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Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City
In
Skid Road
, Josephine Ensign digs through layers of Seattle history - past its leaders and prominent citizens, respectable or not - to reveal the stories of overlooked and long-silenced people who live on the margins of society.
The sometimes fragmentary tales of these people, their lives and deaths, are not included in official histories of a place. How, Ensign asks, has a large, socially progressive city like Seattle responded to the health needs of people marginalized by poverty, mental illness, addiction, racial/ethnic/sexual identities, and homelessness? Drawing on interviews and extensive research, Ensign shares a diversity of voices within contemporary health care and public policy debates.
Informed by her own lived experience of homelessness, as well as over three decades of work as a family nurse practitioner providing primary health care to homeless people, Ensign is uniquely situated to explore the tensions between caregiving and oppression, as well as charity and solidarity, that polarize perspectives on homelessness throughout the country. A timely story in light of the ongoing health care reform debate, the affordable housing crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the stories from Skid Road illuminate issues surrounding poverty and homelessness throughout America.
The sometimes fragmentary tales of these people, their lives and deaths, are not included in official histories of a place. How, Ensign asks, has a large, socially progressive city like Seattle responded to the health needs of people marginalized by poverty, mental illness, addiction, racial/ethnic/sexual identities, and homelessness? Drawing on interviews and extensive research, Ensign shares a diversity of voices within contemporary health care and public policy debates.
Informed by her own lived experience of homelessness, as well as over three decades of work as a family nurse practitioner providing primary health care to homeless people, Ensign is uniquely situated to explore the tensions between caregiving and oppression, as well as charity and solidarity, that polarize perspectives on homelessness throughout the country. A timely story in light of the ongoing health care reform debate, the affordable housing crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the stories from Skid Road illuminate issues surrounding poverty and homelessness throughout America.
Audible Audio
Published August 17, 2021
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About the author
Josephine Ensign
4 books50 followersJosephine Ensign is a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, where she teaches community health, health policy, and narrative medicine. A graduate of Oberlin College, the Medical College of Virginia, and Johns Hopkins University, she has been a nurse for over thirty years, providing health care for homeless and marginalized populations. She is an alumna of Hedgebrook and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. Her essays have appeared in The Sun, The Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Pulse, Silk Road, The Intima, The Examined Life Journal, Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine, and the nonfiction anthology I Wasn’t Strong Like This When I Started Out: True Stories of Becoming a Nurse, edited by Lee Gutkind. Catching Homelessness is her first book. She lives in Seattle. Her first book, Catching Homelessness: A Nurse's Story of Falling Through the Safety net was published in 2016. It was named the American Journal of Nursing 2017 Book of the Year for creative works.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
January 5, 2022
A scattered history of homelessness in Seattle, focused on a few representative biographies, that hopes to garner empathy through this connection to the individual.
Yet it concludes that individuals are largely unable to change the institutional structures that keep people in poverty.
There's a disconnect there and it feels like the author came to her conclusion late in the process and couldn't really go back to investigate the root causes. No "big picture" emerges, and we're left with no actionable solutions - the author even states that she would not build a tiny home in her backyard to provide transitional housing, right after claiming this could be part of the solution! In the end, it's literally a NIMBY perspective.
In the end, the author throws up her hands: nothing that has been tried had solved the problem, and no proposed solutions look promising either, so ::shrug::
Too bad, because there are clearly some easy solutions, like housing-first initiatives and upzoning neighborhoods that restrict multifamily housing.
Yet it concludes that individuals are largely unable to change the institutional structures that keep people in poverty.
There's a disconnect there and it feels like the author came to her conclusion late in the process and couldn't really go back to investigate the root causes. No "big picture" emerges, and we're left with no actionable solutions - the author even states that she would not build a tiny home in her backyard to provide transitional housing, right after claiming this could be part of the solution! In the end, it's literally a NIMBY perspective.
In the end, the author throws up her hands: nothing that has been tried had solved the problem, and no proposed solutions look promising either, so ::shrug::
Too bad, because there are clearly some easy solutions, like housing-first initiatives and upzoning neighborhoods that restrict multifamily housing.
December 31, 2023
A quick history of homelessness in Seattle. Well-written, with plenty of focus on real people throughout the ages. I wanted something a bit more technical and policy-oriented—she briefly mentions the homelessness industrial complex, but doesn’t really get into how Seattle has kinda abdicated its responsibly for its people through a network of non-profits and whether that has been effective (by the numbers, the answer seems obviously not, but I would’ve liked a breakdown of how all this actually fits together, especially from the perspective of someone facing or currently experiencing homelessness). Anyway, I guess I was looking for something deeper policy-wise to go along with the interesting historical perspective.
July 10, 2023
Comprehensive and depressing. The author was thorough and placed Seattle history well within the context of greater national and global issues. I wish this book gave me more hope, at many times it made me think things will never change. sigh... and now back to trying to tackle these issues!
