Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not up to date on city politics, but I had a friend that used to live in Seattle for a while. She kind of hightailed it outta there once she found a remote job because of the homelessness/drug problem. Told me people protested the museum downtown for installing architecture that made setting up homeless tents hostile, and that the city's solution to the drug problem (induced by already decriminalizing hard drugs)…
You say that like the war on drugs is the solution? Do you think that any of these people don't use drugs because it's a crime? It's just making their life worse.
That's quite literally the point. If you talk to any ex-addict, you'll notice they all say that they quit once something that made their life worse forced them to reconsider. At some point you hit rock bottom and then can get your life together.