Episode 5: Mag Homelessness

[0.6s] Saul: Hello, and welcome to Mag World, where we like to ask big questions, make wild guesstimates, and quantify literally everything on a magnitude scale.

[8.8s] Mike: Today’s episode is Mag Homelessness, and we’ll be talking with William Towey, the Associate Deputy of Strategy of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, or KCRHA.

[20.1s] Saul: William, since you’re new here, you should know that in Mag World, we use a magnitude scale, such that every mag 1 means times 10. So 100 is mag 2 and 1,000 is mag 3, and to multiply numbers, you add them together. So 100 times 1,000 is mag 2 times mag 3, which is?

[38.0s] William: Part of that new math, mag 5.

[39.9s] Saul: mag 5, which is 100,000. And that’s all the math you need to know to understand what’s going on in Mag World. Just remember that every order of magnitude is a big deal, because as we say in Mag World, quantity has a quality all of its own. I’m Saul Pwanson, your guide to Mag World, and also with us is my friend, Mike, who builds homes.

[58.9s] Mike: That’s me.

[60.2s] Saul: Thanks for being here, William. We’re really excited to talk with an expert on homelessness today.

[64.2s] William: Thanks, Saul. Looking forward to chatting with you today.

[66.9s] Saul: Uh, let’s talk about the history of homelessness in Seattle. While I was doing some research for this episode, I discovered that we actually do have record of the very first homeless person that was discovered in Seattle in 1854. Seattle, the town of Seattle was just incorporated. There are a couple hundred settlers who came, or a couple hundred settlers. There actually are still thousands of Indigenous population on the land here. Um, but in 1854, there was the first settler who was homeless, found living in a tent on the beach. And so we’re gonna call that mag 0 homelessness. There’s exactly one person that they found then. And so I would love to get a kind of a history, a perspective of how it’s gone since then.

[01:46.0] William: Well, we don’t have data going back that far. And so I would just note, I have no input on the early, early days of, of unsheltered homelessness in the Seattle/King County area. I do know, though, that the history, uh, of America and the history of this region are replete with examples of crisis, social disruption, and people who are experiencing extreme poverty and homelessness. So certainly, for example, as I think of that, the Great Depression perhaps is an example of where, you know, we had a lot of people who were displaced, homeless. I think the challenging problem that homelessness presents in Seattle is so noteworthy because we are one of the sort of top five, top ten cities in the country where those dynamics come together in such a way as to produce a really daunting and difficult reality on our, on our city streets.

[02:43.5] Saul: As far as history of homelessness in Seattle, uh, you mentioned the Great Depression era. The data that I found was that there are some 4,000 to 5,000 people, there were some 4,000 to 5,000 people living in shack towns here. And so that’s mag, we call it mag 3 homelessness. There’d be thousands of people that are living there, well, living inside these shacks. And I wanted to talk about shack towns. W- why we can call people who live in shack towns homeless when they are living in a structure? What is the actual definition of homelessness that applies there, and today, in today’s environment, too?

[03:18.1] William: Today, the structural definition of homelessness really is that the HUD definition is the one that really drives most of the understanding and the baselining here, and, and that is that whether somebody is sheltered in a, in a place that’s fit for p- human residency. And- [Saul: Uh-huh.] … you know, so for example, uh, if, if you’re homeless but you are now living in your sister’s spare bedroom, you might be homeless, but you would be sheltered. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] And so the example is noteworthy though, because you can have lots of people who are homeless in the sense that they don’t have their own residence, but they are housed. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] Then you can have folks who are homeless but perhaps are living in the sister’s garage, and that is not someone who is properly housed because a, a garage, unless it’s been converted, of course, but, you know, a garage, or let’s say, uh, uh, a garden shed or something like that. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] You know, that’s, that’s not going to be, uh, what you would call proper housing. For example, we will oftentimes see examples where people are living in facilities that are abandoned houses. They don’t have power, they don’t have running water, and those are still essentially unsheltered individuals.