July 10, 2023
2.5 ⭐️ should be titled a history of homelessness in Seattle bc that’s what it is for 90% of the book and only offers a present day description with a few recommendations to alleviate in the last half of the last chapter. Also at many times I wondered if the information covered was relevant or just related to the topic. The most concise and clear writing happens in the last two chapters and I feel like you could almost entirely skip the 4th. This books reiterates that the responsibility of care for the homeless almost always falls on the community and not the government with no way to change the system. All in all, I do feel like I got a glimpse into the history of Seattle and how homelessness has existed for as long as the city has.
July 11, 2022
Ensign’s book, as she acknowledges, builds on a much earlier book of the same name, Murray Morgan’s 1951 SKID ROAD in which he stated that he wanted to write a history of “Seattle from the bottom up.” He wanted to concentrate, not exclusively on civic leaders, but ordinary people who helped make Seattle what it is.
Ensign echoes some of Morgan’s concerns, seventy years later, in telling the stories of the overlooked and marginalized people who now make up ta large and persistent problem of homelessness. Per capita, Seattle has one of the highest concentrations of homelessness in the United States. Homelessness is a result of physical and mental problems, all of which she explores.
There are no simple answers to this question, but what Ensign does is to reveal that this is a public problem, a blight on an otherwise prosperous and scenically beautiful city. She writes that the difficulties are “unstructured, crosscutting, and relentless. They are complex and multi-faceted, engendering a high degree of conflict because there is little consensus on the problem or the solution.”
But this is not an academic book about urban city planning; rather it is about the “swampy lowlands” where problems are messy and confusing. These lowlands and their problems have always existed in Seattle, and a real virtue of the book is its linking of the past and present.
Seattle was founded by settlers who, as today, came to Seattle for economic reasons; wealth was made mostly from extractive industries – timber, mining (spurred by the Alaska gold rush of the l890’s), fishing, and with the coming of the railroads, it was a boom town destination for all kinds of people. Housing was always a concern, and cheap structures were built, culminating in the l930’s Hooverville, a huge concentration of shacks just south of the downtown area, not unlike today’s proliferation of tents on public property. Hooverville ended with WW II and an improved economy, with many of the former residents now housed in cheap hotels, or in some cases, in newly constructed public housing. Eventually with rising real estate values, much of this cheap housing was squeezed out financially.
Drugs have always been a problem. Alcohol was plentiful and initially morphine and heroin-based products were legal and widely advertised as patent medicine cure-alls. All of today’s related homelessness issues existed earlier, to a lesser extent, to be sure, and were endlessly debated. What to do about prostitution, the insane, health and hospital care for indigents, cheap housing, criminal activity? Solutions were haphazard, and always there was an issue of a lack of social consciousness and responsibility.
A term for this is the “feed the pigeons” mentality, one that goes back to the Elizabethan poor laws of the 15th century. Poor people are essentially undeserving, and to give them benefits is like feeding pigeons – more and more show up for rewards and like pigeons, make incredible messes. Pigeons, once fed, stay around; they don’t migrate.
Ensign has no solutions. Only one thing is certain, changes over a period of time do occur. Sometimes, they’re beneficial, often they’re not, and repeat mistakes made in the past. Ensign’s is not an optimistic book, but neither would I call it all bleak. It explores the past of Seattle, does it in an interesting way, and on that basis alone, gives a kind of hope. We’ve been here before and have survived.
Ensign echoes some of Morgan’s concerns, seventy years later, in telling the stories of the overlooked and marginalized people who now make up ta large and persistent problem of homelessness. Per capita, Seattle has one of the highest concentrations of homelessness in the United States. Homelessness is a result of physical and mental problems, all of which she explores.
There are no simple answers to this question, but what Ensign does is to reveal that this is a public problem, a blight on an otherwise prosperous and scenically beautiful city. She writes that the difficulties are “unstructured, crosscutting, and relentless. They are complex and multi-faceted, engendering a high degree of conflict because there is little consensus on the problem or the solution.”
But this is not an academic book about urban city planning; rather it is about the “swampy lowlands” where problems are messy and confusing. These lowlands and their problems have always existed in Seattle, and a real virtue of the book is its linking of the past and present.
Seattle was founded by settlers who, as today, came to Seattle for economic reasons; wealth was made mostly from extractive industries – timber, mining (spurred by the Alaska gold rush of the l890’s), fishing, and with the coming of the railroads, it was a boom town destination for all kinds of people. Housing was always a concern, and cheap structures were built, culminating in the l930’s Hooverville, a huge concentration of shacks just south of the downtown area, not unlike today’s proliferation of tents on public property. Hooverville ended with WW II and an improved economy, with many of the former residents now housed in cheap hotels, or in some cases, in newly constructed public housing. Eventually with rising real estate values, much of this cheap housing was squeezed out financially.
