Although there are no plans for expanding or expediting access to shelter for people living on Seattle’s streets, today Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the opening of a new drop-in resource center for the city’s unhoused built completely out of paperwork and red tape.
“Constructed from bricks made of 100% recycled paper application forms for affordable housing, rent assistance, SNAP benefits, Medicaid and proof of no income, our unhoused neighbors now have a new resource center where they can continue spending the day jumping through hoops before sleeping out on the street again tonight,” said Mayor Harrell in a statement. “With any luck, a handful of these people will finally qualify for shelter in a few months to years. In the meantime, feel free to assume they’re all assholes actively refusing housing and healthcare assistance just to make you personally uncomfortable.”
While the program certainly isn’t a permanent solution to Seattle’s housing crisis, Harrell said, the drop-in center hopes to give tangible proof that the many forms submitted by clients are actually going somewhere.
“Paperwork from that guy who panhandles outside your office downtown is definitely being processed into bricks for the drop-in center’s new hoop-obstacle course wing set to open by this fall,” Harrell said. “While the drop-in center may not offer housing or healthcare directly and may just be a new place for people to get tossed around like a hot potato, it does make it look like we’re doing something about homelessness – and that’s what counts.”
Although invited to cut the red tape ribbon at the new center’s opening today, Harrell said he had to miss it to meet with a few local billionaires ready to donate some change they found hiding in the couch over the weekend.
