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Declaring Homelessness a Disaster

Forget declaring war, declare a disaster!

Cities and at least one state have found a new tool to address the growing problem of homeless people in the United States. Seattle is the most recent to proclaim a civil emergency to address the homeless situation. See this Seattle Times story, Mayor, county exec declare ‘state of emergency’ over homelessness. Is there a real problem? You bet. When I commute to Seattle I will walk by people sleeping in doorways, camping under the Alaskan Viaduct and panhandling on the streets daily. Someone is routinely using an area of vegetation right adjacent to the Seattle Emergency Operations Center (EOC) as a bathroom. You can tell from the stench on a warm sunny day.  

Los Angeles and Portland are two other cities that have done the same thing. Why proclaim a civil emergency? It is because of the emergency powers that typically these laws provide the chief elected official of a government to move money around and take funds from one area of government to address an immediate and pressing situation. These laws and emergency powers were established to specifically address a disaster situation when time is of the essence and normal contracting procedures may get in the way of an expedient disaster response.  

I have to say I'm a bit conflicted on using the tool of emergency powers for a non-disaster situation. It has been done before here in King County. Back when the Seattle Mariners baseball team were playing in the Kingdom, there was an issue with ceiling tiles falling from the roof of the building and being a safety hazard. This was before my time in King County, but the then county executive used the proclaiming of a disaster as a tool to waive the normal procurement processes in order to have a contractor come in and replace the entire roof. It was millions of dollars!

I find it very interesting that the mayor of Seattle is going to seek funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support their "disaster" response to the homeless "disaster" in the city of Seattle. I can't imagine that that request will find a favorable hearing from FEMA, but stranger things have happened. It was not that many years ago that you could not get funding from FEMA for snow removal. Today it is becoming a more common occurrence for really large events. And, my good buddy up in Whatcom County pressed the issue and got a "Fish Disaster" proclaimed for his county.

If I was FEMA and the federal government, I'd be thinking about the Pandora's Box impact of opening the coffers for anything that someone wants to call a disaster. The Stafford Act specifies what funding is provided for. For today, homeless is not one of the natural disasters listed.

I would suggest that cities, counties and states might take the tack of declaring war on homelessness. But then, there is no money in doing so.

 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.