Reichert unveils plan to tackle homelessness crisis

June 11, 2024

Washington Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert has released his 9-1-1 Blueprint to tackle the state’s homelessness crisis. It has been nearly 10 years since leaders in Seattle and King County announced a homelessness crisis and not only has the problem gotten worse, homelessness is impacting communities across the state.

 

Washington had the sixth highest homelessness in the U.S. last year. Between 2020 and 2022, Washington experienced a 15.6% increase in homelessness, the fourth largest increase in homelessness in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Services Office of Community Planning.

 

Prior to visiting Aurora Avenue to speak with survivors of human trafficking and hearing from community members and local Seattle businesses about how the crisis is affecting them, Reichert spoke with KOMOabout his plan to finally fix the homelessness crisis.

 

“The first thing I would do is appoint someone as the Director of Homelessness in Washington state,” Reichert told Jeremy Harris. “You’ve got to be efficient about this. Somebody in charge [to] find out what’s working, apply money to what’s working, [and] find other programs.”

 

Reichert’s plan to address homelessness brings more accountability to the millions of tax dollars spent on programs to identify what works and doesn’t work to redirect money to programs proven to get results.

 

Check out Reichert’s 9-1-1 Blueprint on Homelessness here:

 

 

Reichert released the following statement on his 9-1-1 Blueprint on homelessness:

 

“It has been nearly 10 years since Seattle and King County declared a state of emergency over the homelessness crisis, and since then the problem has not only gotten worse in the Puget Sound area but across the state. We continue to use the same failed approaches and instead of solving homelessness, we have created hopelessness. It is time for action and my blueprint to tackle this crisis will bring more accountability to how taxpayers’ money is spent to identify what is and is not working and ensure we spend wisely on programs that get people off the streets and into housing.”