From: maximusheadroom@gmx.com   
      
   The World Cup's biggest policy bet   
      
   Seattle's new mayor vows to move her city's homeless off its streets by   
   kickoff.   
      
   The self-described socialist mayor of Seattle has responded to President Donald   
   Trump's threat to remove World Cup matches from her city with an audacious   
   gesture of her own: a mission to find housing for her city's homeless before   
   the   
   first tournament match kicks off there in June.   
      
   Mayor Katie Wilson's goal represents the boldest commitment by an American   
   leader to remake the local policy landscape in preparation for the summer   
   soccer   
   extravaganza distributed across 16 cities in the United States, Canada and   
   Mexico.   
      
   "The World Cup gives us a pretty aggressive timeline for trying to bring people   
   inside with the support that they need, as opposed to sweeping people to other   
   neighborhoods," Wilson told POLITICO in her first interview on the topic after   
   entering office. "Folks who are experiencing homelessness downtown often also   
   have complex challenges related to drug use and mental illness."   
      
   The population of Seattle is expected to swell by up to 750,000 people this   
   summer, according to the Seattle FIFA World Cup organizing committee. The city   
   will host six matches at Lumen Field, a short walk from a downtown where   
   Seattle   
   grapples with one of the country's largest populations of unsheltered homeless   
   people.   
      
   Just a few weeks into her new administration, Wilson is still in the early   
   stages of rolling out her plan to clear people living on those streets - a   
   situation that vexed predecessors who spent $1 billion over a decade with   
   little   
   to show for it.   
      
   To make progress on the seemingly intractable issue, Wilson will have to   
   navigate a dismal fiscal environment, including cuts to federal funding used by   
   Seattle's existing homeless programs. Wilson also faces political pressure from   
   her left flank to not resort to the encampment sweeps derided by most homeless   
   advocates.   
      
   "We do not have sustainable resources to scale up all the places for people to   
   come inside, be it permanent or temporary locations," said state Rep. Nicole   
   Macri, a Democrat who works as the deputy director for strategy at homeless   
   nonprofit Downtown Emergency Service Center in her Seattle district when the   
   legislature is not in session. "But it's not the only thing that would hold it   
   up."   
      
   Seattle designated the situation as a crisis in 2015, but its homeless   
   population has only risen since, growing from around 10,000 to almost 17,000   
   between 2015 and 2024.   
      
   A moderate Democrat, Bruce Harrell, was elected mayor in 2021 as part of a   
   backlash to previous Mayor Jenny Durkan, under whom the city saw high rates of   
   crime and homelessness. Harrell focused on long-term housing and relied on   
   pandemic-era renter programs to support a controversial policy of sweeps that   
   forcibly removed homeless people and their property from public spaces.   
      
   The policy did little to slow the growth of Seattle's homeless population, just   
   as the expiration of Covid-era funding provided by the American Rescue Act led   
   to the closure of hundreds of shelter beds in the region in 2025. In her   
   successful campaign that unseated Harrell last November, Wilson said she would   
   stop sweeps while focusing on housing options like rent vouchers and tiny   
   homes.   
      
   The World Cup "will lay bare Seattle and King County's long inadequacies on   
   dealing with our homeless problem that no other event to this point will have   
   been able to do," said King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn.   
      
   Washington and its largest city, Seattle, regularly rank in the nation's top   
   five for both their per-capita homelessness rate and overall growth of its   
   homeless population. According to the Department of Housing and Urban   
   Development, nearly half of the state's homeless in 2024 were classified as   
   chronically homeless, defined as lacking more than 12 months or having lost   
   housing four times over the most recent three year period - the country's   
   highest rate. (As of 2024, the county's biennial count estimated that nearly   
   10,000 of the almost 17,000 homeless in King County are completely without   
   shelter.)   
      
   Washington state has the highest rate of chronic homelessness (where someone is   
   unhoused for more than 12 months or four times over three years) in the nation,   
   and the highest percentage of unhoused people who don't have shelter like a   
   congregate facility.   
      
   The location of Lumen Field - one of the few American stadiums being used for a   
   World Cup located within walking distance of the host city's downtown - has   
   raised fears about heightened interactions between visiting spectators and   
   unhoused Seattleites. Homeless advocates told POLITICO they are nervous that   
   people living on Seattle's streets could themselves be victims of a crime at   
   the   
   hands of intoxicated sports fans. (Neither the Seattle Police Department nor   
   World Cup organizing committee responded to requests for comment.)   
      
   Shortly after Wilson's election, Trump said he might move World Cup matches out   
   of Seattle if officials couldn't guarantee that the city - which has a high   
   rate   
   of non-violent crime - would be safe. Wilson told POLITICO in January she   
   wasn't   
   concerned about the president's threats, saying: "We're going to have the World   
   Cup here, it's going to be great."   
      
   But the World Cup does seem to have spurred her toward taking on the   
   homelessness problem with new urgency. Wilson plans to create 500 new shelter   
   units - including tiny home villages, RVs and apartments - by the time of the   
   first match at Lumen Field on June 15, her team told POLITICO this week.   
      
   That is exponentially more than the 13 new units Seattle added over the last   
   four years, but - even when occupied by some couples or families - not enough   
   to   
   hold even a tenth of the city's unsheltered homeless population. A recent   
   executive order also directs an interdepartmental team to find other methods   
   for   
   expediting new shelter spaces, from identifying new sites to creating financial   
   incentives; its report is due in March.   
      
   Her rhetoric since the campaign already shows a subtle shift on the goal line.   
   In July, Wilson told alternative newspaper The Stranger: "Let's get people   
   inside in time for the World Cup." When she spoke with POLITICO on Jan. 5, she   
   again did not place any limit on the number of unhoused she intended to   
   shelter.   
   But earlier this week, a spokesperson clarified that the goal was "as many as   
   possible," not all.   
      
   Wilson's first policy moves on homelessness have indicated she is still   
   figuring   
   out her approach to the issue. The mayor recently delayed the planned closure   
   of   
   an encampment in the city's Ballard neighborhood, about seven miles from Lumen   
      
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