Drone footage from KOMO News shows a homeless encampment on 42nd Avenue South in Seattle has expanded significantly over the past year, spreading across several acres of public and private land under Mayor Katie Wilson's administration. The growth has alarmed local residents, who describe worsening squalor, criminal activity and a lack of decisive action from city officials, framing it as evidence of the city's failure to manage its long-running homelessness crisis.

Comparisons between images from June last year and this week show the site has grown from a handful of tents into a sprawling settlement littered with rubbish, tyres, stray dogs and abandoned RVs. Neighbour Andrew Rauch said the city's Unified Care Team only responded to his complaints last week, citing bi-weekly clean-ups and "outreach efforts", but internally rated the camp a lower priority than other sites. One property owner has reportedly allowed people to stay on his land while exploring recovery support, and a nearby "tiny home" village opened in 2022 has failed to resolve the problem. In June, Wilson unveiled plans for 1,000 single-adult transitional housing units, of which 50 have so far been previewed.