In cities, there have been people with mental illnesses, alcoholics, transients, hobos, bums, gutter kids, anarchists, people who have had bad stuff happen to them and people who have done bad stuff for thousands of years. The climate in the northwest makes urban camping feasible for most of the year. The economy was shitty for a while which led a lot of people to pick up bad habits, and rents have been going up because there are jobs here, which led to people on the fringes moving from under a roof to inside a tent. And blue collar jobs are few and far between nowadays (thanks to Sam and Jeff).
Everyone just calm down.
To the social-justice millennials and gen-z-ers: I get it, you care. Thank you for caring. I am glad you are concerned and want to help homeless people. Please continue what you are doing but with a little bit more perspective, wisdom, and objectivity. Do your research, read history books (like actual superlong books) and watch documentaries that only have 4 or more stars on Netflix, and think more than usual before you type stuff. Change is constant. Economies ebb and flow. Things are Cyclical. People live on the margins. There are winners and losers and unfortunate lost souls. Rome was once a great civilization that had architects, maths, and surgeons. Then western civilization forgot all that stuff for a few hundred years. Shit happens, alright!?
To the tech-bro haters: I get it, you hate that Awesome Seattle is being overrun by people working in tech, including lame tech-lady-bros. Rents are going up, traffic is insane, hate is on the rise, and local businesses and culture is disappearing. Please keep in mind that the American economy is now driven and reliant on tech, and that every major city in the US is experiencing rising rents and more tech-bros. The dudes that played fooseball and went to business school to work in banking back in the 80's and 90's are now all going into tech. It's no longer a cool geeky thing to get into, it's overrun. But tech is also what fuels the local Seattle economy and provides all those front-of-house and back-of-house jobs that keep all the hip kids employed so they can buy some tall boys and ride bikes are town. So have some perspective. Change is constant. Be thankful this ain't Detroit. Growth is not a bad thing. Populations grow, people move to big cities when they finish college, and little bungalows get replaced with ugly but dense housing.
/r/Seattle/ is populated by Us, the residents of the city. Hate is never productive. Discourse is productive. Keep it civil, please.
Thank You!