[04:38.3] Mike: So, and a lot of this sounds like comes back to that HUD definition, and so when we’re talking today, is that the definition that we’re going to be using?

[04:45.6] William: Yeah. Typically, that’s really an important one because in order to gain access to most of the homelessness response system- [Mike: Mm-hmm.] … you, we talk about literal homeness, homelessness, and, uh, the HUD definition. So to gain access to many of the shelters, there needs to be an attestation of literal homelessness by the HUD standard. There’s a lot of conversation today about affordable housing in Seattle, and that it is and it isn’t, that there needs to be more of a particular type or another type. We know from the investments that the response system and others make in what is generally called diversion funds, uh, is a really important investment because it’s that classic case of where somebody’s car broke down. They had to fix their car to keep their job. Now they can’t pay their rent this month, and they’re out there trying to find $500 or $800 to pay the rent and maintain their housing. And the threshold point for us essentially is the Homeless Management Information System.Which is a nationally run data system that tracks people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

[05:57.9] Saul: So, that’s very interesting. I think this ties back to our episode on mag money.

[06:01.2] Mike: That’s just what I was thinking.

[06:02.5] Saul: Because you mentioned that people are trying to find $500 to $800 to, um, keep their housing. That’s literally mag 2 wealth that we were talking about and that, to me, is also the same qualitative definition that I use, is it is marked by insecure housing. Wha- if they have housing, they might not last there very long. Either they have to move for one reason or another, or it’s b- because they can’t afford it for some other reason. And then when they fall through that level, it sounds like it could add up to the HNIS and that either is down to mag 1 wealth or at the lower levels of mag 2 where it’s like even if you can get $200 together, it’s not gonna be enough to actually main- uh, have housing of your own.

[06:39.4] Mike: Yeah. Uh, yeah, William, would you say people who are in the system, what is their ability to pull together money? Are they able to pull together a couple hundred dollars when they, uh, are entered in the system? Do people have access to $1,000 or $2,000 but can’t keep housing? And then how many are just fully destitute and can’t- can’t pull together $10? Can you give us maybe just a qualitative look at what- what these people might, um, have access to?

[07:10.9] Saul: And the distribution of that. What- how many of each category? [Mike: Mm-hmm.]

[07:13.9] William: Sure, yeah. I appreciate that. I’m- I think I’m getting the- getting the hang of the mag here. Um, you know, the- the mag 2 question is where, uh, a lot of the- the challenges exist in this framework. For example, we have tens of thousands of people in King County who are on SSDI, Social Security Disability Insurance, which is, uh, you know, less than $1,000 a month. [Mike: Mm-hmm.] And so for them, the housing question of how they can become stably housed is a mag 2 issue because essentially they could probably afford to pay 400 or 600 a month, but if it gets to 800, they’re like, “I think I’ll just have to stay in my minivan because I also have $120 of prescription medicine I need to buy each month.” [Mike: Mm-hmm.] So, we have folks who have a lot of co-occurring disorders, uh, so serious and persistent mental illness is- is a- is a factor for a lot of folks. Chronic substance use disorder is a factor for many folks, and many of the folks are unlikely to have significant income at any point and many of them are literally at zero income. Uh, at the other end, we have a lot of folks who have, uh, as I was just noting, less than $1,000 a month or, uh, $1,200 a month, $1,400 a month. You know, as anyone listening who lives in Seattle can understand- [Mike: Hmm.] … it’s very difficult to house yourself for less than, you know, if your income is $1,200 a month. [Mike: Mm-hmm.] And so the framework for a great number of folks who are unsheltered today is that they may have some income, but it is insufficient at a mag 2 level to have them achieve stable housing.

[09:07.3] Saul: So, I wanna talk about your personal experience, uh, as you mentioned earlier, with homelessness. Have you known anyone who has been or become homeless, um, outside of your work, like friends or family?

