Elf Sternberg

I was having a conversation yesterday with Jimmy Matta, our mayor, after a symposium on dealing with youth homelessness in Burien, a city that has grown from 30,000 to 50,000 in the 19 years Omaha and I have been here. That's going from a medium-sized town to an actual city, with the usual city-sized problems that go with it. Coupled with the rising cost of living created by the tech vortex that is our major city of Seattle, and our very close proximity both to the airport and to one of the most convenient commute corridors in the county, Burien has suddenly experienced explosive growth. It doesn't hurt (or help, depending on your perspective). The four neighboring polities all depict themselves differently: Tukwila pretends its a commercial and industrial zone, both Des Moines and Normandy Park are for people with way too much money and have absolutely horrible choke points to make commuting a nightmare, and Sea-Tac surrounds the airport and has all the attendent noise and pollution issues that drive down the attractiveness of housing. So Burien is the destination for people who want to move out of the city and have a place that's at least a little kid-friendly.

Mayor Matta (and Omaha) asked me to put together a list of studies and results about "housing first" initiatives, and here's what I've found:

• Los Angeles found that it spend %20 less on helping the mentally ill homeless by giving them a permanent place to live, with monitoring.


• Several Canadian cities reported no change in costs, but the social effects of homelessness were sigificantly reduced with a housing-first approach. By "social effects," they mean that giving the unhoused housing gave those people a foundation on which to find work, and many did; the "unsightliness" of begging was signficantly reduced, and the "housing first" participants were significantly further along in substance abuse recovery than those in the "treatment as usual" categories.


• The City of Charlotte, North Carolina, realized $1.8 million in savings from a housing-first approach.


• In Colorado, the per-individual cost of dealing with homeless people dropped from $43,000/year to $18,000/years after the state opened a new housing-first shelter.


• The European Union's 2018 report on homelessness found that Finland's housing-first approach saves the country €15,000 per person per year, or about $17,000 per person per year in US dollars, while also reducing police, medical, and social costs.


• Utah, of all places, has a housing-first approach and has reduced homelessness by 74%.


• Illinois discovered that a long-term, housing-first solution for recently released convictscould save the state up to a $100 million through reduced recidivism and a sooner return to the workforce.

As I was talking to the mayor, though, I remembered Werner Herzog's quote that "America is about to learn what Germany learned in the 1930s: that one-third of you want to kill another one-third of you while the last third watches." And as Jimmy and I were talking about the implications of that quote, I came to a realization: those six studies above won't do a damn thing to convince the first one-third.

First, this is 'Murica, where it doesn't matter how damn many "studies" you have, they won't believe them. "We're different here," they'll say, "and those results don't mean anything here." Or "There's a catch, there's got to be more money going out of the system somewhere that's not exposed in the data."

Secondly, some will believe it. Some will say, "Yeah, sure, if we house the homeless people the cost of dealing with homelessness will go down, but it's still the wrong thing to do." To those people, a home, even a tiny studio apartment with its own bathroom, is the ultimate luxury, the absolute one thing we must not give people who haven't earned it. Despite its absurdly high cost and its absolute necessity in life, shelter is the one thing we must not give people who haven't earned it. These people don't care if it costs more, even much more, to manage the homeless via police and emergency room. Being manhandled by the police and ER doctors is unpleasant for all unconcerned, but if you can't earn your shelter than unpleasantness is all you deserve. The money doesn't "really" go to the homeless person in that case, as it does for housing-first; it goes to the cops and the doctors. And if that distracts the cops and the doctors from using their time on better things like, you know, catching murderers and taking care of sick kids, well, that's just the price of doing business.

It's cruel and short-sighted. It's the atttude of those who believe that the only way to inspire the masses is through punishment. But it's what we're up against: the ones who would rather spend more to punish the "undeserving," perpetuating conditions of misery and pain, than they would want to live in a better community.

