`Visionary' plan would put `a roof over every bed in King County' by 2014 (Seattle hasn't learned)

The King County Journal ^ | March 12, 2004 | Jeff Switzer

[Stoat]

Just when you thought that things couldn't get worse in Seattle /King County, now every bum on the planet will be making a beeline here....not to mention a NEW bottomless pit for bureaucrats to throw MY money into....

I'm so terribly embarrassed to be a Seattleite "sigh"

[Libertarianize the GOP]

I should sell all of my assets and invest them, then move to Seattle and get a free house, with a fair return from the market over the next twenty years and my expenses paid by King County I could retire rich.

[clb]

What kind of return would you really expect to get from a government built house, with neighbors who would be homeless except for your tax generosity?

[Libertarianize the GOP]

My current net worth invested in the market would provide a nice retirement in twenty years. I thought King County would cover my expenses for the next twenty years so that I wouldn't have to work.

[DoughtyOne]

I've got to visit Seattle some time. The view of their "pie in the sky" would be worth the trip.

Hey Seattle, what's going to happen when word gets out that you're putting a "FREE" roof over people's beds? Greyhound is going to love you guys.

FREE is a very loose term here. Nothing is free and that $1 billion will become $20 and never even slow down...

[snarks_when_bored]

Right. The 'planners' in Seattle had also better draw up plans to keep out the tsunami of in-coming homeless people. How do you suppose they're going to do that? A fence around Seattle? Special enforcement personnel with rights to taser on sight?

[woofer]

I should sell all of my assets and invest them, then move to Seattle and get a free house, with a fair return from the market over the next twenty years and my expenses paid by King County I could retire rich.

I was trying to think how I could get one of those free houses, too. I like your idea. And, as a bonus, I'd get to start collecting my social security early! Or at least not have to pay into the Ponzi scheme anymore.

[backhoe]

It always involves spending lots of everybody else's money, doesn't it? And creating some sort of "Authority" ( read- unemployment insurance for political pals ) to manage it.

BTW, I lived on Vashon in the early eighties... and my tagline is from true life, and truer words were never spoken...

[bayareablues]

Well, housing is one thing, but aren't they going to need a little pocket-money for living expenses? Until Seattle ponies up at least $300 cash/month in addition to roofs, we'll never clean the streets up in San Francisco.

[skip_intro]

Let's say that a total of 6000 units will be built, since some of the estimated 8000 "homeless" are in families.

Six thousand into one billion comes to roughly $166,000 per unit.

Not a bad present to people who contribute absolutely nothing to society at large. Of course, this gift will attract even more "homeless", so I guess the citizens of Washington will be asked to contribute even more.

As a resident of Califoria, I love this proposal. Maybe even San Francisco could be made tolerable again.

[shezza]

OPM Utopia *bump*

[theDentist]

Perhaps you should consider moving elsewhere (someplace less "progressive").

[InterceptPoint]

I will quote Milton Friedman (approximately) concerning the law of supply and demand. He said that as the cost falls the demand rises and when the cost gets to ZERO then the demand becomes INFINITE.

So I say to Seattle: "Build it and they will come, and come, and come, and come, ....

[Leatherneck_MT]

I'm so terribly embarrassed to be a Seattleite "sigh"

You Tax payers need to move out and find another place to live. When the idiots in the Government see their Tax base shrinking, they will naturally up the ante and make more taxes thus driving more people out. Soon the only people living there will be the homeless and the dimwits in the government. When the homeless don't get their handouts, they will hang the dimwits and leave seattle. Then ya'll can move back and start over :)

[Stoat]

Perhaps you should consider moving elsewhere (someplace less "progressive").

Believe me, I would love to and would have done so years ago if it weren't a matter of personal responsibilities keeping me trapped here, at least for the time being.

I have mused wistfully over places like Idaho, Montana.....even though they kept reelecting Daschle for years, I've heard that South Dakota is actually a great place.  On another recent FR thread, several people had spoken of how great Texas is....I don't know "sigh".  I have this naive mental image of The South, where the people are courteous and gracious and sane, and the women don't glare at you or say nasty, militant-feminist things to you if you hold the door open for them at the shopping mall as they do here.  I dream of living in a place where a man can hold a lady's chair for her as she sits down at a restaurant or help her on or off with a heavy coat without people nearby glaring at you in utter astonishment, thinking that there is SUCH a Neanderthal among us....how dare he oppress her so and treat her so badly..... I regret that most of the travelling I've done has been overseas and I don't know my own country nearly as well as I'd like.  I will miss the climate here which, although not to many people's taste (11 months of gray skies and drizzle every year gives us a high suicide rate) is what I'm accustomed to.  The scenery is spectacular.....but the people and the politics and the economics here are just absolutely awful.  "sigh"

sorry to ramble on this way........

 

 

[rlmorel]

Yeah...I live in Massachusetts. Your state is nearly as liberal as mine.

Notice I said "Nearly".

[jec41]

King county must have a population shortage to pass this. Look for a population explosion

[speekinout]

I LOVE this plan. I don't live in Seattle, and our state can solve our homeless problem by just buying them all a bus ticket to Seattle. :-)