Aurora Avenue in Seattle: Where despair meets resolve

Aurora Avenue is one of the busiest corridors in Seattle. But if you drive down it today, you don’t just see cars, shops, and neighborhoods; you see despair. You see women being bought and sold in plain sight. You see men passed out with fentanyl pipes still in their hands. You see bullet holes in doors where families should feel safe.

Aurora has become a strip where violence, drugs, and trafficking collide, and the community around it is left to pick up the pieces.

For too long, our response as a city has been to manage this despair instead of confronting it. We call it “harm reduction,” but what we are really reducing is hope. We hand out needles, pipes, and Narcan while ignoring the root cause of addiction. We set up permanent supportive housing and then look the other way as overdoses skyrocket. And we tell ourselves this is compassion. But there is nothing compassionate about watching people slowly kill themselves on our sidewalks.

We’ve done the same with trafficking. We’ve rebranded human exploitation as “sex work,” as though a new label could erase the violence, the coercion, and the trauma. When a child is sold on Aurora, it’s not empowerment, it’s slavery. And when we normalize it, we are not protecting women; we are abandoning them.

I’ve witnessed the destruction first hand

I have seen the cost up close. I have received phone calls in the middle of the night from officers who just discovered a 13-year-old girl being sold on Aurora. I have prayed with mothers who begged for their children to escape the grip of fentanyl, only to lose them anyway. I have sat in homes where the walls shake from gunfire outside, and families no longer let their children play in the yard.

But here is the truth that keeps me going: despair does not get the last word.

At The More We Love, we’ve already proven that when we show up differently, lives change. We’ve walked with women as they stepped out of trafficking and into safety and on to pathways towards new life. We’ve helped men say yes to treatment when everyone else had given up on them. We’ve restored dignity to people who had been told they were invisible. We’ve seen light pierce the darkest corners.

We cannot do this alone

This fight is bigger than any one organization; it takes outreach teams to build trust, public safety partners to restore order, service providers to rebuild lives, and neighbors who refuse to look away. It takes churches that are willing to open their doors, businesses that refuse to abandon the corridor, and residents who still believe in their community. Together, we can draw a line and say enough.

Enough to the predators who profit from exploitation. Enough of the drug markets that kill our sons and daughters. Enough to the violence that leaves bullet holes where laughter used to live. Aurora does not need more excuses. It needs resolve. And resolve is what we are bringing.

But we cannot do this alone. If you are reading this, you have a role to play. You can volunteer. You can donate. You can speak up to your elected officials and demand better. You can join us in showing that Seattle is not a city that gives up on its people.

Aurora Avenue is where our city’s pain is most visible, but it can also be where our healing begins. With courage, with conviction, with compassion backed by accountability, we can take back our communities.

The work has already begun. Now it’s time to finish it together.

Kristine Moreland is the director of The More We Love, a homeless advocacy organization that is committed to bringing hope, dignity, and a brighter future to individuals and families in need.