[09:18.5] William: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, um, I was- I was talking with someone the other day and, um, they were referencing it and- and it made me remember when my, uh, eldest son was in high school. One of their friends lived in our basement for two months. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] And they were, you know, I- I- I kind of discovered it one day when there was some clothes and some other things lying around. I was like, “Well, whose is this?” And they thought, “Oh, that’s Sam’s.” And I was like- [Saul: Wow.] … “Oh, is Sam staying here now?” I was like, “Yeah, Sam’s staying here now.” I was like, “Oh, that’s great. What is- what’s going on?” And then I realized they were in a tough situation and they needed a spot. I was like, “Yeah, absolutely. Sam- Sam’s great. Sam can stay downstairs for a while.” And they were with us for about two months. And, you know, and interestingly, you know, Sam’s story is- is- is a powerful one, and Sam’s not their name, by the way.

[10:03.6] Saul: It’s fine.

[10:04.0] William: Just to clarify. But they were a great student, super popular and successful in high school up until around senior year when suddenly things started getting different. And, uh, they had, uh, late-onset schizophrenia.

[10:21.1] Saul: Oh, wow.

[10:22.2] William: And so, you know, th- this is a common, uh…

[10:25.6] Saul: But they were a minor and so their family must’ve been having problems too in order for that to be the case, that he would have to find a different place to stay.

[10:32.6] William: Yeah, exactly. I think he would’ve been 17 at the time maybe, so he was pretty grown up. But, uh, as I- as I look back on it now, because subsequently I encountered Sam in the work that I was doing- [Saul: Whoa.] … with a behavioral health agency, and they were housed in a special program but they had, you know, really found that their world had changed greatly because of their, uh, mental condition.

[10:57.9] Saul: So, what would it take for Mike, for instance, to become homeless? Like, what’s- what’s a path that- [William: Yeah.] … one of us might wind up in?

[11:06.9] Mike: Yeah. Em- employed with some savings, but by no means wealthy. What would happen to put me into the system?

[11:16.2] William: Physical injury that precluded you from continuing to work. [Mike: Mm-hmm.] Depletion of your savings fairly promptly. [Mike: Mm-hmm.] Facing tough decisions around, “What do I do? Because I don’t want to have an eviction on my record, so I’m gonna exit the housing s- status that I have now.” [Mike: Mm-hmm.] Engaging with familial support, uh, until your welcome was over. [Mike: Mm-hmm.] Um, maybe into your vehicle, still struggling to have income, waiting for your Social Security Disability to kick in. [Mike: Mm-hmm.] Car breaks down.

[11:50.8] Saul: And I wanna know, are- are there branches that you hit on the way down or is it kind of like a- an instant binary thing where it’s like, “Whoa, that was three months ago I was doing kind of okay and now three months later I’m really not”?

[12:01.7] William: My sister’s a clinical psychologist, and she, she often says this to me. She says, “Well, your rem…” And she’s English, so she has an English accent, which I, which I do fairly poorly, but she says, um, “You know, you know, William, when you’ve talked to one homelessness person, you know what you’ve done.” And I say, “What is that?” She says, “You’ve talked to one homelessness person.” Mm-hmm. So the stories are often very, very different, but in some ways, there are some common, you know, pathways and arcs. Uh, I described one for you, Mike, that I think a lot of people can follow and say, “Wow, that, that might happen to me.” Uh, another one would be, um, substance use- Hmm. … disorder, right? You know, the, the fact of the matter is, uh, you know, certainly fentanyl has had a tremendous impact on many people’s lives and their ability to remain housed.

[12:49.9] Saul: Sherlock Holmes even famously visited the opium dens where people were crashed out, and, I mean, uh, I think for all intents and purposes, homeless then. I wanted to talk about the modern unsheltered homeless population. So, the data that I was looking up, they started tracking these numbers in 2006 here in Seattle, and so the homeless population then was about 8,000 people, and the unsheltered homeless population was about 2,000 people. And then in 2018, the homeless population is 12,000 people and the unsheltered is 6,000 people. So basically, the, the sheltered homeless population stayed the same, but the unsheltered population went up three times. That’s a whole half order of magnitude, that’s significant. And then now in 2020… Well, in 2024, the last time I saw these numbers, the homeless population is now 17,000 and unsheltered is 10,000. And so the… Again, the sheltered pop- uh, sheltered population went up a little bit, but the unsheltered population went up significantly. So now since… In these past 20 years, the unsheltered population has gone up five times, which is huge and, in mag world, that’s a qualitative difference. I- I’m wondering, is that why we’re seeing this as a problem now? We’re literally seeing a different order of magnitude of unsheltered people on the streets, and why is the unsheltered number zooming up when the shelter number is not?

