If you made a Bingo card for attending a local city government meeting, a couple of squares would be guaranteed winners. The free space would be something like “thinly veiled contempt.” Other spaces might be “Freeattle,” “mandatory rehab” and “why do people living outside get free stuff and I don’t?”
These are the sentiments that get repeated at every single town hall, open forum and Q&A about homelessness. Another — only slightly less rare than the demand to “make homelessness illegal” — is some form of “think of the children.” ...