Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray took to the pages of the Seattle Times recently to bemoan the criticism he’s been getting for his proposal to sweep away homeless encampments throughout the city. Murray said that activists and supporters of a different approach were playing, “a tired, old ideological game,” starting a “food fight,” and engaging in “demonization of him.” The Mayor, it appears, thinks he’s being treated unfairly, hardly an encouraging attitude coming from the person that should be bringing people together around a solution. If the Mayor was actually being a leader, what might he take from work done in Utah to address homelessness?

As I pointed out in an earlier post, Utah’s efforts have been anchored in setting clear definitions, collecting the best data possible, and looking for successful outcomes not rewarding inputs or following rules. But how did Utah get through what surely had to be a daunting conversation – even argument – over the definition of chronic homelessness or whether it was a good idea to focus on that one segment of the problem. According to Lloyd Pendleton, an executive loaned to the State by the Mormon Church, it was three key things: champions, collaboration, and compassion.

Champions

Pendleton talked about his own experience with the Ford Motor Company and his own proclivity to get things done. He described a champion as a person who could look at the overall good rather than the good accruing to her own organization or interest. Most importantly, a champion looks not so much at process – although process is important – but at accomplishing the overall goal, even if that means some players feel like they lost or that success came at their expense.

Pendleton benefitted from being at the end of his career, and as an executive on loan not having to be worried about getting reelected or what effect his views or direction might have on his future. He was out of the organization chart, and, “above the silos.” Seattle would benefit greatly from someone outside the City structure and not accountable to Murray but to achieving outcomes to move solutions along. Usually, leadership for efforts here comes from within the City organization chart, meaning the solutions are about Murray’s reelection and his ego.

Collaboration

Murray has tried to motivate this in Seattle but has largely failed. While his Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) Committee was working the way Pendleton described, he broke a small group of big developers to cut a deal, a Grand Bargain that excluded everyone else. The Bargain, of course, was and has been touted as, “historic,” of course because it fits the narrative of compromise and collaboration, but it’s anything but that.

Pendleton pointed out that the State’s efforts to reign in the pain of homelessness was not about what people didn’t want – homelessness – but about what the everyone engaged in the process wanted:

Everyone has access to safe, decent, affordable housing with the needed resources and supports for self-sufficiency and well being

This brought various groups together around an outcome that was beneficial to each of their constituencies rather than a Quixotic goal of “ending homelessness.” Collaboration wasn’t easy, but having a positive vision helped rally people around a cause. Murray has a tendency to think leadership means putting stakeholders in a room, closing and locking the door, and pressuring them with foot stomping and yelling to agree on a “solution” within a limited timeframe. That’s hardly establishing a vision and building support for it.

Compassion

Everyone in Seattle looks in the mirror in the morning and certainly sees a compassionate person. But are we really? I could write – and maybe will in another venue – about Pendleton’s discussion with me about the, well, for lack of a better word, spiritual level of engagement needed to work on such a difficult problem. But there must be a high degree of connection with the people who are suffering. The toughness of definitions and data must be combined with genuine love and warmth toward people struggling with the many issues that contribute to homelessness.

Sometimes our local politicians confuse maudlin self-exposure of their own history with compassion. The Mayor engaged in this in the Seattle Times story, pointing to his own hardscrabble childhood as proof that he, “gets it.” It’s tempting to substitute genuine compassion with our own stories of how we’ve suffered. But that won’t help rally people around a cause.

Utah’s Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox, “gets it:”

The message from the pulpit continues to persuade ordinary people to commit to solving homelessness as well, Cox said.

“I had to have my own conversion and the only way to do that is spend time with the homeless people and talk to them,” he said. “It changes everything.”

Cox did not mention that he and a legislator, who is a board member of The Road Home, donned “ranch clothes” and spent a night sleeping in the shelter, Pendleton later said.

And Cox didn’t tell anyone he was going into the shelter and there was no press conference afterward. He did it completely incognito.

What Can Seattle Learn From Utah?

To recap, Seattle has a small, easily identifiable group of people suffering from an array of challenges: they are living in the so-called encampments. We know where these people are. It’s probably pretty easy to come up with a definition of the problem that is leading to encampments and really easy to talk with the people, ask questions, then set about to bring resources to bear on the variety of issues that have lead them to solve them with a tent encampment.

This would require work. It would mean the Mayor would have to give away power to drive and control the work to a group with leadership not on anyone’s organization chart. And it would take time and collaboration and process to get to a common vision.

Pendleton said, “When someone really disagreed with me, I’d put them on the committee.” Pendleton was adamant, “You’ve got a point of view and we need to hear from you and get your ideas.” Mayor Murray has done exactly the opposite, banishing some key leaders like Real Change’s Tim Harris to a virtual Siberia.

Sweeping away the encampments would remove and eyesore from some areas in the city. It might even score the Mayor some political points for, “doing something.” Passing legislation might score the Council points too among other groups. But if we really listened to what Utah is telling us, we’d start by listening to the people in the encampments. They’ll tell us what the solution is. Then we need some leadership that is less interested in scoring points than defining and solving real problems.