Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson pushed back against a claim by Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt that if he’s elected, L.A.’s homeless population would move to Seattle to take advantage of that city’s drug laws.
Pratt made the comment during an interview with ABC’s Josh Haskell, in which he claimed the city’s more than 40,000 homeless were choosing to live on the street.
“These people, when I unplug them … they’re all going to Seattle where the mayor will welcome them,” Pratt told Haskell.
Pratt, a Republican, has made L.A.’s stubborn homeless crisis a key campaign topic, at times posting images of unhoused people on his social media accounts. He has often expressed disdain for L.A.’s homeless population.
“They’re not homeless, they’re drug addicts,” Pratt said in the ABC interview in late May. “They’re choosing to be on the street because they want to do drugs, they don’t want rules, they don’t want to listen, they want to have animals to abuse. This idea that they’re forced on the street right now is a lie.”
But in an interview with Fox 13 Seattle’s Hana Kim Wednesday, Wilson pushed back, saying the homeless crisis facing major cities across the country was being fueled by housing costs, not drug abuse.
“What is driving homelessness is housing costs,” Wilson said when asked about Pratt’s comment. “There is a very, very clear correlation between housing costs and homelessness, and that does not mean that drugs are not a factor. They absolutely are a factor.”
Wilson did not directly mention Pratt in her response but acknowledged briefly a cheer from an audience member during the Seattle CityClub event when Pratt was mentioned.
“Was that a cheer?” Wilson asked. “I’m not going to respond to him, but I’ll respond to you all.”
Wilson’s comment comes as ballots are still being counted in L.A.’s election and Pratt is maintaining a second-place spot, making him a potential contender for November’s general election against current Mayor Karen Bass.
During his interview with Haskell, Pratt also claimed, without evidence, that nonprofit groups and nongovernmental organizations were busing unhoused people into Los Angeles.
On his website, Pratt’s campaign states that if he is elected mayor, he would “dismantle” the city’s effort to address homelessness and “replace it with a treatment-led recovery model that addresses mental illness and addiction as the primary drivers of chronic homelessness.”
He took a much more combative tone in his interview with Haskell, alleging that the homeless are living on the streets “because they’re an addict, and you can do fentanyl and super meth on the sidewalk without repercussions.”
Researchers and organizations working on the front lines with the city’s homeless population would probably disagree.
Previous research, including a 2023 Pew Charitable Trust analysis, has found a direct link between high housing costs and high rates of homelessness.
“Housing costs explain far more of the difference in rates of homelessness than variables such as substance use disorder, mental health, weather, the strength of the social safety net, poverty, or economic conditions,” the Pew report said.
Seattle’s mayor acknowledged that drug use is still an issue in addressing homelessness, pointing out that to make housing programs work, they often have to be paired with additional services for unhoused people.
“Helping someone out of homelessness is not as simple as putting a roof over their head,” Wilson said. “That is why, as we’re doing our shelter acceleration, we’re being incredibly intentional about pairing shelter with services, with case management, with drug treatment, with behavioral health services, with all of the support that someone might need to get onto a better path.”