Drugs have always been a problem. Alcohol was plentiful and initially morphine and heroin-based products were legal and widely advertised as patent medicine cure-alls. All of today’s related homelessness issues existed earlier, to a lesser extent, to be sure, and were endlessly debated. What to do about prostitution, the insane, health and hospital care for indigents, cheap housing, criminal activity? Solutions were haphazard, and always there was an issue of a lack of social consciousness and responsibility.
A term for this is the “feed the pigeons” mentality, one that goes back to the Elizabethan poor laws of the 15th century. Poor people are essentially undeserving, and to give them benefits is like feeding pigeons – more and more show up for rewards and like pigeons, make incredible messes. Pigeons, once fed, stay around; they don’t migrate.
Ensign has no solutions. Only one thing is certain, changes over a period of time do occur. Sometimes, they’re beneficial, often they’re not, and repeat mistakes made in the past. Ensign’s is not an optimistic book, but neither would I call it all bleak. It explores the past of Seattle, does it in an interesting way, and on that basis alone, gives a kind of hope. We’ve been here before and have survived.
April 16, 2022
Discovering Seattle's Mishandling of the Disadvantaged through Josephine Ensign's Skid Road—On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City
by Ariel Basom
I have lived in Seattle for all my life, which is to say, I have spent years wandering the streets of the University District and Capitol Hill, I have spent long nights in Downtown, working in restaurants and nightclubs and, for the past decade, I have witnessed my city transform into a haven for big business and tech workers as income disparities have become increasingly apparent. While change is now happening rapidly, living in Seattle has always meant living within close proximity to homelessness. As a teenager, for me, this came in the form of a close friend running away from home to escape abusive parents. As an adult employed in Belltown, the Pike Place Market, and the Waterfront, the homeless became a part of my everyday life as I watched firsthand the destitute effect of a lack of social services for those most in need, often people of color, begging and hustling, sleeping in alleys, meandering in the rain up and down busy corridors like Second Avenue and Alaskan Way, uncared for by a city that has always favored wealth over health. This city on American's frontier has been a bastion for the hope of new beginnings and, as Josephine Ensign illustrates in her book, Skid Road—On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City, a city that, historically, has been a place that privileges a handful of wealthy white men while disregarding the many others disadvantaged by economic hardships and a lack of opportunity and resources—exploited or cast aside by mainstream society.
Skid Road begins in the 1850s, following the city's first known homeless man, Edward Moore, whom famed Seattle founder, Doc Maynard, treated for frostbite by chopping off his toes with an axe sterilized by whiskey. Axes and whiskey were in great supply in the red-light district just south of Henry Yesler's sawmill, but Moore's mental health and social standing must have had an effect on his care. It is a sensational opening that brings sharply into focus the mistreatment of the disadvantaged in this comprehensive study on homelessness that is essential reading for anyone involved in creating urban policy as well as anyone interested in equity, economic justice, and the sordid history of the treatment of Seattle's fringe populations.
Ensign foregrounds individuals who, despite the stigma, fought for the disadvantaged whether from the trenches or from the hills. The narrative moves between the realities of public health and the lack of opportunities for marginalizes populations, to those altruistic individuals with the courage to offer services, and then focuses on the oppressive systems and policies that overwhelmingly favor rich white men and the land and business those men own.
Skid Road, is not simply a chronicle of the homeless. It is a hard look at policies that originated with legislation from Great Britain and saw little change in the new world, legislation interested in moving the homeless out of sight rather than on recognizing the true cause of the inequity that led to their displacement, made worse by American expansion and policies based in a cruel capitalism and propping up the racial hierarchy. Ensign reminds us that the disadvantaged are considered outsiders by politicians and citizens focused on maintaining the status quo. The poor and homeless among us have habitually been used as political bait. Rather than being cared for or lifted up they are instead further stigmatized for their lack of social standing whether it be caused by their race, background, or family. The capitalistic system that was invented for the American experiment gave freedom to some, but those disenfranchised members of society who found themselves out in the cold, were left behind by an individualist culture.
Skid Road was published last year and its release was well documented at the time, but then Seattle had an election and much of the hope for new policies that would be more concerned with the collective good after campaign promises from progressives of rezoning and more affordable housing were left in the wayside as the electorate instead opted for the policies of the Seattle Right and the interests of big business and the NIMBY politics of single family housing. The inequities highlighted by Ensign unfortunately remain relevant and the need to understand the depth and significance of homelessness in Seattle has never been greater. Newly elected leadership and a rise of stigmatization presents the homeless as the problem rather than as people who need a leg up in an inequitable economy and capitalist culture. A string of recent mayors have produced policy after policy that vilify and stigmatize the homeless and new Seattle City Attorney, Ann Davidson is focused on prosecuting petty crimes such as shoplifting, which is often a necessary means of survival, while the mayor's office continues to dismantle homeless encampments by sweeping without adequate options for where the residents of these encampments should go.
