This Council has no ideas, and targeting women as the bearers of community ills is very backward.

"If the council proposed a bill that funded housing, a universal basic income, and mental health treatment for anyone in sex work..."

"Amber said the top three things people ask of the group when they want to leave sex work are: affordable housing, groceries, and domestic violence shelters. People working a minimum wage job in Seattle often cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment, and child care"

This is where it veers off every time one of these public nuisance issues come up. The ultimate solution is we have to solve intractable social issues and the taxpayers of Seattle need to pick up the check for anyone who decides they want to live here. The woman quoted in this article has a masters degree yet still has to turn to sex work to pay the rent? The second person is upset they can't afford a 2 bedroom apt with a min wage job? When have you ever been able to have a 2 bedroom apt with a min wage job. Again there has to be a balance between helping these women and allowing an entire neighborhood to become a cesspool because like it or don't sex work invites other forms of criminal enterprise. My biggest question though is in today's day and age why does anyone need to stand on the street anymore? It would seem there are a lot of other avenues to advertise your services.

"If the council proposed a bill that funded housing, a universal basic income, and mental health treatment for anyone in sex work who wants to leave, then Collins would think the City wanted to help her."

When they find out how to burn water
And the gasoline car is gone
When an airplane flies without any fuel
And the sunlight heats our home
But one of these days when the air clears up
And the sun comes shinin' through
We'll all be drinkin' that free Bubble Up
And eatin' that rainbow stew
Eatin' rainbow stew in a silver spoon
Underneath that sky of blue
We'll all be drinkin' that free Bubble Up
And eatin' that rainbow stew

Fuck this shit, SLOG who are you pandering to? You are seriously cool with teenagers showing their pussies on Aurora at 2 in afternoon? What fucking left wing delusion are we living in that we even remotely feel this is socially acceptable. Pimps who give zero fucks about anyone are taking advantage of the cities progressive views. We will never be Amsterdam but we will always have a 15yo girl trafficked from Texas to Seattle as long as we think this is ok. SLOG is watching this city dying and thinks that this is everyone else's fault and puts zero responsibility on the people that treat this city like a toilet. An 80 yr old woman was carjacked and killed yesterday WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING SEATTLE. SLOG own your shit, you live in some weird want to be Portugal world and never will admit that some people are fucking assholes and will take what ever you give them or what they want regardless of what social program you think will fix them.

"Until we address the ROOT CAUSE of this issue, which is that we all reside in a cold, uncaring universe where our existence comes to an end almost before it has begun and the bulk of our brief and meaningless lives is occupied with doubt and suffering, we will never truly solve it."

If we feel like sex work is legitimate work then let’s simply legalize and regulate it like Amsterdam, Nevada, what not. What does not work is leaving these folks (mostly women) in legal limbo - decriminalizing does not work (it only leaves opportunities for scumbag pimps to prey on sex workers).

That's what I also say, Buddamat dear.

@5 starting a nonprofit to solve this rn

“If the council wanted to help her and keep her safe, they’d make sure that a full-time job paid her enough to afford a place to live in Seattle.”

And a pony! She didn’t ask for a pony!

The city cannot decriminalize sex work; only the state can do that. The city cannot decriminalize fentanyl, meth’, etc., only the state can do that. De facto decriminalization at the local level leads only to open-air markets in drugs and prostitution, with the violence which always accompanies such illegal commerce.

Before he became Speaker of the House, Frank Chopp told a public meeting I’d attended that the legislature would NEVER decriminalize marijuana; we citizens would need to do it. Eventually we did, and it’s been a great success. Looks like you folks will have to go the Initiative route a few more times.

This amount of gun violence and open prostitution did not exist before the City Council changed the laws to make it harder to prosecute sex traffickers. We need to change them back! The problem disappears once you cross to Shoreline. Legislate for the majority - not for the tiny minority that are criminals!

Change the laws on prostitution at the state level, allowing local districts to have regulated bordellos if they want them. If properly explained to everyone, the country folks would be fine with that, the suburbs would be fine with it, and towns like Seattle, Everett, Tacoma, Spokane, Vancouver, and Bremerton might embrace the idea.

That would protect the sex workers, clean up the streets, and put the pimps out of business. Plus, it would make sex work a taxable service.

Of course, the activists might have to find something new to activist about, but they usually have no problem doing that.

"Of course, some neighbors want to see sex work on Aurora ended completely with little interest in how that harms the workers or where they go, and these neighbors seem unlikely to change their minds."

What a bunch of NIMBY's?

Like @10 said — you cross NE 145th St on Aurora into Shoreline and the problem suddenly stops. KUOW just did a story about it:

www.kuow.org/stories/why-is-aurora-avenue-crime-concentrated-in-seattle

Shoreline has a council-manager form of government. Maybe Seattle should hire away their city manager to fix this stuff, since Shoreline is able to manage these issues far better than Seattle, which seems totally incapable of solving problems that don’t exist a just few miles down the road once you cross the border into Shoreline. It’s a pretty sad commentary that little Shoreline — population 60,000, budget nowhere close to Seattle — succeeds where Seattle completely fails.

@10, @13: Shoreline can, and therefore has, pushed this issue across the line into Seattle. If Seattle started pushing back, by reinstating the anti-loitering law, then Shoreline might have this issue again. It never really goes away, as the “oldest profession” cliche exists to tell us. As Mrs. Vel-DuRay, possibly other commenters, and myself have noted, decriminalization and legal regulations are the way out, so file those Initiatives!

The way to deal with gun violence is to put people who do gun violence in prison until they are too old and feeble to hold up a gun. Let as many no -violent criminals out as is necessary to make room for them. But get them the hell away from the rest of us.

Non-violent criminals. When do we get an edit function?