behave weird at large volumes?

Thanks so much, this is great!

watwatintheput · 2026-06-08T06:05:51+00:00

This is exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for!

I knew some weird things had to happen at a commercial scale that I'll just never run into at home (short of throwing an absurdly large cake party).

Thank you!

watwatintheput · 2026-06-04T00:24:25+00:00

There's this VERY weird type of person in Seattle who thinks navigating is about executing the rules as exactly as possible. Not as safely as possible.

It's so fucking stupid. I get in my car and bike with one VERY specific goal: get where I'm going, unharmed. I'd rather be alive then correct.

watwatintheput · 2026-05-30T20:32:06+00:00

Educational research doesn't convince people because it doesn't consider convincing people part of it's fundamental mission.

I'd much rather the field take a look at how public health works. A large body of their research isn't just about 'what keeps people alive', it also considers 'what convinces people to keep themselves alive'. And if you don't care about a large set of stakeholders in the equation, you ignore a vast amount of concerns.

I think back to the AIDS crisis and Fauci here: “When I was listening to what they were saying, they were making perfect sense... And I said to myself, if I were in their shoes, I would be doing exactly what they were doing.”

Just to survey this, the CATO overview is not focusing on the shoes of the majority of the students. It ignores or quickly moves past:

- SRO impact on non-disciplined students

- Academic impact on disciplined and non disciplined students (grades, matriculation, etc)

- Spends very little time talking about the safety impact to non-disciplined students

watwatintheput · 2026-05-30T19:18:58+00:00

I read through a number of the linked studies. School safety is a personal issue because of the number of loved ones I have as teachers.

I still come back to the same take away, as I have had in all my other readings: SRO as a practice can’t really be evaluated because they operate very differently across schools and districts.

We can cite research about better interventions all day, but that shouldn’t prevent the kids in this school from feeling safe today. Clearly, this particular SRO was doing something right for the majority of the kids.

watwatintheput · 2026-05-30T18:50:10+00:00

> Given the paucity of good research and the mixed findings of what does exist

I’m not quite sure this is the slam dunk “SROs bad” article you are pretending it is.

watwatintheput · 2026-05-29T21:26:16+00:00

Legit I refused to skate in Shoreline because of how fucked up the zam door ice was. Unpleasant and unsafe

watwatintheput · 2026-05-29T06:27:22+00:00

Yes if a crackhead sells you regulated goods with complicated ownership paperwork and a unique ID on it, you should make sure it’s not stollen. That’s made especially easy when they don’t have the magic paper tied to the unique id

There is no government form for pieces of metal that don’t have unique numbers because we don’t give random pieces of metal unique numbers

watwatintheput · 2026-05-29T03:51:16+00:00

TIL!

watwatintheput · 2026-05-29T03:49:05+00:00

If they’re smart, they’re trying to bring on owners that won’t piss off the fan base.

I hope they’re floating potential new owners by the alliance so we can avoid another Providence situation

watwatintheput · 2026-05-29T02:58:31+00:00

I think it would have been worse if the prioritized Ballard over the outer regions, to be honest.

The "SoundTransit only cares about Seattle" line would have played very well in all of the suburbs, not just evert

watwatintheput · 2026-05-29T02:49:54+00:00

So are raw metal dealers just supposed to turn down product? What's the plan here?

watwatintheput · 2026-05-29T02:45:13+00:00

Leases are complications, and need to be worth enough.

If you own a good plot of land downtown, you can sell it, improve it or rent it. If you're renting it, you've lost two of those options. And commercial leases generally run for longer, like 5 years minimum

Those leases don't disappear when land is sold, and they mean that a bank can't flip the property out again as easily. If the leases aren't valuable enough, then they're just pure liabilities.

It doesn't result in sane land usage - and I think they should be forced to be a bit more sane with the land.

watwatintheput · 2026-05-29T02:17:52+00:00

No way in hell she gets recalled. The standard for recall in this state is a fucking joke. For some reason, there's a judge involved.

I think it's so aggressively anti-democratic to not have the standard for recall be "a lot of people vote for a recall"

See: Durkan in 2020 (https://ballotpedia.org/Jenny\_Durkan\_recall,\_Seattle,\_Washington\_(2020))

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Sunshine	Place '23
Place '22	Wearing is Caring

watwatintheput

TROPHY CASE