SPD Is Losing Women As Fast As It's Hiring Them; State Budget Defunds Successful Encampment Program
Today's Morning Fizz.
1. Earlier this week, we reported that the Seattle Police Department has only managed to hire five women, out of 60 new recruits, so far this year—a result that falls far short of the city's "30 by 30" goal of having a 30-percent female recruit class by 2030. (To meet that goal, SPD would have had to hire 25 women so far; the five women represent 8 percent of the new recruits.
But the story is actually worse than that, because women are actually leaving the department at a much faster rate than SPD is recruiting new women to replace them.
In 2025 so far, according to the mayor's office, 24 people have left SPD. Five of those were women. So not only does the net increase in female officers this year stand at zero, more than 20 percent of the people who have left the department are women. Put another way: SPD is losing women far faster than it is replacing them.
New police chief Shon Barnes said this week that the department was looking at why some women don't pass recruiting requirements and may "give them another look," adding that lots of departments have trouble hiring women.
He didn't address ways the department could make women more likely to apply for jobs in the first place, since the real issue isn't so much that women are applying and failing but that women don't see SPD as a good place to work and advance their careers—understandably so.
2. The final state budget adopted by the legislature last week failed to restore funding for a critical program that has successfully moved hundreds of unsheltered people indoors.
The program, a collaboration that includes Purpose Dignity Action, REACH, and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, resolves encampments in state rights-of-way by providing sustained outreach, intensive case management, and hotel-based shelter to former encampment residents. Unlike Seattle's policy of aggressive sweeps, the program sticks with people and gets them indoors long-term; since 2022, more than two-thirds of the people in the program remain housed.
Governor Bob Ferguson's budget reduced funding for the program from $75 million to $45 million, which is just enough to continue services for people already enrolled in the program, but not enough to keep the "front door" open by resolving new encampments in the future.
Carolanne Sanders Lundgren, PDA's chief campaigns officer, said that while nearly everyone, including people living in encampments, "agree that no one should be living in those conditions," the systems that are in place to deal with encampments "do not do a good enough job of connecting people to real help that makes sense for their lives and circumstances."
By slashing funds to the program, Sanders Lundgren said, Ferguson's budget "halts all progress. The bigger picture is that as social and economic instability continue to grow, the need for resources like [right-of-way] outreach and temporary lodging–which provide immediate relief and a bridge to long-term stability–will only increase."