The end result is displacement of countless people and a giant waste of money and resources that instead could have been used to provide social services to improve lives. Current Seattle mayor, Bruce Harrell, follows the traditions of past Seattle mayors Jenny Durkan and Ed Murray by displacing the homeless and failing to state whether he plans to provide shelter for people his policies are forcing out of encampments. This does nothing but move people to new unsanctioned locations where their safety and livelihood remain unstable. These short-term, victimizations of real people in real need result in more expenditure from the city and no long-term plan to actually help anybody. It's as if Seattle's leaders keep putting their hand on the same burner over and over and wondering how they keep getting burned when all they need to do is pick up Skid Road to begin to understand how to actually solve this problem.
In Skid Road, Ensign uses data compiled from the organization, One Table, to chart the underlying causes of homelessness. Those causes include "a lack of affordable housing, inadequate access to behavioral health services, negative impacts on youth in the child welfare system, negative impacts for people with prior involvement with the criminal justice system, and education and employment gaps." Shortly after making these findings, One Table was dissolved by the city, presenting further evidence that Seattle isn't interested in unflattering realities about our government policies or in undertaking costly long-term solutions. Instead, city leadership prefers to use its resources to police the homeless and cause more harm under the guise of prioritizing clean streets, safe parks, and drug free zones. In Skid Road, Ensign methodically argues for and historically demonstrates the need for policy solutions that acknowledge the causes of homelessness and how to address these problems, particularly the need to resolve issues of housing and social services to support and lift up the homeless population, especially in these unprecedented times.
Covid-19 has exposed and made worse much of society's ills. The homeless population in Seattle, and across the nation, has dramatically increased during this period. Instead of using this moment to consider supporting communities in need, Mayor Bruce Harrell ended the eviction moratorium at the end of the February. City Council had a chance to override this, but failed to do so. By not extending the moratorium the city is choosing to double down on its war on the poor rather than heeding the advice of Ensign and other advocates to focus resources on solutions like affordable housing, improved social services, and harm reduction.
Skid Road is focused on giving historical context to the present crisis of homelessness facing the city and the continued failed approaches to addressing it. While reading it I found myself frequently returning to my homeless, runaway friend from my teenage years who I lost track of shortly after she began living on the streets. I often wonder what became of her. It is likely that she fell through the cracks of our society and turned to whatever means necessary to survive. What will it take for politicians and wealthy corporations and their CEOs and founders to stop hoarding the resources as the rest of us, especially those who call the streets their home, struggle and die while just a few thrive? To answer this question we must turn to history. We must turn to Josephine Ensign to understand that our problem is not new, it is not novel, it is the struggle of humanity from the dawn of civilization.
I have lived in Seattle for all of my life. I know the streets like I know myself. I have struggled and I have thrived and I have lived everything in between. I relate to Edward Moore as much as I relate to Doc Maynard. Nobody is a villain, we are all scrambling to survive, but some of us have more means to do so. It is through this lens that Josephine Ensign humanizes all of her subjects—restoring dignity to populations of people who have been historically marginalized. Her work strongly argues for a societal shift in the way we see and treat the homeless. Skid Road brings to light the long and epic struggle of finding equity in a system that was never built for it.
Skid Road—On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City by Josephine Ensign (John Hopkins University Press, 2021).
by Ariel Basom
I have lived in Seattle for all my life, which is to say, I have spent years wandering the streets of the University District and Capitol Hill, I have spent long nights in Downtown, working in restaurants and nightclubs and, for the past decade, I have witnessed my city transform into a haven for big business and tech workers as income disparities have become increasingly apparent. While change is now happening rapidly, living in Seattle has always meant living within close proximity to homelessness. As a teenager, for me, this came in the form of a close friend running away from home to escape abusive parents. As an adult employed in Belltown, the Pike Place Market, and the Waterfront, the homeless became a part of my everyday life as I watched firsthand the destitute effect of a lack of social services for those most in need, often people of color, begging and hustling, sleeping in alleys, meandering in the rain up and down busy corridors like Second Avenue and Alaskan Way, uncared for by a city that has always favored wealth over health. This city on American's frontier has been a bastion for the hope of new beginnings and, as Josephine Ensign illustrates in her book, Skid Road—On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City, a city that, historically, has been a place that privileges a handful of wealthy white men while disregarding the many others disadvantaged by economic hardships and a lack of opportunity and resources—exploited or cast aside by mainstream society.
Skid Road begins in the 1850s, following the city's first known homeless man, Edward Moore, whom famed Seattle founder, Doc Maynard, treated for frostbite by chopping off his toes with an axe sterilized by whiskey. Axes and whiskey were in great supply in the red-light district just south of Henry Yesler's sawmill, but Moore's mental health and social standing must have had an effect on his care. It is a sensational opening that brings sharply into focus the mistreatment of the disadvantaged in this comprehensive study on homelessness that is essential reading for anyone involved in creating urban policy as well as anyone interested in equity, economic justice, and the sordid history of the treatment of Seattle's fringe populations.
Ensign foregrounds individuals who, despite the stigma, fought for the disadvantaged whether from the trenches or from the hills. The narrative moves between the realities of public health and the lack of opportunities for marginalizes populations, to those altruistic individuals with the courage to offer services, and then focuses on the oppressive systems and policies that overwhelmingly favor rich white men and the land and business those men own.
