SAN FRANCISCO, May 25 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. state of Washington will allocate more than 2 million U.S. dollars to clear encampments along highways in Seattle and Tacoma in an effort to address challenges created by a homelessness crisis in the state, a local TV outlet said Saturday.
The state has officially approved the budgetary funds this week to remove garbage, debris and other hazards threatening public health and safety, the King 5 TV outlet reported.
"If you have a tent blow into the highway, or other debris, someone is going to get killed," said Washington Senate Transportation Committee Chair Steve Hobbs.
"The safety concern is rather high. We have to nip this in the bud right away," he said.
According to the TV report, Washington legislature will earmark 1,025,000 dollars to employ four full-time crews to clear garbage, debris or hazardous material along the highways in the Seattle area.
Meanwhile, the House transportation committee will allot 1,015,000 dollars to eliminate safety and public health risks in Tacoma as a result of homeless encampments along state highways within the city limits.
A report from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development released last December said that Washington state had a homeless population of 22,000 people in 2018, which saw one of the biggest increases in the country with over 1,000 more people counted as homeless compared with the year before.
In Seattle, with the nation's largest homeless population outside New York or Los Angeles, the number of people living on the streets rose to more than 12,000 in 2018, and more than half of them were unsheltered, the federal data showed.
