SEATTLE â City advocates say they are struggling to find solutions as homelessness and open-air drug use spread across , amid growing concerns about the direction of socialist Mayor Katie Wilsons new administration.
“You can just see the foil is like blowing down the sidewalks like autumn leaves,” Andrea Suarez, founder and executive director of We Heart Seattle, told Fox News Digital in an interview.Â
“Very common to see property damage of our parks and shared spaces. You can see Narcan is used to reverse an overdose, so you’ll see cartridges. But at least we’re remodeling the bathroom to be gender-neutral. I’m not [kidding] you, that’s where our priorities are.”Â
Suarez, who founded We Heart Seattle in the fall of 2020 to clean up her city, public spaces, and offer resources to people in need, says her city has been overtaken by homelessness and open-air drug use, and she said it isnt getting any better.
“In this park alone, which is Dr. Jose Rizal Park, Lewis Park, and Sturgus Park, there’s three connected parks here. In one afternoon, we picked up several hundred pieces of foil in the off-leash dog park, near the children’s playgrounds, and the memorials, and the pagoda that’s over here as well.”Â
“You can just see every one of these foils was a pill. It could have been a potential overdose,” Suarez said. “So pretty jarring when you think about this being in our parks, at our bus stops, you can see the straws. You can see there’s needles as well. And oftentimes we’ll find that the drugs are still rolled up in the foil, and they get dropped. And we’ve had several hundred cases of overdoses and poisoning of infants and dogs.”
Suarez said that King County Behavioral Health in downtown Seattle now provides information on how to reverse an overdose in dogs.
“That’s how bad it is,” Suarez said. “It’s how prevalent this is in our shared spaces.”Â
She said area stores will sell a “bubble,” also called an oil burner, pizzo, or pilo, a type of glass pipe used to smoke substances including fentanyl for $6, and that King County gives them out for free “in the name of .”
King County also offers “” which give free naloxone, fentanyl test strips, as well as condoms, Plan B, and “safer sex kits.”
Suarez said that addicts will spend anywhere from $100 up to $300 a day on drugs “if you have it.”Â
“And if you don’t, you might get a little sick, but if you can use more, you will,” Suarez said. “And so, everything from retail theft, boosting, fencing, prostitution, men and women, huh? Yeah, men, and women. People don’t hear that very often that men are preyed on, frankly, by perverts. And they will do anything to not get sick.”
Local conservative radio host Ari Hoffman told Fox News Digital in an interview that he believes the city is making its problems worse.Â
“Seattle and Washington and King County have spent a ton of money on what I call Homeless, Inc., which is ,” Hoffman said. So, they don’t actually get you into treatment. They say, Here, let’s give you foil, let us give you a pipe, let’s give you a spoon, let’s give you whatever drug paraphernalia you want and maybe a pair of socks and some condoms also on top of that.”
“And because they are constantly fueling the people who are running Homeless, Inc. and these nonprofit organizations are making an excess of six-figure salaries, these massive huge salaries, there’s no incentive for it to end,” Hoffman added.Â
According to Seattle.gov, in 2024, the city of Seattle <a href="https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/Reports/HSD-Annual-Report-2024_Addressing-Homelessness.