Skid Road, is not simply a chronicle of the homeless. It is a hard look at policies that originated with legislation from Great Britain and saw little change in the new world, legislation interested in moving the homeless out of sight rather than on recognizing the true cause of the inequity that led to their displacement, made worse by American expansion and policies based in a cruel capitalism and propping up the racial hierarchy. Ensign reminds us that the disadvantaged are considered outsiders by politicians and citizens focused on maintaining the status quo. The poor and homeless among us have habitually been used as political bait. Rather than being cared for or lifted up they are instead further stigmatized for their lack of social standing whether it be caused by their race, background, or family. The capitalistic system that was invented for the American experiment gave freedom to some, but those disenfranchised members of society who found themselves out in the cold, were left behind by an individualist culture.
Skid Road was published last year and its release was well documented at the time, but then Seattle had an election and much of the hope for new policies that would be more concerned with the collective good after campaign promises from progressives of rezoning and more affordable housing were left in the wayside as the electorate instead opted for the policies of the Seattle Right and the interests of big business and the NIMBY politics of single family housing. The inequities highlighted by Ensign unfortunately remain relevant and the need to understand the depth and significance of homelessness in Seattle has never been greater. Newly elected leadership and a rise of stigmatization presents the homeless as the problem rather than as people who need a leg up in an inequitable economy and capitalist culture. A string of recent mayors have produced policy after policy that vilify and stigmatize the homeless and new Seattle City Attorney, Ann Davidson is focused on prosecuting petty crimes such as shoplifting, which is often a necessary means of survival, while the mayor's office continues to dismantle homeless encampments by sweeping without adequate options for where the residents of these encampments should go.
The end result is displacement of countless people and a giant waste of money and resources that instead could have been used to provide social services to improve lives. Current Seattle mayor, Bruce Harrell, follows the traditions of past Seattle mayors Jenny Durkan and Ed Murray by displacing the homeless and failing to state whether he plans to provide shelter for people his policies are forcing out of encampments. This does nothing but move people to new unsanctioned locations where their safety and livelihood remain unstable. These short-term, victimizations of real people in real need result in more expenditure from the city and no long-term plan to actually help anybody. It's as if Seattle's leaders keep putting their hand on the same burner over and over and wondering how they keep getting burned when all they need to do is pick up Skid Road to begin to understand how to actually solve this problem.
In Skid Road, Ensign uses data compiled from the organization, One Table, to chart the underlying causes of homelessness. Those causes include "a lack of affordable housing, inadequate access to behavioral health services, negative impacts on youth in the child welfare system, negative impacts for people with prior involvement with the criminal justice system, and education and employment gaps." Shortly after making these findings, One Table was dissolved by the city, presenting further evidence that Seattle isn't interested in unflattering realities about our government policies or in undertaking costly long-term solutions. Instead, city leadership prefers to use its resources to police the homeless and cause more harm under the guise of prioritizing clean streets, safe parks, and drug free zones. In Skid Road, Ensign methodically argues for and historically demonstrates the need for policy solutions that acknowledge the causes of homelessness and how to address these problems, particularly the need to resolve issues of housing and social services to support and lift up the homeless population, especially in these unprecedented times.
Covid-19 has exposed and made worse much of society's ills. The homeless population in Seattle, and across the nation, has dramatically increased during this period. Instead of using this moment to consider supporting communities in need, Mayor Bruce Harrell ended the eviction moratorium at the end of the February. City Council had a chance to override this, but failed to do so. By not extending the moratorium the city is choosing to double down on its war on the poor rather than heeding the advice of Ensign and other advocates to focus resources on solutions like affordable housing, improved social services, and harm reduction.
Skid Road is focused on giving historical context to the present crisis of homelessness facing the city and the continued failed approaches to addressing it. While reading it I found myself frequently returning to my homeless, runaway friend from my teenage years who I lost track of shortly after she began living on the streets. I often wonder what became of her. It is likely that she fell through the cracks of our society and turned to whatever means necessary to survive. What will it take for politicians and wealthy corporations and their CEOs and founders to stop hoarding the resources as the rest of us, especially those who call the streets their home, struggle and die while just a few thrive? To answer this question we must turn to history. We must turn to Josephine Ensign to understand that our problem is not new, it is not novel, it is the struggle of humanity from the dawn of civilization.
I have lived in Seattle for all of my life. I know the streets like I know myself. I have struggled and I have thrived and I have lived everything in between. I relate to Edward Moore as much as I relate to Doc Maynard. Nobody is a villain, we are all scrambling to survive, but some of us have more means to do so. It is through this lens that Josephine Ensign humanizes all of her subjects—restoring dignity to populations of people who have been historically marginalized. Her work strongly argues for a societal shift in the way we see and treat the homeless. Skid Road brings to light the long and epic struggle of finding equity in a system that was never built for it.