[14:07.7] William: Those are great, uh, it’s a great analysis there. And again, it’s a, it’s a complicated landscape, so interestingly, you have a, a number of people who may be homeless. And, and so if you think of the folks when you said looking back at the most recent point in time count data that came in around 17, just under 17,000, so we often say 16,000, and that there’s 6,000 of those folks who are sheltered and 10,000 who are out on the street, it’s really important to remember that this is more like a, a river, a flow of people who are moving around inside these numbers. It’s not like, uh, a static group of people who are sitting there kind of, “Okay, once we get these last group of people moved in, the problem is solved.” There’s always people coming in, there’s always people moving back out, it moves around. But certainly, the main drivers of homelessness, income inequality, poverty, housing affordability, access to support of services in the behavioral health field, access to medical care, all of these, uh, drivers are continuing, and in some crae- cases they’re increasing. And for a large subset of our overall population, the ability to have income sufficient in a city like Seattle is increasingly difficult. So, the difference in the numbers where you’re seeing the unsheltered number on the streets go up, but the sheltered number remain fairly level is because we have about 6,000 units of shelter available in the system. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] And that has been fairly static for a number of years. The cost to put that 6,000 or so shelter units in place, and, and, a- and I say -ish because, you know, y- there’s rapid rehousing programs, there’s transitional housing programs, they’re a little bit different.

[16:09.3] Saul: We’re, we’re in mag world. The order of magnitude is what matters here.

[16:12.0] William: Brilliant. Okay, great then. In that case, it, you know, it’s about 100 million a year- [Saul: Hmm.] … for those 6,000 shelter beds. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] And so the, you know, the, the… It’s difficult to increase the shelter capacity, it’s expensive to increase the shelter capacity, but, uh, on the other side of the coin, the number of people who are experiencing housing insecurity and ultimately going into homelessness remains unabated. And so that’s why those two numbers diverge.

[16:40.8] Saul: So if, um, the entire unsheltered population was able to be sheltered, would we still have… Uh, well, would the problem of homelessness be one that we would directly experience, or is it literally the unsheltered homeless that is the, what, what becomes a problem? I mean, it’s, it’s still a problem that has to be taken care of, but is it a problem that’s been taken care of if they are all sheltered?

[17:03.6] William: You know, most often, I think, for people, the, uh, uh, conversation of homelessness tends toward the most highly impactive, highly vulnerable, and, and, and sort of, um, most visible folks who are on the city streets who typically are, are really the most challenging folks for us to find solutions for. And an important concept within homelessness services is the idea of functional zero, whereby you, you recognize that there’s a flow of folks coming into the state, there’s a, a certain set of services that are available to meet that flow, and then hopefully folks are flowing back out into a resolution of their situation. And what you’re seeking, the term functional zero relates to the idea that as people come in, they’re temporarily in that status, and then they can move back out of that status, maintaining a, a, a, a situation where the number of people who are temporarily…… homeless doesn’t continue to increase. And then ideally, you would get that down to as low a number as you possibly could and then you would maintain what is a functional zero, the zero being the, uh, y- you’re not increasing that number anymore. So, if you have, you know, 16,000 folks out there right now, even if we get to functional zero, that’s an entirely unacceptable number. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] We have to get beyond functional zero to deal with the folks who are still coming in each year- [Saul: Mm-hmm.] … and reduce the folks that we failed to serve so far. We engage with over 50,000 individuals a year. We know that we have 16,000 folks who are h- homeless, uh, 6,000 of them in shelter, 10,000 on the streets, s- 8,000 people in permanent supportive housing, 3,500 in rapid rehousing, 1,500 in transitional housing, and our homelessness management information system, HMIS, tracks about 20,000 people a year coming new into the system. So, those are the folks who I described, you know, falling through that- [Saul: Mm-hmm.] … net into our system. And so on an annualized basis, we increase the number of unsheltered by 1,000, 1,500, 2,000. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] Out, you know, against the 20,000 coming in. So, we have a, a, a, a system that is responsive to the great bulk, over 90% of the folks who are entering the system, there’s a resolution pathway, but there’s a very small subset that are particularly difficult to find housing pathways for. And oftentimes, those are the most, uh, highly vulnerable and most highly impactful folks that, that the conversation of homelessness tends to be centered on.