I was reading the local newspaper, the Seattle Times, and came across an article that addressed a problem in my household: whooping cough. According to the family physician, it was "very likely" that at least one, and possibly up to three, of the people in our house caught the disease. We're all old enough that it doesn't represent a life-threatening condition, but it's annoying to go weeks without a let-up in the coughing. So I read the article hoping for enlightenment.

Except author Carol Ostrom writes to me as if I were a child. Starting with the title, "Feds probe whooping cough epidemic; are vaccines pooping out?," Ostrom goes through a series of bizarre language choices to get her point across. Starting with "pooping out," which is going to make everyone's inner five year old snigger, and move on to telling the audience that whooping cough is "pertussis in science speak," and that it is "acknowledged to be a bad bug." It reads like she's trying to reach not just that target 5th grade reading level, but all the way down to the 2nd grade playground.

Worse, a mechanical analysis of the article shows a 12th grade reading level to the whole. As you go further into the article, Ostrom's vocabulary becomes more dense and complex, and the last third of the article is written in language that doesn't insult my intelligence.

I know these are conscious editorial choices-- to make sure that everyone who bothers to read the Times can understand the point the author is making, but I find it tiring to wade through the childish introductory paragraphs to get to the real material and issues involved in the story.

I stopped by a local gym today, the one closest to my house (other than Curves, which I won't do because it's (a) not a personalized routine at all, (b) the CEO donates his income to extreme right-wing causes, and (c) it's a woman-only facility). It's a one-man operation with a very pretty man in charge, and when I went in to grab the paperwork he leapt out and started a conversation.

When he asked me what I wanted, I said, "Well, I'd really like the body of a gay porn star." He laughed and that. I explained that I'd lost a job a few years ago with access to a gym and trainers, and then broken my ankle and had a few other close calls that had wracked me out. But no, really, what I wanted was to reverse the muscle loss that comes with aging and I wanted essentially strength training with a concentration on bodyweight exercises, lifting and squats.

"What's your favorite exercise?" he asked me.

"Bagwork for cardio, Turkish get-ups for general maintenance."

He blinked a little at that. "Really?"

"Sure," I said. "Had a girlfriend who loved what bagwork did for my shoulders, too, and TGU's are amazing for calves."

I don't know if I could do bagwork right now, with the weird inflammation in my right hand that isn't inflammation. At least it doesn't show up on X-rays, nor in bloodwork, as any common form of inflammation.

We talked for a little while longer. It seems like a nice place, but it's pricey ($50/mo.) with one of those high "intake" costs that they only recoup effectively the earlier you quit. I doubt I'll take them up on the offer, but I've got to find something effective. This body is going to hell.

It was a beautiful Fourth of July here in Burien, where the weather reached a sweltering 74F (23C), and Omaha had volunteered to do her annual part with the 33rd District Democrats, and Kouryou-chan was commandeered into showing up for her dance school's part in the parade.

( Way more photographs of my small town than you ever wanted to see. )

After the parade, Omaha and I went to Dave Upthegrove's 4th of July barbecue, where we ate burgers cooked by his brother while Kouryou-chan and Dave's niece went swimming in the lake nearby. It was very mellow before we made it home for a few hours' rest. We were going to see fireworks later that evening.

Today was the Burien 4th of July Festival, when our whole little city gets together and celebrates, well, being a city and surviving yet another year not succumbing either to the forces of chaos that is South King County, nor being swallowed whole by the behemoth that sits across the northern border, Seattle. Omaha, being cat herderchairwoman for the 33rd District Democrats, was obliged to go stand out in the hot sun with a sign and wave to crowds that, surprisingly, waved and cheered back.

Of course, Kouryou-chan was there. And it's traditional at the Burien parade to throw candy at the crowd, which sometimes squirts back with water guns (a welcome blessing, believe me!), so that was her incentive to walk-- one for the crowd and one for her. She had fun until we ran out of candy, but she toughed it out and walked the entire two-mile parade route.

( Lots and lots of photographs. First: Democrats! )

( And now, scenes from the parade itself. There were no Republicans. )