Skid Road—On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City by Josephine Ensign (John Hopkins University Press, 2021).
January 1, 2022
One of the most prosperous American cities, Seattle also has the highest per capita rate of urban homelessness in the nation. “Skid Road” takes a deep historical dive into this persistent problem. The author characterizes each homeless era (going back to the city’s founding in the 1850s) with the life story, for example Princess Angeline, daughter of Chief Seattle; tireless advocate Hazel Wolf from the shantytown era; and “Tiny” a child of modern Seattle’s “Mean streets.”
The problems remain stubbornly resistant to resolution despite sustained efforts of well-meaning people. We have learned over the decades that care and housing go together, also respect, support and education where and when needed. A look at the 2022 City of Seattle $200 million homeless and housing budget shows public funds spread around like peanut butter across the homeless industrial complex. Skid Road” helps us understand the depth and breadth of the problems by providing social and historical context. I doubt we will ever “solve” the homelessness problem, but we can through diligent, sustained effort provide better access to education, more economic opportunity and stronger social supports. Marginalized people will then have an easier time finding their place on the ladder of economic advancement. “Skid Road” reminds us that sometimes people need more than a chance, they need help too.
Read more at bookmanreaader.blogspot.com
The problems remain stubbornly resistant to resolution despite sustained efforts of well-meaning people. We have learned over the decades that care and housing go together, also respect, support and education where and when needed. A look at the 2022 City of Seattle $200 million homeless and housing budget shows public funds spread around like peanut butter across the homeless industrial complex. Skid Road” helps us understand the depth and breadth of the problems by providing social and historical context. I doubt we will ever “solve” the homelessness problem, but we can through diligent, sustained effort provide better access to education, more economic opportunity and stronger social supports. Marginalized people will then have an easier time finding their place on the ladder of economic advancement. “Skid Road” reminds us that sometimes people need more than a chance, they need help too.
Read more at bookmanreaader.blogspot.com
Read
July 30, 2024DNF
January 28, 2022
Seattle, Ensign informs us, has the third highest homeless population in the United States, just after New York and Los Angeles, making it, in all probability, the city with highest per capita homeless population in the country. How do we reconcile the popular idea of Seattle as a progressive city with a city where homelessness is such a large, growing, and deeply entrenched problem?
“Is it, as many critics claim, precisely because of our progressive politics and so many “bleeding-heart liberals” that people are attracted to the city and then stay stuck in homelessness and poverty? Or is it, as other people say, because of the greediness of large Seattle-based corporations and our city’s concessions—selling out—to them?” Early in her book Ensign asks these provocative and often voiced questions but really doesn’t make them central to her discussion of homelessness or the reasons for homelessness in Seattle.
What she does do is present the history of homelessness in Seattle through sketches of mostly unknown and forgotten people throughout different eras of the city’s history, starting with Angeline, Chief Seattle’s daughter, who was made homeless through colonialism and white supremacy. We learn about the first person in Seattle who was classified as insane. After a few futile attempts to do something with him, he was shipped back from whence he came where he hanged himself. We meet some characters who lived in shanty town, in Hooverville, some who survived by prostitution, most of whom died young, and a few who lived to old age.
Ensign also details how health care services, institutions, government, and even churches and charities responded. It’s a very mixed bag and even more, a mixed success, if a success at all. She goes back to the English Poor Laws to show how they influenced Seattle’s attitude toward the “undeserving poor.” Poor Houses were designed to be unwelcoming places; they were meant to be deterrents, not refuges. That attitude did not change much either in England or in America until Dickens wrote about them graphically in the 19th century. Winthrop’s “city on a hill” was intended to inspire in the New Word a spiritual transformation, not a social one, Ensign points out.
To be sure, there were institutions and people who tried to help. Three sisters (nuns) came to Seattle from Montreal via Portland to take on the nursing care of ill paupers at the King County Poor Farm. They were badly underpaid for their services even by those day’s standards and, although they did not possess up-to-date nursing skills, they kept their facilities clean and treated their patients with compassion. In time, as the number of their patients grew and Catholic lay women worked with them, the sisters wanted to remove the stigma of the “poor house” designation from their facility to that of a hospital; they named their hospital Providence. Sometimes it’s difficult to determine whether one of her featured helpers is a curse or a blessing.
As Ensign moves into more modern times, she discusses the various studies, initiatives, ten-year plans, and so on which were supposed to end homelessness. None has, no need to note. But why has there been seemingly so little progress? Ensign really doesn’t focus on solutions. Her book is fact-filled, no nonsense and kind of a downer. She does try to end on a note of hope, but that hope is not much supported by most of her account. Still this is an important and sobering account of one aspect of Seattle.