[19:59.5] Saul: But that’s, uh … There are 10,000 unsheltered and I’m going to guess that those 10,000 aren’t the most problematic individuals like you’re talking about. Like, there’s some subset of that, some small subset of that, that are the most problematic ones. And I guess what I’m kind of getting at is, if it costs $100 million a year to house 6,000 people and there are 18,000 in the system, uh, totally right now, then simple math, $300 million a year would provide enough shelter for those 17, 18,000 people. And so, is this, uh, a budgetary matter where if we tripled the budget of the, uh, th- for this exact kind of response, would that make a significant, like 90% dent in the unsheltered population? I know that’s politically difficult to get three times the amount of money, so I’m not saying this- … is actually a viable thing, but I want to know.

[20:51.2] William: One of the, the most challenging and, and difficult parts of our work is the realization that, you know, you can have shelter capacity, but there needs to be places for people to go from that shelter. So, the, the sort of critical problem we’re solving for is housing affordability.

[21:08.3] Saul: Mm-hmm. And so you’re trying to find solutions that cost less than that for the people who can actually deal with the … less support than that. You don’t want to provide maximum support to the entire population, then. That makes sense.

[21:19.3] William: Yeah. And, you know, I, I, I really want to set that in conversation with, for example, uh, the Kenmore Senior Women’s Shelter, where we have a small shelter that’s specifically for low-acuity older ladies who have ultra-low fixed income. They’re on the Social Security disability. They have 800, 600, 1,200 a month coming in. Seniors are one of the fastest growing subsets of unsheltered populations, and half of them are becoming unsheltered for the first time in their lives. [Saul: Mm.] In their 60s or 70s.

[21:58.1] Saul: Let’s talk about the causes of homelessness, especially unsheltered homelessness, and you mentioned some of these already. And, um, I think that primarily it sounds like housing costs are a, a huge driver of that, just the regional housing costs. What else are the major big ticket categories here? So, demographics, for instance, you know, age or race or disability. What can you tell for the actual biggest causes of homelessness?

[22:22.7] William: Well, you know, it’s, um, poverty essentially is sort of the larger frame, right? Obviously, uh, sometimes people say, “Well, when are we gonna solve home- homelessness?” And I, I often kind of note, “Well, probably very shortly after we solve poverty,” right? [Saul: Mm-hmm.] Um, but that’s, uh, not really super helpful. So, the r- the, the causes of, of homelessness typically are, some sort of personal crisis is a key driver. S- you know, circumstances change in someone’s life. It could be the health example I used with m- you, Mike, early on where, you know, suddenly something happened with your health and you had a loss of income. Loss of income is a common one. Sometimes that shows up as an eviction. Uh, evictions are reported oftentimes as the causal factor for about 20% of the population in, uh, in certain, certain surveys, not, it’s not a blanket statement. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] But certainly, you know, the inability to pay rent and stay housed is the, the main driver of unsheltered homelessness. Al- also you have, um, you know, folks who are, uh, reentering society from, uh-

[23:27.8] Saul: Prison, for instance.

[23:28.5] William: Yeah. Prison, for instance. Um, we have folks who have had, you know, domestic violence is a driver of homelessness, for sure. SUD is a driver of homelessness.

[23:38.9] Saul: I’m sorry, what is SUD?

