Re: “Why are individuals homeless in Seattle? Look upstream” [Feb. 19, Local News]:
Thanks to columnist Naomi Ishisaka for her wonderful insights into the foundation causes of homelessness.
Having grown up in Everett, a metropolis that has witnessed an alarming surge in homelessness over latest many years, and having instantly engaged with people experiencing homelessness, I’m profoundly aware of the gravity of this public well being epidemic. I’m deeply entrenched on this trigger by way of coverage advocacy and my research at Johns Hopkins, the place I deal with challenges impacting this weak inhabitants.
Ishisaka’s column touches on essential concerns surrounding homelessness, such because the pervasive poverty fee in the USA. Nevertheless, I implore us to delve even additional upstream and study how oppressive financial insurance policies have perpetuated inequities resulting in right this moment’s housing disaster. These insurance policies disproportionately hurt Black, Indigenous and other people of shade and low-income communities — practices from exclusionary zoning to regressive taxation to our lack of a strong social security web.
I urge readers to lend their voices and voting energy to assist equitable insurance policies and search extra assets just like the Homelessness Fable-Buster I crafted with colleagues at Washington Physicians for Social Duty (wpsr.org/housingmyths). Collectively, allow us to look upstream and take decisive motion towards addressing homelessness in our communities.
Lexi Lightner, Lynnwood
