KOMO anchor turned self-anointed homelessness guru Eric Johnson is seeking to recapture the magic of Seattle Is Dying in a new sequel released this month. While in the original Johnson proposes locking up homeless addicts in a prison island near Tacoma for forced substance abuse treatment, the villain in “Fight for the Soul of Seattle” is Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), a Seattle-based supportive housing and homeless shelter provider.
There’s plenty of holes in KOMO’s conservative narrative, but from a journalistic integrity standpoint, no error looms larger than the fact Johnson never even sought comment from DESC to confirm his outlandish claims, which impugned DESC’s motives and organizational mission.
“A recent project by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, ‘Fight for the Soul of Seattle,’ conflates and simplifies complex issues, mischaracterizes DESC’s mission, and ignores our successful track record housing and supporting some of the city’s most vulnerable and marginalized people,” DESC wrote in a response released Monday. “The producers of the show never reached out to DESC to request information or an interview. We have deep expertise on these topics, and would have provided details about our work and pointed them to decades of research on proven interventions in addressing homelessness, drug addiction, and other behavioral health issues.”
DESC proceeds to correct Johnson’s slapdash theory of addressing homelessness, a cause DESC has been dedicated to for four decades. With a Sinclair megaphone, Johnson’s gut-feelings about homelessness got a ton of attention, while a nonprofit like DESC must fight uphill to gain support, despite their wealth of direct experience fighting homelessness. Seattle Is Dying got national attention and has over eight million views on YouTube, and Fight for the Soul of Seattle is already past 1.5 million.
Johnson’s idea centers around getting tough and doling out longer prison sentences and forced treatment for addiction–an affliction he wrongly assumes is the primary cause of most chronic homelessness. He melodramatically begins his 90-minute “documentary” by claiming anarchy reigns in Seattle, a theme he hammers repeatedly.
“I’m going to say some hard things about this place–not because I don’t like Seattle, but because I love it,” Johnson dramatically narrates. “And I’m going to start by saying this: Seattle no longer feels the need to stop anyone from doing anything for any reason at any time. The most stunning city in America is dying alright.”
The DESC patiently points out that supportive housing has the evidence to support it where forced treatment does not: “Forced treatment was abandoned because it doesn’t consistently help people and it often hurts them.”
Likewise, most of the homeless people shown in the documentary are human set pieces. Unless they confirm his narrative, Johnson doesn’t talk to them and instead narrates over longshots taken without the subject’s permission. This allows him to invent stories for people he’s never met–ostensibly in the cause of saving imperiled souls. But he never asks how people living in shelters and supportive housing–some of them already dealing with mental illness–cope with a pandemic and recession that’s making life hard for everyone as social support networks fray under the strain of distancing.
Johnson never discusses the issue of crowding in prisons increasing the risk of spreading coronavirus–and prisons have been a major hot spot across the country. He just wants to fill up jail cells even if it’s a de facto disease and even death sentence as jails become overcrowded. While the Pacific Northwest had avoided the worst of this trend, recent signs point to outbreaks in our prisons, too.
The whole thing oozes of suburban gaze refined into conservative propaganda. Johnson channels the perspective of people who commute into Downtown Seattle from the hinterlands just wanting clean streets devoid of poverty, so they don’t have to furrow their brows on the way to a sporting event or a cozy high-paid office job. Is it erasure or healing they want?
In contrast to the KOMO model, the DESC is focused on supportive housing with a continuum of care, providing tenants the ability to stabilize their lives and willingly chose treatment rather than coercing them. The reason this model is superior is not because it makes bleeding heart liberals feel better. It’s because it works–relying on hard evidence rather than anecdotes.
