Seattle’s LGBTQ community members say they hope that this Friday’s World Cup “Pride Match” between Egypt and Iran, two countries where homosexuality is criminalized, can be an opportunity to change minds.
Seattle, WA
Rantz: Drug-fueled Seattle homeless encampment to be cleared
A large, festering Seattle homeless encampment bordering the Seattle Center and Seattle Opera will finally face a sweep this week. But the homeless addicts living there explain they haven’t been offered meaningful assistance by the city.
Tents have lined Mercer Street at Warren Avenue for at least three months. Now, it houses at least 17 men and women, mostly drug addicts who use fentanyl. They say they have asked for help, with a handful actually willing to accept it.
But Andrea Suarez, the executive director of private homeless outreach group We Heart Seattle, tells the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH she spoke with everyone living at the crowded homeless encampment. They say they’re not being given the help they need.
“So, we understand that REACH has been out here or the Unified Care Team (UCT), to a degree. But the feedback we’re getting is that nobody has been offering anybody actual pathways out, like detox,” Suarez exclusively told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “We have several people willing to hop in our car, go to (detox facilities). We are in contact with people’s families. their children, their grandparents.”
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When will the Seattle homeless encampment finally get cleared?
A spokesperson for UCT confirmed to the Jason Rantz Show the encampment will be removed this week, but did not provide a specific day, as is their policy.
“Outreach providers are actively engaging at the site to connect individuals to shelter and service resources, and all individuals residing onsite on the day removal notice is posted will receive an offer for alternative shelter,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “In the lead-up to site resolution, UCT has been providing trash mitigation multiple times per week and addressing accessibility concerns such as obstructed sidewalks and building entrances, in addition to removing public health and safety hazards like propane tanks. A full cleaning of this site will be completed on the day of removal and UCT will closely monitor the area in an effort to prevent repopulation.”
The encampment is littered with purple trash bags provided by the city of Seattle as part of its outreach efforts. The Purple Bag program, championed by Socialist Seattle City Council member and anti-sweep activist Tammy Morales, has primarily failed, says Suarez. The bags are merely left by tents for the homeless to fill with trash and drop off for pickup. But they don’t get used and become more garbage needing to be picked up.
Meanwhile, anti-sweep activist groups offer their “help” by dropping off plants for the homeless to care for. The plants end up dying and becoming trash to fill the purple bags with.
Private Seattle homeless outreach group We Heart Seattle asked to help
Some small business owners impacted by the encampment complain about the trash and human waste at the homeless encampment. When it rains, gas, oil, feces and urine runoff hits their property.
Suarez says the homeless men and women at the Mercer encampment have not been offered any real housing or detox options. It’s why a local business group contacted We Heart Seattle for help. Anecdotally, they’re more effective in connecting the homeless with resources.
“And we were contacted, because we believe and they believe, (the homeless will) just be moved around the the corner. Looks like we’re just herding people around the block. They know it, the city knows it, because not everybody is willing to accept some form of housing or treatment, and why a different approach of outreach is critical,” Suarez said. “We should have 100 people right now on the block, providing kind of like a family friend, life coach, advocate-sponsored type of one-on-one advocacy for each of these 17 people here and walk them out of this mess. It’s a very intensive outreach model, daily boots on the ground and daily hyperlocal outreach every day all day long to help these folks. And we’re not seeing it.”
Jason Rantz content: UW study dismisses drug concerns to protect transit, harm reduction advocates
Getting Seattle homeless to treatment
This is where Suarez and her volunteers fill the gaps, providing the intensive outreach the city won’t or can’t do.
For example, We Heart Seattle connected with a homeless man named Theo. Suarez was able to track down Theo’s grandparents, who agreed to pay for a three-month detox program called Battlefield Addiction.
“It’s $5,000 a month. But that’s part of what we use our donations for,” Suarez explained. “And also we engage with family to help pay for it, as well. This is not a model of outreach that is adopted by our taxpayer dollars. And we’re trying to get that switched.”
Not everyone is willing to accept services, a consequence of “harm reduction” and “housing first” models where city staff or city-supported non-profits offer few consequences to the homeless. Instead, the homeless are given clean needles or fentanyl pipes and are allowed to camp out for months wherever they’d like as the city waits for space in homeless hotels or permanent supported housing.
Harm reduction and housing first do not work
Seattle’s adopted models do not work. It’s why the homeless crisis has gotten worse, not better, over the last decade.
