Tomor­row — Tues­day, April 25th, 2023, is Spe­cial Elec­tion Day in Wash­ing­ton State. Many local­i­ties have sent vot­ers levy or bond mea­sures that would raise rev­enue to fund essen­tial needs, includ­ing King Coun­ty, where a mea­sure offi­cial­ly known as Propo­si­tion 1 and bet­ter known as the cri­sis care cen­ters levy (to dis­tin­guish it from oth­er propo­si­tions in bygone elec­tions!) is on the ballot.

The pur­pose of the levy is straight­for­ward: to cre­ate a coun­ty­wide net­work of [behav­ioral and men­tal health] cri­sis care cen­ters, the sta­bi­liza­tion of res­i­den­tial treat­ment, and a well-sup­port­ed work force to ensure time­ly, life­sav­ing care.

“The Cri­sis Care Cen­ters levy pro­pos­es to invest in urgent care needs to trans­form an aging sys­tem and restore a path to recov­ery,” explains a pre­sen­ta­tion pre­pared by Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­ti­ne’s office. “The pro­pos­al responds to con­tin­ued clo­sures, reduced capac­i­ty, and sig­nif­i­cant gaps of behav­ioral health resources.”

Right now, accord­ing to the Exec­u­tive’s office:

• King Coun­ty is with­out a walk-in behav­ioral health urgent care facility.
• Only one 46-bed behav­ioral health cri­sis facil­i­ty is in oper­a­tion in Seat­tle for the entire coun­ty and requires a referral.
• Res­i­den­tial treat­ment beds are in decline. In 2018, 355 beds for men­tal health res­i­den­tial care exist­ed. Today, only 244.
• The behav­ioral health work force is strained under the mag­ni­tude of the need, all while being under­paid, over­worked, and stretched too thin.
• Sig­nif­i­cant addi­tion­al invest­ment is need­ed across the spec­trum of behav­ioral health ser­vices, not just to respond to crises but for pre­ven­tion, ear­ly inter­ven­tion and com­mu­ni­ty-based out­pa­tient sup­ports that keep chal­lenges from esca­lat­ing into crises.

King Coun­ty Propo­si­tion 1 will not, by itself, solve our men­tal and behav­ioral health cri­sis. But it’s an impor­tant piece of the puz­zle. It can’t be the extent of our response, but it’s a real­ly impor­tant and nec­es­sary step to take.

Oppo­si­tion to the levy has so far come main­ly from the right wing, anti-tax crowd, vocal­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Tim Eyman in media cov­er­age and in the voter’s pamphlet.

How­ev­er, more well-inten­tioned peo­ple have also raised con­cerns, with for­mer Jus­tice Phil Tal­madge and Daniel Mal­one, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Down­town Emer­gency Ser­vice Cen­ter, telling The Seat­tle Times’ Alex Fry­er that they wor­ry the levy could be too much and yet not enough at the same time.

“This cri­sis invest­ment is des­per­ate­ly need­ed, and it’ll be a huge mis­take if that’s all we do,” Mal­one told Fryer.

“If you make this one gold-plat­ed thing, then it gets real easy to just let every­thing fall down to that, which is ter­ri­ble. Nobody wants a sit­u­a­tion like that.”

Nei­ther do we. And while we dis­like the con­tin­ued reliance on sales tax­es and prop­er­ty tax­es to fund essen­tial unmet needs at the local lev­el that the Leg­is­la­ture isn’t bud­get­ing enough resources to sup­port at the state lev­el, a no vote on this levy is a vote for the sta­tus quo — a sys­tem in which peo­ple in cri­sis con­tin­ue to be sent to emer­gency rooms and not treat­ed as effec­tive­ly as they could be.

If your bal­lot is still sit­ting on your desk or kitchen table because you’re unde­cid­ed, our team hopes you’ll take a few min­utes to read what award-win­ning musi­cian Mack­le­more had to say recent­ly about the cri­sis care cen­ters levy dur­ing an appear­ance at a lun­cheon for Coun­cilmem­ber Gir­may Zahilay.

As you read the remarks, notice how Mack­le­more cen­ters peo­ple in his fram­ing of the issue, rather than try­ing to score polit­i­cal points or spread fear and cynicism.

MACKLEMORE: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

How you guys doing? I said, how you guys doing?

Awe­some, awe­some, awe­some. Let me get more comfortable.

[REMOVES TIE]: It’s a clip on, y’all. It’s a clip on, and I high­ly rec­om­mend these. It’s just easy. It’s just convenient.

I’m hon­ored to be here. I’m com­plete­ly hon­ored, and [Gir­may], I haven’t even known you for that long. At all. In fact, we’ve been in the same space maybe three times. But I heard you speak at Wash­ing­ton Hall a cou­ple months ago, and I was… I was moved. I was moved, and I think that any­one that was in that room prob­a­bly felt the exact same way that I did: Moved.