March 28, 2023
This one's an interesting look at how the city of Seattle reacted to the people experiencing poverty and homelessness throughout its history. Professor Ensign starts this journey through Seattle's history by looking at how the question of "Who is responsible for paupers, for insane people, for homeless people?" was answered in England. The answer changed, like so many other things, during the Industrial Revolution and then further evolved as the English legal system was transplanted to North America. In each era she uses the story of one individual to show how the surrounding community both contributed to and tried to deal with that person's poverty. The common thread running throughout is that people's charity is intertwined with their greed, self-righteousness, and prejudices. Professor Ensign was even brave enough to pull in a personal anecdote of how her own response to a homeless individual fell short of the compassion we usually reserve for our own friends and family.
All in all it was, like I said, interesting. It was fairly easy to read. One short-coming I felt was that it lacked the narrative flow that I've experienced in other history books. But in Professor Ensign's defense, I have to say that there's a lot more research material available for, say, a famous politician than the folks living in shacks on the other side of the tracks. Don't let that stop you from checking it out.
(Oh, and I also feel compelled to add that it is my wife's opinion that Professor Ensign has completely misinterpreted J. P. Patches. But, again, don't let that keep you from reading the book.)
All in all it was, like I said, interesting. It was fairly easy to read. One short-coming I felt was that it lacked the narrative flow that I've experienced in other history books. But in Professor Ensign's defense, I have to say that there's a lot more research material available for, say, a famous politician than the folks living in shacks on the other side of the tracks. Don't let that stop you from checking it out.
(Oh, and I also feel compelled to add that it is my wife's opinion that Professor Ensign has completely misinterpreted J. P. Patches. But, again, don't let that keep you from reading the book.)
May 30, 2023
The author aimed to tell place-stories, as she emphasized in the prologue, and she chose the Skid Road-Yesler Way-Waterfront area to tell her stories about homeless people whose lives are greatly impacted by mental illness, race, or gender.
Edward Moore, believed to be the first recorded homeless person in Seattle, was viewed by people as "insane" in the 1850s. He wandered along the Seattle waterfront and was one day discovered nearly frozen to death. Though "insane," he was able to tell people that he came from Massachusetts, and the people of Seattle just ship him back to Massachusetts. The author traced what happened after Edward Moore was back in his hometown and found a sad ending. She wondered if Edward Moore had stayed in Seattle, there might be an alternative ending.
The author wrote Princess Angeline's stories to raise readers' awareness of indigenous people's lives and their unequal treatment by the white settlers which leads them to live in suffering.
Homeless is an issue with complex causes. Lack of social support, lack of mental illness (seasonal treatment), and high rent-salary ratio are all part of the causes. But most people still subconsciously tend to avoid or despise the homeless. Thus, the author approached this by biographical writing to gain empathy.
Edward Moore, believed to be the first recorded homeless person in Seattle, was viewed by people as "insane" in the 1850s. He wandered along the Seattle waterfront and was one day discovered nearly frozen to death. Though "insane," he was able to tell people that he came from Massachusetts, and the people of Seattle just ship him back to Massachusetts. The author traced what happened after Edward Moore was back in his hometown and found a sad ending. She wondered if Edward Moore had stayed in Seattle, there might be an alternative ending.
The author wrote Princess Angeline's stories to raise readers' awareness of indigenous people's lives and their unequal treatment by the white settlers which leads them to live in suffering.
Homeless is an issue with complex causes. Lack of social support, lack of mental illness (seasonal treatment), and high rent-salary ratio are all part of the causes. But most people still subconsciously tend to avoid or despise the homeless. Thus, the author approached this by biographical writing to gain empathy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 3, 2024
I think one of the reasons that I have struggled more with non-fiction recently is you have to like both the content and the style, where fiction is just mostly vibes. This is a case of really enjoying the content, and not the writing. CONTENT - I was walking around like 2 weeks ago wondering how Seattle has the reputation it does & also has thousands of homeless people, and found this book, which was fascinating to learn about, and attempts to answer exactly that question. Two tidbits - Seattle litereally couldn't figure out how to handle ONE homeless man when it was town of under 200; only one source but she claims that the main reason the fed govt isn't more involved in homeless issues is that power was ceded as a concession to the Confederacy. STYLE - she literally didn't say one good thing about Seattle? Or when she did, she had to then cut it down with some innocuous dig? Her perspective was a bit sarcastic and, even though I agree with like 90% of her worldview, she made me want to disagree with her bc of the way it was written, idk. Overall, glad I read it but not my favorite reading experience!
May 15, 2025
(As a native foster mom who has lived here her whole life(my background)), Ms. Ensign did a great job of showing the worst possible outcome that happens in my home city. it's not just Seattle anymore, the homeless encampments are all through pierce and Kitsap counties as well now. I've worked as a nurse in hospitals in Tacoma with homeless outreach and our systems are jokes. There is no time to comfort some one someone in psychiatric crisis when your patient in the next room in on an blood thinner drips.
we need more community outreach and social workers. 1 social worker between 2 hospitals in the middle of the night in the dead of winter isn't appropriate but it was the reality. The lack of sunlight in the winter has to be a large contributer to the isolation felt in the community.
we need more community outreach and social workers. 1 social worker between 2 hospitals in the middle of the night in the dead of winter isn't appropriate but it was the reality. The lack of sunlight in the winter has to be a large contributer to the isolation felt in the community.