Harm reduction is a strategy that is supposed to mitigate the effects of illicit substance abuse to keep an addict alive long enough to get treatment. But harm reduction advocates eschew treatment, arguing that it’s stigmatizing to tell an addict there is anything wrong with their behaviors. Instead, the homeless “advocates” working for or with the city had out drug paraphilia that enables drug addiction. These addicts inevitably die from an overdose because supposedly reducing harm doesn’t mean that harm is eliminated.
Connected to the harm reduction model is a housing first strategy. It aims to put people in “housing” (hotels, tiny home villages, supportive housing, etc.) before addressing why the underlying reasons behind homelessness. This is a money pit that allows homeless addicts or people with severe mental illness to be given permanent supportive housing without any conditions, even after they get the housing. The drug addict may continue to use drugs, and the mentally ill are under no obligation to get treatment.
While data doesn’t support either approach, it’s favored by the Radical Left, a group of activists that terrify Seattle politicians.
We should stigmatize drug use
Society should stigmatize illicit substance abuse. It’s not something to be normalized or accepted; it is a death sentence for the addict, whether or not that person is homeless. That they’re addicts while living outside makes it that much harder to get them the treatment they deserve.
The Seattle approach with a harm reduction strategy makes pushing detox on addicts nearly impossible. It’s a reality that the entire state of Oregon faced after effectively legalizing drugs with Measure 110. After years of life under Measure 110, and a historic rise in fatal overdoses where the homeless were disproportionately impacted, the state legislature finally reversed course. Both the House and Senate essentially recriminalized drugs. Their legislation awaits the governor’s signature.
Endless drug paraphernalia and permanent housing mean the homeless have no incentive to stop using. It’s why Seattle continues to lead the way in homelessness failures.
“It is hard for people to willingly accept (detox) without a choice or a mandate and why often law enforcement and arrest is their only path out, which we urge,” Suarez said. “But outreach, family, friends, colleagues and everyday citizens can also become more involved and encourage, coerce, stigmatize because it will save their life period. End of story.”
Listen to the Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Seattle, WA
Council eyes street barricades in fight against violence, sex trafficking in north Seattle
SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council is expected to vote next week on a plan that would give the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) the authority to close off street access for public safety reasons.
The proposal comes after months of outcry from residents in north Seattle who say sex traffickers and sex buyers are looping through the streets surrounding Aurora Avenue North.
The street-closure proposal passed the council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday and is expected to be voted on by the full council next week.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say the crime has gotten much worse, much more violent, and much more predator,” said District 5 councilmember Debora Juarez. “I think that we do have the authority to shut down a street for bullets flying and endangering the lives of those who live there.”
Frustrated neighbors have installed their own homemade barricades after a spate of gun violence between sex traffickers in May.
RELATED | SDOT removes street barricades near Aurora Ave; neighbors doubtful of temporary measures
Councilmember Bob Kettle says street closures will help tamp down sex buying in certain areas, but he emphasizes it must be accompanied by an increase in outreach and enforcement.
“We have to have a sustained effort,” Kettle told KOMO News. “My concern is for every action, there’s a reaction. We need to take this flex and then really attack it … because if we do just a bit and our attention wanders, we could have this conversation three months from now and we’re talking about the same thing.”
A 15-year-old boy was shot near 95th Street and Aurora Avenue North around 10:45 p.m. last night. The teen initially claimed he had been shot while walking down the street, but investigators now say he was shot by a passenger in his car.
RELATED | Seattle police say ‘drive-by’ on Aurora Ave. was actually passenger shooting teen driver
Kettle credited the city’s Real Time Crime Center cameras with helping investigators quickly piece together the events of the shooting.
“Just as important to finding out what happened, the cameras help police determine what did not happen,” Kettle said.
According to Seattle police data, reports of shootings and shots fired in the north precinct area are at their lowest levels since 2021.
Through the end of May, there were 48 total reports of shootings or shots fired, with one fatal shooting and seven nonfatal injury shootings.
That’s down from 63 total reports of shootings and shots fired – one fatal and seven injuries – in 2025; and 64 shootings or shots fired reports – one fatal and 17 injuries – in 2024.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, councilmembers pointed out residents are calling for a new police precinct to be built on Aurora Avenue.
Ten years ago, a new North Precinct building was slated to be built at 130th Avenue and Aurora Avenue North to replace the existing precinct building, which was decades old and did not have enough space for the department’s needs.
Led by former councilmember Kshama Sawant, the “Block the Bunker” movement successfully got the North Precinct replacement project killed in city council.
Kettle said the city’s current financial issues make it essentially impossible to bring back a project similar to the one the previous council defeated.
“We have to connect the dots back,” Kettle said. “If we want to know why we are where we are today, we have to look at decisions made over the last two councils.”