I felt heart. I felt heart. Not only, not only his, but I felt my own. And that’s the high­est hon­or – to be light that helps oth­ers feel their heart. You are that per­son. You real­ly, real­ly are.

As he told deeply emo­tion­al, per­son­al sto­ries, he had to pause to col­lect him­self. I was moved to tears. I was remind­ed of human­i­ty, the true core of what con­nects us as spir­i­tu­al beings hav­ing a human expe­ri­ence. I was remind­ed that the great­est gift that we can give our­selves is to serve oth­ers. What Gir­may has done in the last four years is not only inspir­ing, it is almost hard to believe: the rip­ple effect of him show­ing up and fight­ing for those that need it the most.

The allo­ca­tion of real dol­lars in Sky­way going to places that the com­mu­ni­ty — com­mu­ni­ty — mutu­al­ly decides upon that rip­ple will be, will be felt, well past our lifetime.

You nev­er know what some­body is going through until you ask them, until you sit down, until you have a con­ver­sa­tion and let them know that you see them, that you are here to help.

That you’re not going any­where, that you’re in their corner.

Not when it’s con­ve­nient, not when it’s for per­son­al gain or pub­lic per­cep­tion, but when they need it, when­ev­er that might be, that they will not be for­got­ten. Gir­may lives this act of ser­vice in a city that is doing the opposite.

We have pushed peo­ple out. We have gen­tri­fied, we have tore down com­mu­ni­ties for con­dos. We have forgotten.

We have for­got­ten what it means to be human. To care for those that are still suf­fer­ing, to help those that need it the most to pri­or­i­tize the most mar­gin­al­ized and make sure that fam­i­lies have the bare neces­si­ties to just live and be safe.

We are right in the mid­dle of an epi­dem­ic that has been hap­pen­ing far before we had the word to describe it as such: the dis­ease of addic­tion and the men­tal health cri­sis that our coun­try, our city, our coun­ty is fight­ing right now is killing us.

We have 2.2 mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing in King Coun­ty and we have zero walk-in urgent care behav­ioral health clin­ics in one of the wealth­i­est cities in the world.

The land of Ama­zon, Boe­ing, Microsoft. Zero in King Coun­ty. We have reached a point where I imag­ine that every per­son in this room knows some­one — fam­i­ly mem­ber, col­league, friend — that is suf­fer­ing from the dis­ease of addic­tion or has suf­fered. And I would imag­ine that prob­a­bly half the peo­ple in this room have known some­one that has died from the dis­ease of addiction.

Per­son­al­ly, I have lost count. When I was twen­ty-five years old, I got addict­ed to pre­scrip­tion pain med­ica­tion. And I will nev­er for­get the day that my dad pulled me aside. He looked me in my eye and said, Ben, are you hap­py? And I bare­ly even rec­og­nized the word, but it was in that moment that I sur­ren­dered. I had just enough will­ing­ness to say, yes, I will go to rehab.

And if it was­n’t for those twen­ty-eight days… that treat­ment cen­ter, those coun­selors, I would not be here, on this stage, or peri­od. It was the first time that I learned that I had a dis­ease. I had no idea I had a dis­ease. It was there that I met oth­er peo­ple with the same one. And for the first time in my life, I did­n’t feel like I had a moral failing.

I did­n’t have to be a secret any­more. I felt a part of com­mu­ni­ty. I left treat­ment with a diag­no­sis. I nev­er had one. I just thought I was bro­ken. I did­n’t know I had an aller­gy, and I found that I had one. I left there with a plan, a brand new set of tools that led me to a life I could nev­er have dreamed up.

Most aren’t so for­tu­nate. When I was twen­ty-one, I was going to Ever­green State Col­lege and they had a pro­gram called Gate­ways that I became a part of. With Gate­ways, I worked with incar­cer­at­ed youth at our state’s, max­i­mum secu­ri­ty, juve­nile deten­tion facil­i­ty, Green Hill. I would bring in Beats record­ing equip­ment and would help facil­i­tate writ­ing work­shops and record.

It was there that I met an eigh­teen-year old named Jamil Webb. We called him Twin. He had been in and out of the sys­tem since he was a boy. He was from around 27th and Union in the CD [Cen­tral Dis­trict] and was one of the count­less youth that had been locked up and insti­tu­tion­al­ized by sell­ing the same thing that Uncle Ike’s is sell­ing right now.

I was imme­di­ate­ly drawn to Twin. He was charis­mat­ic, he was smart, he was hand­some. He was per­son­al. He was charm­ing. He had that Janes­sa quo about him. He was also a real­ly tal­ent­ed rap­per, and I saw mas­sive poten­tial in Twin. We became close friends for the next 18 years. Twin and I would go back and forth, keep­ing in touch.

He’d come over record at my spot. I would­n’t hear from him for a year, maybe two. Find out he was locked up. Final­ly, at the age of thir­ty, he got sen­tenced to sev­en years, fed time, and got out last year. I was so hap­py to hear that he was out.

