Crowd-Sourcing Homeless Evictions

The tech-hub city of Seattle spent over $10 million in 2017, forcefully evicting communities of homeless people throughout the city. The process of removal has been aided by an app created by the city called “Find it, Fix it,” the purpose of which was initially for citizens to report neighborhood issues. But over time community members have begun using the app to report the homeless. Thousands of complaints of homeless encampments have been reported just this year.

Seattle is well-known to have a homelessness crisis, due to rising rents, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency two years ago. But with a focus on evictions rather than structural changes, the homeless population is treated as criminal and forced to constantly relocate. Law enforcement frequently visits known encampments and targets homeless populations for routine checks.

This thoughtful essay outlines the situation in Seattle and further explains how the intersection of tech and social issues often causes further divisions along lines of race and class.