Seattle, WA
Iran and Egypt to play in Seattle ‘Pride Match’ despite earlier complaints | The Jerusalem Post
Seattle revels in its reputation as a welcoming place and Pride flags are visible all over the city, all year round. Its June Pride weekend is one of the biggest in the United States.
So, ahead of December’s World Cup draw, it was only natural that local organizers designated the June 26 match to be held in the city as a “Pride Match.”
Then the draw happened — and the two teams scheduled to play the game were Egypt and Iran.
Egypt’s Football Association urged global soccer governing body FIFA to prevent any Pride-related activities, arguing such events clashed with the Muslim-majority country’s cultural and religious values. The governing body in Iran, where same-sex relations can carry the death penalty, filed an objection with FIFA.
Some in Seattle have doubts over the teams in the ‘Pride Match’
But in Seattle, there is no question that the Pride Match will go ahead as planned.
“The World Cup is going to come and go in three weeks,” Hedda McLendon, from Seattle’s local World Cup organizing committee, told Reuters. “The Pride celebration … has happened on this weekend for 50-plus years.
“It is going to happen this weekend, it is going to happen long after the World Cup.”
Some in the city’s LGBTQ community had mixed feelings given the participants, said Jon Cairns, 49, manager of local LGBTQ+ club Kremwerk.
Cairns, however, said his own view was that it provided a platform to promote acceptance that only the world’s biggest sporting event could offer.
“My reaction is let’s have them,” he told Reuters. “International sports is one of the biggest brokers historically of social change and individual rights and freedoms worldwide, including in the U.S.”
He cited black U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens’ four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ raised-fist protest in 1968 as moments where “only international sports could reach that big of an audience.”
“They’re not going to turn off the World Cup on state television in Iran or Egypt to block out a Pride flag in the audience,” Cairns said.
The Pride Match is “a host city initiative” and separate of FIFA, a spokesperson for soccer’s governing body told Reuters.
Seattle’s LGBTQ community sees an opportunity
Egypt and Iran’s involvement in the Pride Match is not the first time the World Cup has grappled with stark differences in attitudes between hosts and visitors.
In 2022 World Cup host Qatar, the emir said visitors should “respect our culture” when asked about gay people attending the tournament.
FIFA threatened yellow cards for captains wearing the “OneLove” armband, citing its rules against political slogans. Teams including England and the Netherlands that had been planning to wear the armbands to protest Qatar’s laws against same-sex relationships abandoned the plan.
For Ryan Webster, a 40-year-old lifestyle manager who was at Kremwerk the weekend before Pride, Seattle’s “Pride Match” was an opportunity to show solidarity with people in countries where their sexuality was outlawed.
“I’m choosing to believe that this is our moment to allow the members of the LGBTQ community that come from those countries to have the opportunity to celebrate themselves in totality that they might not have otherwise,” he said outside the club, which will host a watch party for Friday’s game.
Inside, ‘Venus Fengz’ lip-synced to Cher’s “Believe” before introducing fellow drag performers to the stage, clapped and cheered by a raucous crowd.
Fengz, who only wanted to provide their stage name, said Pride coinciding with the World Cup would bring increased visibility, anticipating perhaps some new audience members.
“I think it’s always great for us to be able to share space and share places with people who don’t have the same experiences as us,” they told Reuters.
“Sometimes you just have to be the bigger person and show grace where you can and know that everyone is a human learning (from) different experiences, but also it can get hard — because you’re on the shorter end of the stick, always trying to have to explain yourself around people who don’t grow up with the same worldview.”
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Las Vegas could be years away from landing an NBA expansion team, but the league’s commissioner is now offering a clearer sense of the timeline.
On Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told “The Dan Patrick Show” that Seattle and Las Vegas remain the cities the NBA is focused on if it expands. “If we expand, at least we’re thinking ’28-29 season,” Silver said.
Silver had previously signaled before that March meeting that Seattle and Las Vegas were at the center of the expansion discussion, while cautioning that no decision had been made.
“We will make decisions in 2026,” Silver said in February.
At the time, Silver said the league was not expected to vote in March but could emerge from those meetings ready to take the next step and begin discussions with potential ownership groups.
Las Vegas has long been viewed as Seattle’s most likely expansion partner if the NBA grows from 30 to 32 teams. Silver, however, has repeatedly said the league could expand by two teams, one team, or not at all.
The potential of an NBA Las Vegas expansion team has already drawn interest. This week, majority owner of the Vegas Golden Knights, Bill Foley, announced he is putting together a bid for the expansion team in Las Vegas.
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