When he was locked up, he devel­oped a pas­sion for his­to­ry and pol­i­tics and want­ed to start a pod­cast. He had this under­tone in his voice. That I rec­og­nize with oth­er friends that had done long bids in prison, and it was that tone of fear.

The fear… and it was­n’t the fear of going back to prison, it was the fear of not know­ing what to do with his life. A fear of not hav­ing resources or a plan, a fear of get­ting caught back up in the same things that led him there in the first place.

So you don’t get that toolset incar­cer­at­ed. It’s not what incar­cer­a­tion is for. It’s not to give you new tools.

I met up with him.

I got him some record­ing equip­ment for his pod­cast, lent him a car, offered to show up in any way that I could. He did­n’t want any hand­outs. He just need­ed some help. I got a call a cou­ple months lat­er that the car was impound­ed. They dis­cov­ered drugs in the car and the girl that he was dat­ing was addict­ed to fentanyl.

Soon after that arrest, I learned that Twin had recent­ly start­ed using meth. They were liv­ing in an aban­doned motel on Auro­ra and things had got­ten real­ly bad, real­ly fast. He got arrest­ed and the judge ordered Twin to go back to rehab, and I was so relieved to know that at the very least he would be safe and unable to use.

I was so excit­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty that maybe, just maybe, he would get this thing that I got when I was in treat­ment, which is his life back. Some tools, a diag­no­sis. Some sur­ren­der pow­er­less­ness around any mind-alter­ing sub­stance com­mu­ni­ty, the ther­a­peu­tic val­ue of one addict help­ing anoth­er. I talked to him on his third night there in treat­ment, and he sound­ed like his old self. He was excit­ed. He had joy, grat­i­tude, grat­i­tude. There was the glimpse of the old Twin, even after only being clean for sev­en­ty-two hours.

He texted me on the night of my album release on March 2nd and told me that he left rehab ear­ly, that his, his girl was­n’t doing good, that he need­ed to help her, and that he had relapsed when he was out. He was­n’t in a good spot. And, a cou­ple days lat­er, he texted me again and was like, dude, I’m, I’m not, I’m not good right now.

And I’m like, okay. I, I’m, I’m back, we’ll fig­ure it out, get back into treat­ment and um, I’ll dri­ve you, I’ll dri­ve you out there. He said, I can’t go back to treat­ment right now. You have to wait thir­ty days before you can go back. If you leave ear­ly. And I had to think of a plan. I’m doing the Easy Street sign­ing, um, with my fam­i­ly Sunday.

I’m like, okay, I’ll get to this Mon­day. I’ll fig­ure this out Mon­day. What we’re gonna do, maybe I’ll get ’em to the rehab that I went to. We’ll fig­ure it out. And, um, as I was, uh, get­ting my kids ready for school on Mon­day morn­ing, I got a call from his broth­er and I picked it up and he told me that at, uh, 4:30 in the morn­ing, a cou­ple hours before, uh, Twin had been killed on Third and Bell. Shot three times and died on his – on his way to Harborview.

And the dev­as­ta­tion that I felt then has not left the last three some­thing weeks.

I’m tired. I’m real­ly tired of get­ting phone calls from fam­i­ly mem­bers, from Kev­in’s sis­ter, from Jay­den’s mom, from Twin’s broth­er to count­less oth­er phone calls say­ing that the per­son that they love was tak­en out by this dis­ease. And the rea­son why I’m up here is to sup­port you, but it’s big­ger than you. And you know that.

And that’s why… because I can’t help but think that, what if Twin, when he hit me and he could­n’t go back to rehab thir­ty days, what if he had access to one of these urgent care cri­sis clinics?

Would he still be alive, when I did­n’t know where to send him? When I was like, you know what I, I don’t know what to do right now. Let me think about… I should­n’t have to think about it.

I’m in active recov­ery. I should­n’t have to think about where to tell some­one to get help. I should­n’t have to fig­ure it out.

I should – I should be able to say, you go here. This is the address. This is where you go. There’s five of them. There’s five of them.

Your vision is beau­ti­ful. It is beau­ti­ful. And I’m so hap­py that there’s eight, nine hun­dred peo­ple in here that see the beau­ty and the poten­tial of what Gir­may wants to do with our city, who he wants to help, who he’s advo­cat­ing for, and his character.

I’m inspired, I’m hon­ored, and I’m excit­ed for our city’s future. And… and some­times when I, when I dri­ve around this place, I don’t feel excit­ed. I feel like the neigh­bor­hoods I fell in love with that made me who I am have changed. I feel like the peo­ple that live in this city have changed. My clos­est friends have been pushed out of it.

You make peo­ple feel a part of, you see peo­ple, not when it’s con­ve­nient, but all the time.

And I appre­ci­ate you and all you guys. Thank you!

If you are a King Coun­ty vot­er, please vote the NPI team in vot­ing yes on King Coun­ty Propo­si­tion 1 by 8 PM tomor­row, Tues­day, April 25th, 2023.