[23:39.6] William: Substance, substance use disorder.

[23:41.0] Saul: Oh, of course. Yeah.

[23:42.1] William: Yeah. The impact of fentanyl is a, is a mad kind of change in that landscape.

[23:46.2] Saul: And that’s just the last 15 years basically, right?

[23:48.6] William: Uh, even shorter than that. [Saul: Wow.] I mean, yeah. I mean, I, I think w- in terms of, like, homelessness services provisions, a, a classic intervention was the, uh, faith-based community doing a rotating winter shelter. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] And three or four churches would get together and during the coldest months, two or three months, they would, you know, have a facility that would spend two weeks at this church, three weeks at that church, two weeks over here, and then maybe a final three weeks over there, and they’d have a capacity of 20 or 30 cots or mattresses, and then they would all collectively do work to make meals. And it was, uh, something that was quite common. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] And you don’t see that much anymore because of the, uh, high acuity impact of fentanyl-… in- [Saul: Hmm.] … in the unsheltered community and, and population. And so it’s just meant that it simply is too much of a lift.

[24:40.5] Saul: So, one question that I have here is, um, on shelters. You mentioned something about a three-month stay in a shelter, and I literally, uh, I guess I’m blessed to not know what shelter life is like at all. How often do people cycle in and out of shelters? What is the average stay- [William: Hmm.] … at a shelter?

[24:56.2] William: Typically, the average stay would be between three to six months. [Saul: Okay.] So, uh, oftentimes, you know, what is shelter is the first starting point. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] Many times, people think of, uh, what we would call congregate shelter- [Saul: Hmm.] … where you have an overnight shelter. There’s a bunch of cots on a gym floor. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] You, you’ve got to be in between 6:00 and 8:00, and you’re out the door in the morning between 6:00 and 8:00. And it’s an overnight thing, kinda first come, first serve. And, um, congregate shelter is one of the least desirable forms of shelter, uh, because they can sometimes be really challenging and difficult to operate successfully, uh, depending on how they’re staffed or, or, or, or what the, what’s going on there. They can be-

[25:44.5] Saul: It takes-

[25:44.5] William: … traumatizing and difficult for people.

[25:46.5] Saul: It takes just one person to be, make the whole experience really terrible for everybody.

[25:50.2] William: Yeah, exactly.

[25:51.2] Saul: Like you said, those are the congregate shelters, but then you mentioned the three-to-six-month stays. [William: Yeah.] What kind of shelters are those?

[25:56.4] William: The majority of shelter that is put forth today is non-congregate shelter, and essentially it’s the SRO kind of model, where folks have a, a space that is their own, that they know is going to be there for them-

[26:12.9] Saul: It has a lock on the door.

[26:13.1] William: … the next night. They may have a lock on the door. It might even be a, like a cubicle almost, right? [Saul: Okay.] And it allows folks to stabilize and begin a crucial moment of inflection whereby they are able to exit a life that is framed in hours. [Saul: Yeah.] Right? So I, I, sometimes I talk about the sort of a life horizon. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] You know? And for many people who are unsheltered, they’re, they’re thinking about how they’re going to exist for the next 12 hours, the next 24 hours, the next 36 hours. And after you’ve been out on the streets for two years, three years, four years, six years, 12 years, it, it’s a really different mental model that’s in operation at that point.

[27:05.7] Saul: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[27:05.7] William: So, when folks come into a shelter that’s a non-congregate continuous stay shelter, they have a chance to lift that operational horizon of their existence and, and begin to get to a framework of, “Okay, maybe I should try and take care of that thing or the other thing. Maybe I should try and get my meds back on track again here.” And so non-congregate shelter is the preferred model today. So, for example, I mentioned how permanent supportive housing is a really important solution for some of the most h- most impactful and, and vulnerable populations that are out there. We have 8,000 units of permanent supportive housing in the system, and about 10% of that, maybe somewhere in there, becomes available each year.

[27:51.0] Saul: Ah, so there, like you said, there’s 8,000 people who are being housed, but you only have 800 units that can actually be used each year.

