Editorial for Everett mayor’s race should have cited city’s homeless figures

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 29, 2025

I was disappointed to read the misleading endorsement by the Herald Editorial Board regarding the Everett mayoral race (“Franklin’s considered approach warrants third term,” The Herald, July 19).

In justifying the endorsement of the incumbent, on the issue of homelessness, the Herald stated “But the most recent point-in-time count in January, conducted by Snohomish County, showed a countywide decrease of 1.8 percent from the 2024’s count and an 11 percent decrease from 2023.” That would be relevant if this was a county wide race.

However, we are talking about a city of Everett race. The Herald showed the same bias as the national media by using the statistics that fit their endorsement. It would have been more relevant to present the city of Everett statistics in the point-in-time count on the county website (only included unsheltered homeless and not sheltered homeless), which indicated the Everett unsheltered homeless counts were as follows: 324 in 2025, 275 in 2024, and 166 in 2018 when the incumbent took office. If the Herald used the Everett numbers, the unsheltered homeless count was up 17.8 percent in 2025 from 2024. Since 2018, the unsheltered homeless count was up 95.2 percent.

I don’t know how much of the City’s budget has been spent on the homeless issue, but I would conclude from the number of unsheltered homeless that the funds were not effectively or efficiently used.

John Dickson

Everett