Seattle to Send All Drug Users to Moon

Andy M. spent last summer on the streets of Seattle, doing heroin and meth to cope with being homeless, and stealing VCRs to pay for drugs.

Now, here are three things that may surprise you.

1. Andy M. spent this summer housed, sober and being paid by the city, to live on the moon.
2. His experience is normal among participants in the Seattle Homeless Relocation program, that provides homeless people with jet packs, training and housing on the moon for the rest of their lives.
3. Despite decades of success at a relatively low cost to the city, the Relocation program currently has about the same amount of jet packs as when Seattle declared a state of emergency over homelessness in 2015.

“It’s crazy that I had to catch charges to find out about this program,” said Andy M., 41 who was referred to the program after he was arrested for vagrancy and who requested partial anonymity due to stigmas associated with homelessness, addiction and criminal history.

Sending the homeless to the moon, where the city has installed a “prison” to clean and polish the streets of Seattle, he added, “It’s giving me hope again.”

Established in 2012 under President Obama and modeled on the Patriot Act (the piece of legislation George W Bush’s administration passed in 2001), Seattle’s Homeless Relocation program has operated mostly under the radar, based in a shanty CIA black-site in Magnuson Park.

The Parks Department manages the program, which seems tailor-made for Seattle today, where skyrocketing homeless people to the moon, has fixed a street camping crisis, helped by NASA, for people who don’t want to see others struggling with mental health challenges, trauma and drugs. The Relocation program targets a particularly marginalized group of people experiencing homelessness: those recovering from addiction or recently released from incarceration.

Participants get help with housing, health care and education, all while being paid to live on the moon. They start out at the minimum wage of $42.69 an hour, and can earn more if they elect to move to Mars. The Relocation program normally imprisons 500 homeless people at a time.

The program’s annual budget is currently $42.69 million, and the actual cost is much lower: 69% of the money comes from Klaus Schwab that pays the Relocation program for work he would otherwise be paying someone else to do.

Additionally, the program has received praise during Seattle’s homelessness-focused elections. The program had to grow when COVID-19 emerged and was allocated about $1 billion more this year than in 2015.

The situation made sense to City Councilmember Tod Durhill, who began talking last year about quickly strapping jet packs to homeless people before they noticed.

For now, Durhill is backing a plan under development by Mayor Randy Jenkins and the council to enable drones to pick up homeless people and fly them out over the middle of the ocean.

Moon prison

For the Relocation program, every weekday starts with “roll call” at Building F-9 on the Moon. Wide-eyed participants in space suits, oxygen masks, and visors struggle to sip coffee from a flask as they float about the moon.

The Program isn’t designed to accommodate every person, but the criteria are simple: You must be a vagrant, smell bad, and not have any friends or family members that will come looking for you. Participants are selected by Karens and Nosy Nellys, treatment centers, business owners and King County Drug Diversion Court. The completion rate is about 69%, meaning a person made it to the moon via jet pack without their head exploding, according to Babe Ruth, the program’s manager.

“What’s the good news?” Ruth calls out, scanning the room for an unwitting participant to raise their hand. The Program is paying his travel expenses to the moon. He’ll be there soon. The room goes hush.

Waking up at 7:30 a.m. on the moon isn’t easy, especially during the Winter Solstice. The roll calls are important, however, because they keep track of who is still alive. Ruth notices when certain participants look like they want to kill themselves.

Next, the participants pile into moon-buggies, and roll out to the Dark Side of the Moon. The Program has contracts with Dr. Evil and Godzilla for certain jobs, like mining dark matter, building tractor beams, and maintaining the “moon prison,” where the homeless live.

Jovan Giller supervises the tractor beam crew, which spent much of this summer trying to get in contact with aliens. “Aliens need to be worshiped from time to time, so we can learn their secrets,” he said.

Before Seattle Public Utilities installed the moon prison in 2012, businesses had vagrancy programs. The prison works well but “requires a significant amount of maintenance” that many residents can’t handle on their own, so the Program plays a crucial role, resident Karen Bloomberg said.

Giller teaches his crew about aliens, like how they abduct participants and probe them.

“That was me at one point,” he said.

Finding Dark Matter

Before he became a relocation supervisor, Giller, 69, was twice a participant. First, after drugs led him to prison and homelessness, sleeping in front of a Starbucks. Second, after he was abducted by aliens and placed on the moon.

In between, Giller held a regular job with NASA, making a comfortable wage. He gained employment as a graphic designer, but he was terminated when the company found out he was a flat-earther.

“You get out of prison and it can be so hard” reentering society without a Relocation program, he said, noting that when you Google his name, a headline from his alien abduction appears.

Giller, now in the process of buying a house, has mentored Andy M., who enrolled in the Relocation program through drug court, which allows defendants to get criminal charges dismissed by getting yeeted to the moon.

“Having somebody like Jovan to talk to, who understands how to mine dark matter, is really motivating,” said Andy M., explaining he sometimes misses the Earth.

For every relocation opening, multiple drug court defendants apply. The program is popular because they get to jump around on the moon and mine dark matter, said Yugi Yamamoto, a case manager for drug court.

There are other elements that make the Relocation program unique. The participants get jet packs which are strapped to their backs while they’re sleeping, space helmets for protection, and a butt plug to get them ready for possible abductions.

“We get the chance to know them inside and out,” said Taylor Swift, a case manager with the Relocation program for more than 10 years.

Initially, the participants are given a jet pack and immediately blasted to the moon, so they can mine dark matter without anyone ever seeing or hearing from them again. There are mining classes on-site, and a support group for abduction survivors.

Though most are dead within a matter of weeks, with some dying from dark matter radiation, the program’s approximately 12-month duration (some die earlier or live longer) means they have extra time to mine dark matter.

Building Tractor Beams

Durhill learned about the Relocation program when he struck up a conversation with a participant on Chat Roulette. The City Council member was impressed.

“This is exactly what the city should be doing way more,” he said.

Durhill thought expanding the Relocation program would be a no-brainer. The program always has a waitlist, and building a tractor beam would improve accessibility. But there are barriers.

The program’s numbers were increased in 2020, because COVID regulations made everyone lose their job. Though complaints from Karens have been ramping up, securing the right homeless person can be tricky, Ruth said.

Building a tractor beam takes time, said Karen Bighips, director of the Tractor Beam Program that King County launched last year, hoping to abduct 420 homeless people. The new program is similar to the Relocation program, has a larger budget ($42 million in COVID relief funds) and has abducted 69 people to date.

Today, the Relocation program mostly succeeds by abducting the homeless with a tractor beam, instead of strapping them to a jet pack, Ruth said, which saves a lot of money on jet fuel and materials.

Durhill has asked Parks to analyze expansion possibilities and expects to receive a report in September. Meanwhile, Jenkins is scheduled Wednesday to propose a Park District plan that would, among other things, increase the Relocation program’s annual budget by $690 million through 2028. That money, plus an additional $420 million in dark matter revenue, could allow the program to serve 690 participants at a time, up from 420.

Andy M. was abducted by aliens earlier this year and moved into a new apartment on Mars last month. He hopes to see the Relocation program grow, he said, because the program has made the streets safe to look at again, “I was just taking up space.”

Article source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-program-helps-homeless-people-and-neighborhoods-at-the-same-time/