Following up on his campaign promise to create 1,000 new beds for the homeless, today new Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell unveiled plans to generously expand Downtown Seattle’s dangerously overcrowded King County Jail.
“During my campaign, I promised to urgently get homeless people out of parks and streets and into stable housing with the on-site services they need—and what’s more stable than prison?” said Harrell of the currently double-bunked, COVID-outbreak-ravaged accommodations. “When you elected me on my purposefully and comfortably vague platform, I heard you loud and clear: You wanted the homeless off the street, but didn’t particularly care where they were relocated. They get three hots and a cot, and the great people of Seattle don’t have to look at them anymore. Sounds like a win-win to me!”
To ensure everyone qualifies for housing as soon as possible, Harrell assured Seattle residents he and new City Attorney Ann Davison are working together to ensure being homeless itself remains criminalized.
“Ann Davison thinks we can legally enforce ‘Do Not Feed the Ducks or the Homeless’ signs, and Sara Nelson offered to lend us some of those giant stone blocks she uses to blockade her brewery so we can cover every inch of habitable land on Green Lake to keep the homeless at bay,” Harrell said. “Sure, it’ll simultaneously render the park useless for everyone, but it’s better that no one can use it than extend a bit of grace to people who can’t afford their own shelter.”
Asked if he had any non-incarceration-related ideas for addressing homelessness, Harrell said that he was exploring a homeless relocation initiative partnership with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy who “promised they would take very good care of them” before winking and cackling maniacally.