October 7, 2023
There is a lot of great material here, but this work would have benefitted from more assertive editing. As the title suggests, the author's approach is informed by Murray Morgan's canonical work of Seattle history, as well as from what historian Coll Thrush calls "place stories" concerning Seattle's unhoused. While there are many great details and observation, the narrative frequently meanders, pausing to provide gratuitously granular detail on minutiae yet skipping too quickly over details I would love to have heard more about.
One caveat: I 'read' the audiobook version, and often found the narrator's tone captious and hectoring, which may have affected my judgment to some degree.
One caveat: I 'read' the audiobook version, and often found the narrator's tone captious and hectoring, which may have affected my judgment to some degree.
January 15, 2022
Mostly history
I was hoping for more current information on homelessness in Seattle, but most of the book is about homelessness a century ago, with barely a few sentences about some of the agencies working on homelessness in Seattle in the past decade. I was also hoping for a closer examination on how money is dispersed because we’ve had several massive amounts of money raised or donated by bands, companies and likely churches, but where does it go and why does it not seem to be effective in Seattle. I cannot recommend this book.
I was hoping for more current information on homelessness in Seattle, but most of the book is about homelessness a century ago, with barely a few sentences about some of the agencies working on homelessness in Seattle in the past decade. I was also hoping for a closer examination on how money is dispersed because we’ve had several massive amounts of money raised or donated by bands, companies and likely churches, but where does it go and why does it not seem to be effective in Seattle. I cannot recommend this book.
July 6, 2024
I came to this book wanting to learn the context and history of unhoused people in Seattle. I really liked how far back the author goes (mid 19th century) and also she demonstrates how deeply this problem is rooted. Spoiler alert: Seattle didn’t know what to do with its first homeless man either. The modern chapters were good but felt a little scattered—-I feel less confident that I have a good grasp of the current situation in Seattle. It’s such a thorny problem without any clear answers and that’s how the author ends.
October 14, 2023
Poverty and homelessness in Seattle, starting with the history of the city, and including different policies tried from past to present. History teaches us. Was good to get a broader view. Some reviewers seem frustrated the solution was not clearly laid out. I value having an understanding of what has and hasn’t worked, and what is currently being attempted. It’s a big tangly problem now and I think some big shifts in policy need to happen.
August 5, 2024
An exploration of the history of homelessness in Seattle. I would have loved knowing more about interventions that have been helpful and why they may have been alongside the changing face of homelessness here. There were many personal stories of trauma and homelessness, but not much from anyone who made it out. If you’re looking for an overall portrait of how homelessness has changed over the years with historical context this is helpful.
July 29, 2022
This was a tough, but important read for everyone who calls Seattle home. It is distressing to see the amount of harm that has been done to the individuals currently living in various forms of housing outside the commons norms. A little understanding goes a long way to humanize people who are, at the end of the day, just people.
March 27, 2023
The book was not badly written, but I never quite figured out whether I should be sympathetic to some of the policies that went into steering Seattle down the paths that it chose. I've enjoyed my limited visits to the city, and do sympathize with some of the recent upheavals that have taken place there - perhaps Ensign made his case rather more poorly.
February 24, 2026
I appreciated the emphasis on the individual stories of people throughout history experiencing homelessness in Seattle. I think the narrative approach was helpful in a lot of ways, but I do wish there was more about current policies in the city and county and their impact on this issue. I think I just need to read more.
December 25, 2021
Umm; yeah: “Although Seattle residents often take pride in their idea of their city being a progressive, respectful, and compassionate place, history reminds us that this has not been the case.”
(Page 218)
(Page 218)
December 30, 2021
Humanized, thorough, factual and compassionate account of historical and current homelessness in Seattle.
Complementary material: the documentaries "Streetwise" and "Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell".
Complementary material: the documentaries "Streetwise" and "Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell".
February 22, 2022
Written by a UW nurse researcher about a population I often interact with at work so I was interested from the start. Sad to read the progression of the population. Book needed a bit better organization, but still highly recommend.
March 24, 2022
This was an engaging and well researched read. If you are interested in Seattle and history there's a lot to it. There was also some insight into our historical rhyme in how we treat people who have been less fortunate. Worth a look.
July 27, 2022
The historical tidbits about the homeless in Seattle are well researched, but there's much less information on modern day Seattle and no conclusion on what might be done to improve emergency levels of homelessness.
February 18, 2022
Did you know that Seattle was racist and sexist in the olden days?????
February 21, 2022
Should be required reading for anyone that lives in Seattle.
May 8, 2022
Reminder that homelessness in Seattle has been around since Seattle’s start as a port town, and there are no easy answers.
June 8, 2023
The majority of the book is about the history of Seattle...and I was honestly disappointed to not recognize any of the names or organizations mentioned.
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