[27:58.5] William: Each year, yeah, because it’s permanent.

[28:00.1] Saul: Um, what’s the total budget of all of these organizations? How much money is put into this system in King County?

[28:05.7] William: The total spend, uh, in Seattle/King County on homelessness services is probably between 250 and 300 million a year into the system. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] Great, thank you. Ideally, we would be reducing the homelessness response system spending, because magically enough housing for people to afford had appeared. Mm-hmm. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] So that, if you want the mag, that’s where the mag is. The mag is not in our… We don’t want the mag in our system. Hm. We want the mag in the adjacent system. We want the mag in the behavioral health system so that people aren’t falling out of that system and ending up on the streets with serious and persistent- Mm-hmm. … mental illnesses untreated. But really, when you speak about the federal government- Mm-hmm. … what, what’s your mag number on that? Right? It’s significant, right? This is why the impact of some of the federal conditions are, are driving a lot of what we, what we see in terms of these baseline support differences. So, if SSDI- Hm. … was doubled- Mm-hmm. … a ton of people who are currently homeless would have access to the market-rate housing around them. Hm. Mm-hmm. Right? And so, you know, and, and, and King County can’t write that check. Seattle can’t write that check. Shoreline can’t write that check. The feds can write that check.

[29:21.2] Saul: But then, at the same time, if the feds decide that they don’t even wanna do SSDI as it currently is, then the housing pro- then the homelessness problem becomes much greater and becomes a much bigger burden on Seattle and local places, too.

[29:33.0] William: I’m always really keen to emphasize that investing in the homelessness response system is important, but if you really want to have systems change, you need to have a concurrent- [Saul: Mm.] … opportunity to have places for people to exit the system into. And all of the drivers for the situation that we’re in remain unabated. Mm-hmm. [Saul: Mm-hmm.] It’s a devastatingly awful human condition. It’s abhorrent- [Saul: Mm-hmm.] … to me that, that a city like Seattle or, or, uh, you know, or any of the other cities who have this particular issue because of the nature of our wealth in our cities- [Saul: Mm-hmm.] … counterintuitively leaves us with 20,000 people out there on the streets. It’s abhorrent. It’s not right. And so that drives me in the work.

[30:21.1] Mike: Okay, great.

[30:21.9] Saul: Well, thank you so much for talking with us today, William. This has been really great.

[30:26.3] William: Yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. It’s fun to have been here with you, and I really appreciate the opportunity to, to share the work. And again, I just wanna shout out 70 nonprofit agencies and other agencies out there serving tens of thousands of people. Our system interacts with 50,000 people a year. 20,000 folks coming in every year. This is a large scale, deeply rooted systemic problem that we’re working on, and those folks who are out there every day are really the heroes in the whole space.

[30:58.5] Saul: Thank you.

[30:59.1] Mike: All right. Thank you.

[31:00.6] Saul: Uh, I also want to, before we go, talk about… So this episode is gonna come out a few days before where we’re talking about Half Mag Day. So March 16th is, uh, Half Mag Day we’re gonna celebrate. It’s basically a half order of magnitude is about three times, but actually it’s 3.16 something. And so just like there’s a Pi Day on March 14th, we’re gonna celebrate Half Mag Day on March 16th. And the way we’re gonna celebrate is to notice the ways that even a half order of magnitude can make a profound difference in how… in the experience of, of something. So yeah, so Half Mag Day is coming up. Put it on your calendar. Next up, I think we’re going to be having an episode on mag population. [Mike: Mm-hmm.] And, um, populations of the world, well, uh, small and large, from the tiniest of towns to the largest of cities and nations and, uh, also non-human populations, both populations that are endangered and populations like, for instance, ants, that are even much larger than human populations.

[32:03.7] Mike: Can’t wait.

[32:04.5] Saul: So that’s, uh, our episode for today. Thank you all for being here.

[32:07.5] Mike: Yeah, thank you, William.

[32:08.5] William: You’re welcome. Thank you both.

[32:09.7] Saul: Absolutely. See you next time.